Cafe At The House - South Shields

Just had the most amazing afternoon tea. It was definitely one of thr best I have ever tasted and I am rather partial to an afternoon tea. The staff were lovely and friendly ,couldn't fault the service. Will definitely be back for more.

I found this place through a friend and so pleased I did,everything about this place is lovely food atmosphere the staff the music and the prices .Well done team

On arrival, nobody greeted us or showed us to a table. We found a table that people were just leaving; and we asked a waiter if he could clear it for us. This never happened, and when we asked again he took the majority of...the dishes but still left some. In the end I grabbed some napkins and cleared the table myself. The food however was absolutely delicious. Well presented and tasted amazing. The price was very low considering the quality of food. Our next issue was the toilets. The sign said the toilets were upstairs but there were many doors and not one sign. We opened a few doors and ended up in conference rooms, and in the end we went back downstairs and used the disabled toilets. The food was the saving grace here, and although the staff were friendly, they were shy and low in numbers. I only saw two members of staff, and the poor lad looked like he was doing everything by himself.

This cafe is a gem of a place and we visit often. The food is delicious, the choice varied and I defy anyone to refuse a dessert! However, today’s visit was spoilt again by the manager/owner (we think he was). While folk were eating he...vacuumed the carpet, clip clopped his way around the tables like a sergeant major (wooden floors crepe soles would be better) replacing cutlery etc and removing used dishes while people were still eating which, in out case, was very off-putting and uncomfortable. Please sir, if you read this, address the issues or you will be losing a group of regular customers to elsewhere.

The cafe area itself was closed, but they had agreed to honour bookings and intelligently set up the functional space. we could not order the afternoon the next week, booked to avoid a Mother's Day eile next week. Unfortunately, the service was really slow and with two children in our party of five it would have been better if their meal had come before the adult. the slowness will not stop us to revisit, hopefully the caffe will be opened for a takeaway pipe (powder pork and chorizo) for my hungry man to house.