What are the worst cafe crimes?

[TheLastSherbetLemonInTheJar]

Yes I know that running is a cafe is incredibly hard and many are struggling but I wondered what your cafe/restaurant pet peeves are?

Mine include having only white sugar for coffee and no brown. It’s amazing how often this happens even in very nice cafes so I bought some brown sugar sachets to keep in my bag.

Margarine instead of butter. Of course they should offer margarine but I expect to be able to have butter(Unless I’m in a vegan cafe)

Teapots that drip everywhere.

This doesn’t really affect me but I always feel sorry for people who have coeliac disease when the only cake option is a brownie.

And a particularly petty one. When they remove my favourite item from a menu. I know that they have to change it sometimes but it’s so annoying when you can no longer get something that you’ve been ordering and enjoying regularly.

What are your little cafe/restaurant annoyances?

'Soup of the Day' & so forth when it is not.

I used to run a pub. Our busy carvery day was Sunday.

Whatever meat needed using up when we took stock on Sunday evening was converted into the Monday lunchtime Pensioners' Special (chicken curry, shepherd's pie, game pie, cold roast beef salad, pulled pork etc etc).

We'd also make soup - it went on the lunch menu served with chips &/or a sandwich, & would genuinely be made fresh after someone, usually me, went round the fridges at midnight to see what we had to use up.

I made a banging pea & ham, an excellent fresh tomato & basil, decent beef or lamb & lentil, & a rather good bouillebaisse.

20 odd years on, it still irritates me disproportionately when a cafe offers, say, mushroom soup as 'Soup of the Day' & it's 'packet we opened today' rather than 'we ordered 2kg of mushrooms expecting a busy Bank Holiday weekend serving garlic mushrooms with steak & burgers, but it pissed it down for 3 days, our biker regulars didn't show, now I'm making five litres of mushroom soup at 7am for this week's specials board'.

Filthy unisex loos.
Stale Cakes.
Grumpy Staff.

Lack of decaf coffee
lack of decaf tea (no some herbal crap is not equivalent, just buy a box of Yorkshire, every decent supermarket has it so why don’t you?)
Rubbish fancy brand tea that’s like dishwater, just buy a box of Yorkshire…

I don’t have one, but I love dogs in cafés.

The stingy little pot of milk that occasionally comes with a whole pot of tea

Lukewarm coffee that you could down in a oner.

Not using plates eg food on wooden boards, or chips in miniature buckets

It’s such a scam isn’t it! I’ve heard people say never order the fish special.

Really thick cuos,
People on laptops,
Dirty toilets
Sticky tables,
Sourdough being the only option,
And anything with Matcha in it.

Incredibly noisy coffee machines in very close proximity to the tables. There’s a lovely farm shop/cafe locally & I can only go to the cafe bit when it’s fine because you can’t hear yourself think over the racket if you sit indoors.

Serving in sleeveless tops?? Can’t say I’ve heard that one but there’s no way I’m wearing a long sleeve and trousers to work when it’s baking hot, like it is now, and I’d be sweating everywhere. What’s worse, sweat dripping on you or being served by my bare arm?

It’ll have sanitiser on it which should be refreshed regularly

Hospitality staff succumbing to human reactions like being too hot or sweating is a big no-no, you exist to serve only and the comfort of the customer must be put before anything and everything else with absolutely no exception ever. If a customer doesn't like that you're too hot because it's 25°+ then you should immediately not be too hot or it's bad customer service.

Same goes for making minor mistakes, dropping things or generally just not being a robot.

You want clean tables but object to sanitising sprays being used. Make your minds up.

There is no need to be sorry.

A roll with a filling is a panino. If they put panini on a menu I expect eight on my plate, and I haven't even got as far as apostrophes with the panini.

If you get two packets of rock-hard butter you can fight with the first one and warm the other in your armpit - cardigan on obviously - while you munch your way through the first half of the warmed-up scone.
We could all ask for spreadable butter but I fear it would get too big a blast in the micro and end up as liquid. It's quite difficult to control.

I have stopped going to a lovely cafe near me, because they whizz the cakes out really quickly and the drinks ages later. I want my hot drink WITH my cake.

I don’t like big thick chunky mugs.

If I’ve ordered a pot of tea I need a small pot of hot water too to make more tea as I go along.

I hate it when the classic cake option eg. Victoria sponge or carrot cake has been converted into the gluten free version. Offer gluten free version AS WELL not instead.

Do not wrap flapjacks in plastic.

Hate unisex toilets too

I'm really untidy, I like both posh cafes and greasy spoons. But please, give us clean tables and loos, and have tables of different sizes so we don't have to bunk up with others. Music is okay but not too loud, it is not a disco. I don't mind about dogs.

Lots of small cafes only have room for one customer toilet. How do you think they can find room for separate toilets?

@Soporalt I prefer clipper! Have a box of Yorkshire in as my emergency supply , my H thinks it tastes like hospitals smell, whatever that means.

@BlueyNeedsToFuckOff we have a Swedish one in town who in my opinion do the best coffee , it’s not bitter at all , but is flavourful and they seem to use different oat milk ( I drink oat in coffee) to anywhere else and it’s nice and big without being a bucketful ( like say Costa)- it’s perfection - mind you at £3.95 it should be

You can use sprays WITHOUT spraying the people sitting around it. No one wants to inhale it or have droplets on their food and drink. Spray it into the cloth.

Slovenly, dirty practices
Stale cake and scones
Cheap ingredients
Tinny pop music playing for the entertainment of the staff.

We had a lovely Bavarian style Cafe near us and they had amazing coffee, continental breakfast type foods, spotlessly clean and gentle Baroque/Classical music playing in the background. You felt as though you were on holiday when you visited.

Sadly, they closed during covid and were replaced by a typical caff type place. Greasy tables, crumbs, neon light in the window, pop music and sausage sandwiches.

Half a jar of cranberry rather than a touch on a brie toastie
cheap ‘margarine’ already spread on your toast
Bean burger tasting of meat grill and having black lumps off meat grill stuck to burger same with tomatoes on veg breakfast
there are hundreds really

I’ve given up with them where possible