George’s Cafe in Dumfries & Galloway

We had previously stopped off here for lunch many years ago when it was operating as Glenwhisk Café & Bistro and had fond memories of the attractive interior which featured nice furnishings and paintings by local artists on the walls for sale. The food was “home made” with a good selection of dishes and they had a superb display of home bakes, all very reasonably priced. There was a good ambiance about the place. What we experienced this time around was a complete contrast. The furnishings were basic and an area which had previously contained a couple of comfortable settees now resembled the furniture section of a charity shop with a large collection of unmatched old looking settees packed together side-by-side. The tables had a lonely potted plant for decoration. The other two customers were just leaving. The menu was fairly limited however since it was possibly the only place in town to have food we kept it simple by both ordering a ham & cheese toasty and a couple of Americano coffees. The toasties were duly delivered on a side plate with no garnish whatsoever, together with mugs of coffee. We don’t know if it was due to the cooking method (perhaps deep fried?) or the fat content of the cheese being high, however the toasties were literally dripping with grease. I could almost feel it blocking my arteries with each bite. My wife persevered and finished hers with a struggle but I had to give up and actually leave a piece of the small offering on the plate, I think a first for me as regards having a toastie for lunch. The sad looking tray bake selection on display was not tempting so we decided to pay the bill and depart. The final blow was that our lunch surprisingly cost £21 for something of a disaster. By comparison had we visited Jinty B’s Tearoom in nearby Thornhill, toasties served with a salad garnish and coleslaw and a couple of large coffees would have set us back £13.90 and more importantly would not have given us indigestion for several hours afterwards. I don’t wish to be unkind however this takes the award of our poorest ever café experience, astonishingly in the same venue which once housed a very good one.