Birdies Coffee House and Bar in Waverley

Nice location in the park and tasty food. Service was very poor as only one person serving. Get ready for a very long wait on a busy day!

Birdies is always a happy stop post park with our little one. It used to be somewhere we would use only in a child’s toilet emergency previously. It was so grimy and though I’m ok with dog friendly that, doesn’t mean covered in dog hair and stinking of dog! They also used to have dogs running about which wasn’t very fair as my daughter is scared of dogs. The food offering is great, yes the prices have gone up a bit. However for us, having better quality food and not just sanitary, but also now lovely enjoyable surroundings is worth the extra few quid! All the stuff they do in the evenings has been a real boost to the summer! Clearly Birdies is just going to keep striving to be better and better. Great to see the support for local musicians and I was stunned to see (and sad to miss) the Master Chef Champion Chariya did an evening there! Wow! I’m sure some people will be left behind…possibly the people who want to be allowed to have their damp dog running about a cafe bothering customers and live on chips and burgers lol. I personally really appreciate that they’ve moved away from cheap deep-fried options and are focusing on fresher, more interesting dishes especially when I have my small human with me. It’s a welcome change that makes Birdies better in my opinion. With such constant clear reinvestment and revitalisation Birdies won’t struggle for a minute. It’s always packed whenever we go and for good reason.

For 8 years we have made Farnham Park and It’s Cafe a destination for dog walking, grandchildren playing and, finally, a good lunch in the Cafe! ….. but, from today, no longer!! The previous owners had a rough and ready approach but the Cafe was always busy and it seems they made enough to take retirement …. and the new owner made changes to lift the offer and expand the business …. but this has now reached a stage where the family found there was nothing to eat that attracted today and when I mentioned this to the owner and, presumably his manager, I was told that they had just removed lots of fried food and replaced any childrens offerings with small sandwiches!! I have seen the prices go up substantially in the past year … simple potato crisps were replaced by deluxe baked vegetable crisps which were then replaced by something like kettle crisps and I read now that they are cheap tortilla crisps now. Gone are the fish goujons for children, burgers and popular breakfast eats that attracted so many … gone are the pensioners deals each week … gone are the wide selection of cakes and pastries … up market prices of £10.50 for a pastrami sandwich now!! …. and heaven help you if you are gluten intolerant I think they have lost sight of their dog walking, football playing family customer and pensioner. Older people who have time to come on every day of the week and not only weekends We drive 40 minutes to especially visit Farnham park and have a meal in their cafe … we have noticed for some time that the dog walking groups no longer come in and now we will be included in those lost cutomers. I am sure that the evening entertainment offerings attract another customer base but limiting the menu to what is easier to make and price gouging is not a foundation to great customer loyalty … especially when the manageress has such arrogance as to what should be eaten😃

Attended the live music on Friday 19th July. Great atmosphere, good music and overall a lovely vibe. The only let down was the bar, every time we went to order drinks we would hear the young lady say how tired she was and the queue hasn’t stopped. Just one till in use on a Saturday night with over 100 customers? Towards the end of the night I picked up two ice creams for the kids but had to wait in line for over 10 minutes because just one till was in use. Also if the staff just put in a little customer service, that would make a tremendous difference I also noticed a lot of people not understanding the queuing system and the staff not being confident enough to tell those customers to go to the back of the line and serving them. Maybe better signage could help. Great evening, little niggles that can be fixed.

What a shame, the new owners had turned the Café around, but this week we had the worst food i have ever had in a Café at Bridies. They have changed their ingredients & put the prices up significantly. The bread was dry & poor quality, the salad has gone from lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers & dressing, to two bits of lettuce & a bit of cucumber. The crisps have gone from good quality plain crisps to inedible, very cheap tortilla. Safe to say in the future we will only be buying drinks. A real shame