Natural Kitchen, - Bedford

Sarah Waight

The 1 star review is based entirely on the poor conduct of staff at this place. Food and drink is fine but I’d reccomend if you want to be spoken to politely when making or recovering a food order you absolutely do NOT go here.

We were two groups with young children. The person taking the order was extremely agitated and shirty when taking our order because members of the group were still looking at and selecting from the menu on the wall at the back of them. Due to her tone and agitation- I said “there’s no on waiting are you okay you seem frustrated” thinking this may relax her and encourage her to calm down but she snapped back and tried to rush us through ordering. Everytime a drink was said she said “yes and” in a rude tone. She repeated questions about drink size and generally was just so irritable it made me feel like cr*p. She got cross that some people ordered food and drink together because she wanted two seperate lists okay fine, we were a group with lots of different needs. Wasn’t sure why if she needed 2 lists on her tear off pad she didn’t just write all drinks on one list and all meals on another and check it back at the end. I mentioned one item twice because she was so agitated and noticed she didn’t write it down but I presumed was due to it not needing to be cooked like the rest of our order. My stepfather then paid at the side as directed. And we were also told abruptly to go out and take a seat (still no one else was waiting at this point or at any point during our order, so the sense of urgency was entirely driven by her).

Shortly after we sat outside the other lady delivering to tables came out and yelled about sandwiches a man who was sat at a bench beyond the decking waved and she too abruptly advised that he can’t sit there if he’s going to eat, despite the fact he could easily return the plates. I understand it’s harder to call orders to those further out but seemed a bit unnecessary again to be so abrupt as he’d waved and smiled.

The tea cake we mention twice never came so asked about it. A third older lady came out - from the till and said how do you want to pay. May step father queried this as we had ordered it so thought he had paid for it and again another aggravated abrupt tone- “no you did not, I know I didn’t ring it through it’s only a pound”.

Overall just a horrible aggravated, abrupt experience - an example of some of the worst customer service around. I shall never eat there again.

Adam Twidell

Great bacon sandwich and hot chocolate with friendly staff. Lovely location with community feel to it. Perfect pit stop on my bike ride.

Ian “Woody” W

Used to have a decent gluten free cake available. Although there was a raspberry crumble slice available, which tasted very nice, the portion size was very small.

Unfortunately, the serving staff weren't very attentive either, drinks and cake dumped on the table, one coffee missing from order.

They have a great opportunity here, shame they are missing the mark by a country mile.

David P

We popped in for coffee to see what the new cafe, now called the Dragonfly Cafe, was like, since the old Teazels was sadly closed down due to contractual changes by the local council. The coffee they serve is Lavazza and I found it quite pleasant. I tried the granola slice which was tasty. We spoke to the manager and she said they were hopefully going to start doing Vegan meals and cakes shortly which will please my vegan partner. Service was good, despite it being a warm August Bank holiday (2017).

John Williams

Went for the first time today since a national catering chain took over the running. Sadly there were clear signs of cost cutting and reduction in quality. Coffee average at best, used to be the best in area by a long way, my Cappuccino was watery and bitter today. Tea cakes have got smaller and jam now in mass catering style individual plastic packaging, a classy touch! Range of fresh cakes reduced but now have pre-packed vending machine style flapjacks, another move in the wrong direction. The menus have paper stuck over several items, maybe having to hide the 'locally sourced' strapline? Staff seemed a little disorganised. Nothing against the new company and staff, but how could the council allow this to happen? A priceless local community asset has been sold down the river (Ouse?) by mean minded penny pinchers in County Hall who probably had no idea how highly the old cafe was regarded. Sadly we won't be back and wish the old owners the very best in the future.

Antony Arundell

If you want a delicious hot meal, served by smiling, happy, polite and enthusiastic staff, then avoid this cafe at absolutely all costs! The staff openly swear in front the customers (the manager did it twice)! The food comes out either cold or stale, and the coffee is contastantly lukewarm. The scenery can't be flawed, only the food, drink and staff can be.

Simon Carter

This is now called The Butterfly Cafe!! It was called Natural Kitchen for a while.

Whatever it is called, this is the replacement cafe at Harrold-Odell Country Park after Bedford Borough Council awarded the cafe contract to a large, outside caterer, rather than local people.

At the moment, it isn't a patch on the former Tea-Zels café, much to people's annoyance, locally. Almost all the former staff of Tea-Zels have now left.

The menu is taking a while to settle down and, judging by the lorries delivering, they still aren't sourcing everything locally as their predecessors did.

For the moment, there are better café's locally but those of us who use the Park regularly live in hope of an improvement as we are now stuck with this company for the duration of the contract. There is much dissatisfaction locally about this.

D

What a shocking experience.
I don't get why people who don't care about customer service work in a customer facing environment.

This place always used to be busy when it was teazels now it's really easy to get a table.

If you are coming to the country park I would recomeded bring sandwiches and a flask.