dobbies garden centre atherstone in North Warwickshire

Lovely garden centre lots on offer

Not autism friendly, you can only leave via one door because they treat everyone like a thief, no respect for customers, I went to the cafe and when I went to leave I couldn’t as the main door is now a one way door and to get out you must either wait for someone to come in or walk all the way around the store to go through the checkouts. Not allowing someone clear and easy exit borderlines on wrongful imprisonment. Not a disability friendly store.

Not as good as I remember it from the run up to Christmas last year. A lot of the centre is taken up by waitrose which was disappointing as if I'd anted to food shop I would have gone to a supermarket

We often visit with two very young grandchildren. A quick soft play, then over to the main building for shopping and lunch. The thing that always stands out is the staff- always friendly and helpful. Well done!

Dobbies has everything for the garden and is well laid out. Expensive for most things but sometimes you get what you pay for. Restaurant is very good but the service is incredibly slow eskecially at the coffee station. Sakes are always worth going to but keep your receipt. I purchased an outdoor snowman after Christmas. Put it out fir the furst time this year and it didn't work. Went back today but they will not help as I did not have a receipt. It's a faulty plug and that's all I was asking for. They said it was for me to speak with the manager the following day even though I left me details. Shame really but there you go. Always thought the customer came first. Clearly not today.

We visited on 2nd October for cream tea treat, had to prompt member staff to confirm booking. Was served with tea and cream tea. No one came to see if everything was ok with tea, no one offered refills on drinks as advertised, then had to chase cashier to pay for it told I was not impressed with lack service said she would give manager feedback who was stood behind drink station. No attempt was made to speak to us was extremely disappointed with tea service, booking system and would definitely not recommend or use there restaurant again.

Nice visit nice coffee and piece of cheesecake

Very very busy in cafe. Not enough staff serving, very confusing queuing system. And on particular lady serving with loads of attitude sucking her teeth when asked a question.

Not a good experience. I'm a Coeliac and Dobbies used to do a choices of fresh cake. Not now! Tea was only warm not hot. All in all 2 out if 10

Visited the restaurant. Food and drink are nice enough. The "system" in the servery is appalling. I had to queue three times (a total of 19 minutes) just to purchase cakes and coffees. The poor staff were rushed off their feet. The two people doing the coffees were making a real mess. Tables were sticky and untidy. And then there was the barking. It was like a kennel club meeting. What should have been a relaxing afternoon with my elderly mother ended up being quite an ordeal. Won't be rushing back!

Food is fine but the ordering system is horribly frustrating. So many bottle necks. It wasn't massively busy but if took me 25 minutes to queue for soup and a cup of tea. Not the first time it's happend to me either

Bought the luxury afternoon tea for 2, it was nice but wasn't worth the extra £11, service was very slow, I had to go and ask for another coffee, not enough staff to cover the afternoon teas and the hot drinks. So I wouldn't go again for afternoon tea...

Great soft play for toddlers and tots! We went here saturday for soft play and I was shocked I hadn't been before! This is the perfect soft play for tots and toddlers who are just finding their independence. They have two sections; a baby gated play area which is great and a bigger section for more confident toddlers/ preschoolers who can climb steps on their own. Additionally, this only cost £3 (per hr) and was reasonably quiet for a saturday morning. Highly recommend and will be returning...

Nice garden centre. Well worth a visit.

Trotters is a superb supplier would travel miles to buy here

The worst possible experience. There was one person in the queue before me and no one behind me - it was fairly quiet. The woman serving took ages serving g the woman infront of me by which time a queue had formed behind me. When it was my turn she ignored me and went to serve a guy that was at the back of the queue having just joined it. A couple of people expressed their disbelief. I asked the server if she knew where the front of the queue was and received a rude tirade of abuse. I walked out but before leaving the store made a complaint to the manager who was clearly not interested . The place , not just the restaurant has really declined in recent years

Visited to buy some flowers and thought we'd stop for lunch. Mistake. We were going to have a roast but it all looked very dry and unappetising so we opted for some other items. Apparently, and having waited, we 'could have ordered at the other counter for that....' Number one:- we ordered at the other counter (a panini), there was no signage for anything other than these and roast meat sandwiches so we moved along to order at what looked like the hot food section, where the other items, (jacket potatoes) were advertised... Number two:- Whether I'm at the right section or not, do not make us feel like we are the problem with your poorly laid out counters. I've got better things to do with my time than re-queue for additional meals. Number three:- Try not to portray your obvious annoyance/displeasure that you've been dragged away from slicing through dry roasted meats because....heaven forbid you had to put some beans and cheese atop a potato or two. We chose to eat with you and you made us feel pretty peeved and massively undervalued (not to mention underwhelmed) with our experience. Shame on you.

An amazing store - absolutely massive, but the staff had a great attitude, one of a small shop, going out of their way to be helpful.

So there's a few different things to see/do at Dobbies, there's the shops that sell garden furniture, plants, shoes, food, etc, there is a cafe (shop and cafe is pricey) there's an outdoor garden centre part, aquarium selling fish, children's soft play which is located outside in a separate building. Overall, I think it's expensive and can buy same things cheaper elsewhere.

We go to Dobbies quite a lot. At least twice a month, and every time we are there, the staff are friendly, helpful and always on hand to make your experience as perfect as possible. We have breakfast in the cafe at least once a month, and the food is reasonably priced, and great quality. Edit. Just popped in again and managed to get a reduced Bonsai Tree in a beautiful pot for a great price 😃

Butchers is out this world 1hr 30mins travel to there just for there produce

Lovely staff as always. Hideous excuse for coffee and poor choice of cakes! 👎 The staff work hard and are welcoming, but the poor lad on the hot drink station needs a helper. Keeping a coffee area clean and tidy is tricky in a busy environment, meaning that someone needs to help support every thirty 30 mins to an hour to maintain basic standards of cleanliness. At the moment it’s unacceptable and rather disgusting. The coffee was revolting and tasted like an ashtray., meaning the coffee has burnt. The floors are dirty, the chairs and tables are sticky! If it’s this visibly dirty on a customer facing level, what is it like behind the scenes? Sort it out, Dobbies! Next time I’m emailing Food Standards Agancy, because I’ve previously left a review mentioning the same issues - and I’ve noticed other people have also, yet nothing has been done about this. Where is the management?

I don’t usually right poor reviews but couldn’t not on this occasion. A lady called Samatha served me, after telling everyone to all go down to her at the main food area no matter what they wanted we waited a while. When she served me my chips I asked if that was a full portion as it was less than half a bowl (I counted eleven chips for three pounds) and she replied “yes” bluntly. I was not feeling well and had an eight month baby at the table to get to so I put the food down at the table and straight away went to the till. As I got to the till in the queue she approached the young lad serving to tell him to make sure I paid which I was queuing to do (the whole queue system does not work hence why I put my food down and gave it to my daughter so she could actually eat it warm). My Sister then went to the till and Samantha went back up to the young lad and asked if I’d paid to which he replied, “Yh I forced her to” he did not and he didn’t even look up to see me when she told him I needed to pay so wouldn’t know who she was referring to. She later came down near our table to serve someone food and gave me a ‘dirty’ look which she again did as I left. My jacket potato was cold (probably due to the queue system) and dry but the Coronation Chicken was okay. I have worked in this Restaurant myself over five years ago so I know the pressure you can be under but I’ve never treated customers like that. My Sister had a portion of chips which was double the size of mine may I add. We were a big family that attended and all agreed that we will not be returning as they had a poor customer service, poor food and they noticed the lack of cleanliness on the tables. I did not see the usual smiley faces today except the Chef’s whose name I cannot remember even though she was cooking and running around serving she still did it with a smile on her face.

Went for lunch with my husband and son expecting a nice quiet lunch but it was ruined by dogs barking throughout the lunch dogs should not be permitted in the restaurant there should be a separate place for them we certainly will not be going back

The cafe tables are disgusting they need a good clean

DOBBIES CAFE As the title of the post suggests, this is specific to the cafe. I would like to make clear that garden centre and garden centre staff are wonderful and very helpful. I cannot fault them. The cafe on the other hand is disappointing. I have gone for many years and it has its ups and downs. Staff communicate poorly with customers and are unable to give clear instructions that is audible, this is particularly true to the food counters. Furthermore, the cutlery, plates, mugs, milk jars, tables (sticky) etc are not as clean as they should be with visible stains and baked on marks (not the tables). I regularly have to ask for them to be changed (particularly cups and milk jars). Some of you may ask yourselves why I’ve have kept going back. Well the food is good and it’s fairly priced, plus this is 60% of the time so I guess it’s down to the staff who are on shift and in many ways I hope it will improve.

Great loving the 20% of the plants 👍☀️

Lovely bedding plants and garden ornaments.

Great selection of things there, really nice and also dog friendly which was a bonus

Lovely place freindly staff loads off great items to buy

Butcher's here very helpful, I even managed to get my favourite pork and tomato sausages. Cafe service speedy and food delicious.

Avoid the cafe at all costs food bland very overpriced two meals two coffees £31 will not be back

Nice place to get fish and for garden plants and other garden ornaments/accessories

Sadly the restaurant is lacking in quality of food and speed of service. There are two areas to serve drinks only one is ever open when I visit. The majority of the staff are pretty amazing . Although when busy the are none stop on the drinks they remain polite and helpful. I use mobility aids and I have never been made to feel a inconvenience So for the staff 5 stars for food quality and pricing 2 for drink quality 3, hot drinks are drinkable but not good. Oh little after thought, they are not eco friendly in as much as, all left over food is thrown away. They will not sell off or give to homeless or use the To Good To Go app

We ate at the cafe yesterday. I have never experienced such rude staff in my life. Food was poor quality and completely overpriced. Would not recommend.

The actual shop is OK, but the restaurant is a total mess. Poor service long queue,s no cutlery, tables a mess. I waited ages to be served and when I asked how do you get served here, I was informed its not my job and if looks yo kill I would be dead. They needto look at the customer service, look at staffing and look to reduce the time waiting just to be served.

Lovely plants and accessories, a bit pricey. Visit the cafe, it's well worth it. Lunch looks great. I don't know if they had a very busy day yesterday, bank holiday Monday, but there were very few cakes available.

Lovely garden centre, great variety of products, vast amount of plants etc. Loved the clothing and aquarium sections. Took home some fresh meat from the butchers and a couple of delicious cherry scones for afters. Staff were very nice and very helpful indeed. A+++++

Called in for a breakfast as wanted to purchase some nice greetings cards from the shop. As I waited in the small queue for food one of the servers was snapping at the other server,very rude as she was obviously serving. My turn, hardly any hot food ready, but was only just gone 10.30 & they state they do breakfast till 11.30. Had to wait o vet 5 mins to get my hot drink as only one server doing drinks. When tried to eat my traditional breakfast found it just like warm, bacon like cardboard, my fork wouldn’t go in it, hash brown crispy all the way through, the black pudding very over cooked & the fried egg was just as hard, extremely disappointed as have been there a couple of years ago & was a lovely breakfast! Will not bother again guys, or recommending it.:(

The store itself is fine and the staff are helpful. But the restaurant today can only be described as a shambles. They were clearly understaffed and seemed to be swopping from one serving area to another. Nobody specific was serving on the cakes so the queue intermingled. We were waiting for hot jacket potatoes but the lady kept disappearing to top up other hot food. When we finally got served we asked for jacket potatoes with baked beans and a green salad. What we got were potatoes with some rather dried up beans (clearly from the bottom of the pan) and a serving of a green sauce with what looked like couscous and broad beans. We expected lettuce, cucumber etc. Ok it was green so we decided to give it a try, but perhaps a better description is needed. We then started to queue for hot drinks. After waiting for a good 5 minutes the queue had not progressed. ( we were still standing by the hot food) . At this point we decided our meals would be cold by the time we got our drinks so we left the food on the serving top and left. I don't blame the staff. They were clearly trying their best but the management left a lot to be desired. We have often gone to the Dobbies at Stapleton. Service, although a bit slow at busy times, is much better. They still have an issue of one staff member operating both the till and serving hot drinks but other than that, food is topped up by kitchen staff and hot food is brought out to your table to avoid to long a wait. Why the difference?

Compared with other garden centres, this one is looking rather dated and badly in need of an upgrade. Restaurant was awful with dirty and worn furniture and lots of yellow and black tape holding things together! It’s necessary to queue for food, then join another queue for hot drinks and then another to pay! Surely they can do better than this? Little chance of food being hot by the time you sit down. Won’t be visiting again in a hurry.

Good food, good service, friendly helpful staff

Large premises with lots of concessions. Full of seasonal products as well as the full garden centre plants, landscape and equipment. Great to go and explore. The shop is now a Waitrose too.

Lovely afternoon spent here, cafe is wonderful and staff are so friendly and welcoming

Good plantsand other garden paraphernalia, excellent coffee and cake selection, friendly staff, the fruit and veg stall outside was all fresh with friendly staff too.

2 for 1 scones is a great saving and tasty too but very long queue for drinks . Very little outside plants but that's probably just the time of year.

clean and tidy and very helpful staff

I wish I had looked at the recent reviews of Dobbies Atherstone before we made a visit!! We have visited many times over the years, as a family trip out, but never again. I don’t normally do reviews, but was compelled to write this one. Only two people working behind food & drinks counter on a Friday !! Ridiculous slow service, in the queue for ages !! Almost refused to do a ham & cheese toastie !! Jacket potato came out wrong, salad with just tomato & cucumber, what salad does not include some lettuce. Why do Dobbies not look at these reviews and do something about it !!! It’s a shame, but will not be visiting again !!

Dog friendly area in cafe, v nice. Plant variety and quality much improved since I last visited.

It's a lovely place to visit. Such a lot to see and browse. Well laid out, well stocked, plants are well cared for and the staff are welcoming and helpful.

Agonisingly slow. I visit once a week for a business meeting and each time I wait around 10 minutes in a queue to get a hot drink, such a waste of time. There are often tables uncleared and another queue to pay. I must find somewhere else to meet with my colleague.

Clean,tidy store with very polite, helpful staff

Haven’t been to Dobbies in a while but throughly enjoyed my trip today. The staff were all lovely and friendly and the cakes were absolutely lovely!I appreciate how one of the staff helped clean up when my mum spilt her drink. The only thing is I had a cheese sandwich but it was such poor quality for £7+ it was cheap bread and American style cheese slices. I was expecting nice dainty sandwiches with salad and crisps for the price.

Your a very good store and have a wide variety of goods to offer customers but I wanted to purchase a certain size wheel barrow you didn't have one.

Lovely place to spend a few hours, restaurant was good, always worth a visit when you get a free cup of coffee with the Dobbies Plus membership, I realise it's not free as you pay for membership, but excellent value. Our favourite Dobbies in our area.

Cafe was grim. Every table had dirty cups, plates etc. Food over the floors. Lack of staff couldn't cope with it all.

We enjoyed our first visit to your store in Atherstone. We live in Leicestershire and can travel further.

Shopping was fine. Had a bad experience in the cafe part of it never going to cafe at least again. Rest was fine but left me feeling annoyed

Very disappointed 😥 we were told by a young lady at Dobbies Shenstone that the Atherstone store has a larger range of stock and should be able get what we wanted. It certainly is a big store but the stock was poor and the staff generally unhelpful. Felt we had an wasted journey.

Large garden centre with a very wide range of products. Worth a visit for any garden related planning purpose but note that the prices are not competitive.

Lovely easter breakfast with my darling grandaughters

Bought a water feature in the sale but unfortunately got it back home and the pump didn't work. Rang customer service and they told us to bring it back for a refund. We did suggest although it was in the sale there should have been a note on the box saying the pump didn't work but was told by a member of staff that's why it was In the sale. Not very good sales is it,?

Went on Tues to get some plant pots for potting on seedlings. Not a 3" plant pot on site. Really ???

Garden centre excellent but don't eat Fish chips mushy peas all cold, chips frozen mush complained didn't want to know asked for manager to come to table didn't come when I took it back not interested one bit been a few times never had a problem till today, will not eat there again.

Was keen to see the clearance outlet, wasn't worth the visit just for there. Went into Dobbies for a look around, lots of empty space what was there can be purchased cheaper elsewhere. Popped to the cafe, which was so busy, no where near enough staff.

Our first visit here which was suggested by my brother. It's not a bad place to while away an hour or two. It's a bit larger than expected, primarily a garden centre with a variety of products and outlets. Overall it is pleasant enough but I didn't notice anything over and above the usual. I also felt it was more of a 'jack of all trades' as there seemed to be a lot of omissions. We also noticed a lot of items without a price tag. The experience in the cafe wasn't great, quite a few staff but they seemed to be 'lost'. Slow to clear the tables which I noticed didn't get a wipe over. Unsurprisingly it was expensive for what we had and there is not a great choice either. The photo of the pannini speaks for itself and we had to take the hot chocolate back. We sat in the rather small doggy corner with our Staffie, annoyingly half the tables were taken up by people without dogs. I wish the signage was a lot clearer. I am sure that I would have been moved on if had sat on the wrong table. On a positive note Sharon on the tills went over and above to assist us, she was a 'diamond', unlike the meet and greet at the door who was preoccupied with her friends.

Dobbies Restaurant. Visited today with my mum and two young children. Chaos as usual and extremely slow service, however this wasn’t the issue. The absolute rudeness of an individual member of staff was disgusting and has put us off using the restaurant again. A member of staff crashed her trolley for clearing away trays into my pram. My mum being the polite natured woman she is apologised (even though we were no way at fault). The member of staffs response was to roll her eyes at my mum and give the filthiest of looks. Not only am I angry that there wasn’t even an apology to ramming a big heavy trolly into the carrycot on my pram which my baby goes in, which we would have just let slide and had the attitude of ‘accidents happen’ but the attitude displayed was disgusting and completely uncalled for. We could have very easily got quite disgruntled at the ramming of the pram but chose not to give someone a tough time to what we originally thought was an innocent mistake, but with the actions afterwards we are now left wondering whether it was so innocent. The restaurant itself was extremely grimey and needs an extreme clean. The food was average, the toastie was nice and tasty but £28 for two toasties and chips and two cans of drinks is absolute madness, especially when customer service is so poor.

All good.nice to walk round lots to see.

Good spacious shop, restaurant good, choice of food and drinks good. Bonus a good butchers shop.

Took my friend too lunch for a birthday treat. Short queues for food but a very long wait. We both had jacket potatoes, which were Luke warm, in fact the butter on mine didn't even melt, just sat as a blob under the cheese. When I mentioned it to a member of staff all I got was a sorry!!!

Staff helpful and friendly good choice of items

Clean & tidy did lots of Gluten free options in restaurant

The staff are extremely helpful and the store is clean, tidy & well laid out. The restaurant offers a good selection of delicious cakes.

Has great quality, and variety of plants, and others products, staff very friendly and helpful, store is very accessible and clean, as is the restaurant.

Cakes and drinks good as usual only problem was not enough staff so separate hot drinks counter not in use meant anyone with hot food waiting ages to get to the drinks section therefore cold food.this evidently happens at the end of the month because people are claiming their free drinks and birthday treats.Please get it sorted

I like going to Dobbies as they allow dogs -although I don’t go on my own as I can’t choose food etc if I have him. That is not Dobbies fault though. The cakes are fabulous here .💗

Its enjoyable to shop at the store so much to see

Enjoy shopping there, what I need is easy to find

Nice place to have a browse although like everywhere else it can be pricey.waitrose is nice and the pies are fab.fruit and veg stall outside is very good too

The guy working the till in the cafe had the best care and customer service I've ever experienced asking someone where the loos were, I thought he was going to walk me there!

Just got back it's a disgrace empty shelves, no staff, is it being closed down, if not it should be 😠 as usually no management in sight whole place is run down feel sorry for staff that work there, just not good enough!

Well laid out store, this Debbie's has lots of extra stores on site from clothing to aquarium store deli counter and nice cafe

Great place to go with all the family, seriously short staffed, only one man running the soft play.

Went for the Santa's breakfast experience . Event was OK for the children. The food (breakfast) was very very poor adults breakfast small child's breakfast only 4 items with no bacon for the kids. Kids do eat bacon aswell ! Not even a slice of toast offered with the kids breakfast (kids eat toast aswell ) definitely poor for the money so probably wouldn't go again

Took my daughter to the Santas Grotto - brilliant staff, very friendly and a brilliant staff experience for my daughter, highly recommend

Brilliant store, but the restaurant was very slow

Absolutely love the Santa in their grotto- we have been coming for the last 3 years and he is always so kind and happy and fantastic with the children ❤️ thank you Santa xx

Food was cold disgusting only thing going for it tea was hot. If you serve breakfast till a set time it should still be hot and edible

Lovely store. Staff always friendly and helpful. Lovely food and gift choices.

Very busy, to be expected at this time of year obviously. Lovely young girl on the tills with a great smile and attitude for a cold wet Sunday. Well done ✅

Nice shopping centre with lots of choice. Very expensive. Nice at Christmas

Spent a couple hours in this place. Great layout & the resturant food is fabulous. Enjoyed the biscoff cheese cake & got some Xmas tree lights.

Because the staff were very helpful and friendly

Improved layout good food and coffee. Not so good now. Save your time go to Planters in Tamworth, much better value and bigger displays of Christmas items.

Any questions we ask they're willing to take time to answer or find the answer

The restaurant staff are a credit to Dobbies. My friend, just out of hospital, and myself arrived for afternoon tea only to discover it was booked for the next day and there were no tables available. A young lady called Sam went above and beyond to help. She got us a wheelchair and went off to sort something out. And she certainly did with the help of another employee whose name I can’t remember. Sam had such a cheerful, helpful and happy disposition who did everything she could to give us a lovely afternoon. The following week I had booked afternoon tea for 10 friends and the first person I met was Sam and her colleagues. Needless to say we were well looked after. Thank you Dobbies and your wonderful staff. Kindest regards Carol Crewdson

Lovely place...but expensive..the food was gorgeous and queuing was a pain...Will we go there again ??? Probably not...

We have just got home from a trip to Dobbies at Atherstone . Very impressed with butchery section. We have bought our Christmas turkey breast joints again. Highly recommend and very reasonably priced. But not so impressed with the restaurant. £8:29 for a chicken and bacon sandwich which consisted of two slices of white bread ,margarine, mayonnaise, 6 very tiny pieces of streaky bacon and 16 tiny cubes of chicken ( yes I counted) 2 cans of Coke Zero £4:20,( I can buy 6 cans for less than that at my local supermarket ) 1 packet of walkers crisps £1:35 .( I can buy 6 packets for 50p more ) and one Tunnocks tea cake £1:10 ( I can but a box of 6 for that ) total £14:94 I appreciate the prices are dearer to eat in store . BUT can’t justify £8:25 for a sandwich ( no side salad or coleslaw )

Everything is really nice, just bit extra expensive. But when there is an offers- perfect 👍🏻

Whilst we don't have a garden as we live on a narrowboat, we do have room for a few potted plants and some herbs. However our main reason for visiting is to sample the food in the restaurant and to shop for Christmas gifts.