Courtyard Cafe - Lewes

We eat our meals here while staying in the Hostel for the weekend. All of the food was freshly prepared and a good variety with options. The Apple Crumble and Custard was to die for!

We called in to the Courtyard Cafe after finishing our walk along the Downs. Pleased to find that we could sit inside with our dog. We ordered two cheese toasties and a tea and coffee. The food was OK but at £4.50 for a basic sandwich it's quite pricey. Service was excellent just wish it had a more varied menu.

We did rather a wet walk but that didn't matter. The food is good, value excellent and well worth a return visit.

Called in for lunch, I got the feeling that the 3 staff members although trying their best were totally untrained, unprepared for customer service and appeared to have been dropped in at the deep end and left unmanaged.My order was taken then 10 minutes later I was told that they were very busy and it would take another 25 minutes for a breakfast bap. There were only 3 customers who had not been served their food, but I changed to something which didn't require cooking to try to help.My coffee arrived after 15 minutes and food 15 minutes later. The poor woman next to me waited 40 minutes and 2 attempts for a jacket potato.The atmosphere was hectic and I lost count of the number of times that the staff said sorry.I in turn felt sorry and embarrassed for the unhappy staff.Some training and better managing required before I will be persuded to try again.

New Cafe, situated at the YHA at Itford (Southease), East Sussex.There is parking on the A26 and also within the courtyard of the YHAWe planned our walk to Firle Beacon to start and stop here, just because there was a cafe that we could have a welcome tea/coffee after our walkThis is a nice cafe that does meals as well as tea and cake. The prices were as you would expect for a cafe situated right on the South Downs Way. The staff were really helpful and the cream tea I ordered came with a huge scone, jam, clotted cream and a ramekin of chopped up strawberries fabulous! The tea was nice too!There is a nice outdoor area with a large grass area and water bowl for the mutt.As we had a dog, we were re directed around and into the bottom gate, it would be helpful if there was more signage to this gate (and maybe make the gate easier to open)Will definitely visit again, even if not going for a Sunday walk