Fountains Abbey Visitor Centre Restaurant in Harrogate

Shambolic canteen service leading to frustrated customers. Conflicting board menus. Confusing placement of food items. Expensive. Surly staff.

Been on previous occasions and enjoyed a hot meal. Very poor menu. I opted for Fish finger sandwich, cold and unappetising. Very disappointing and will not be eating there in the future.

The coffee shop has gone down hill massively. They now provide paper cups, paper plates and paper cutlery. We also noticed they made to lattes for two staff members in proper crockery mugs and making paying customers drink out of awful paper cups. The prices are still expensive. The prices we pay we expect proper mugs and not paper cups.

After a few hours enjoying the Abbey and grounds, the Visitor Centre Restaurant is a welcome chance to sit down and enjoy some good lunchtime menu options. Indoor and outdoor seating available and plenty of room. For such a busy local attraction the Restaurant does really well to provide for the food and drink requirements of a large number of visitors.

On a wet day we chose the main cafe for lunch, after meeting local friends We could not have chosen worse The ham salad sandwich was in toasted sourdough, making it tough and chewy The soup was weak and tasteless and the baked potatoes burnt on the outside and cold on the inside The choice of menu was very poor with very few warm options Despite a plethora of staff, the service was very poor and in fact quite condescending The price of National Trust cafes has become ridiculous, having a monopoly of course However if the food and service is good the charitable ethos, make it bearable , but with the service and food we received, just looks like daylight robbery The staff here need some training on being pleasant, helpful and thoughtful, they do not reflect the attitude of the volunteer staff