Ivy House Kitchen in West Dorset

Lovely fresh food. Jacket potatoes, fantastic sandwiches, cakes, pastries and all the hot drinks you could think of. A great place to take a break before/after walking around the Groves garden center.

Manic and not very clean. Really busy so plenty of people clearly use it.

Having been a long term visitor to the garden centre I thought I would try the restaurant for breakfast for the very first time. I ordered the small breakfast at £12 and was looking forward to it but only to be really disappointed when it took 40 minutes to arrive and the restaurant was not busy at all. Very disappointed. I probably won’t be returning for the long foreseeable future. I did not complain at the time but felt I should share my views.

No complaints about the food I've had so far. Has always been fresh, tasty, & good portions. They do get busy, so you MAY need to be a little patient....however, we've been kept waiting longer in far less busy establishments. Staff are all very nice, polite, & helpful.

Lovely staff, good food and decent portions. Tammy was so friendly and made us feel very welcome.

Our first visit. Well impressed

Second visit and it's still lovely!!! Atmosphere is calm and friendly

Friendly staff, good food, light and airy surroundings

Perfect breakfast. Everything was fresh and impeccably cooked. The cakes looked great too. Service was friendly. The restaurant was spacious and tastefully decorated. The garden centre was well stocked too and one of the best I've been to.

Really enjoyed our meals here. We shall return

Excellent cafe within the garden centre

Only had toasted tea cake and coffee but very good atmosphere good service and pleasant friendly staff

Super coffee from the kiosk next to the Ivy,

overcooked bland quiche, much too much mayonnaise on salads rendering them inedible served by mostly miserable staff. maybe they hate working there one of them gave the impression that they weren't there to clear plates. stale bread in the sandwich (it was Sunday though).

Met an old friend for coffee. Slightly soulless

Absolutely stunning, food was 11/10, will definitely be back, just perfect! House salad was incredible and coronation chicken baguette was delicious- we will be back

We went to Grove cafe for lunch the person seveing. Could not be bothered. To do what was asked of her. I am a diabetic so I have to be careful. This is the only place I have found it hard to get anything. My husband had a beacon roll it had three bites of beacon in the mild of the roll.

Lovely place, one of the best scones I have ever had. Excellent food with top service in a nice place.

Find a table and a menu. Go to the desk with your table number and order and pay. Food is brought to you. Only had sandwiches 🥪 but came with salad and crisps. Would recommend.

Nice, clean facility, nice food, just a bit confusing having to go to an order point rather than the normal counter. Normally - at the counter - there's a menu on the wall. No menu at our table and as there was a queue at the order point felt rushed to order, with only a card menu available.

Fabulous pea soup with local bread. Gigantic prawn sandwich with lemon mayonnaise. Take a look at the photos. Yum 😋 Next visit: we can also highly recommend the apple cake and the coffee and walnut sponge. They make an excellent latte as well. June 2025: We can now recommend the scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast 🙂

We had a lovely afternoon here. The waitress who helped us - Gill was brilliant, kind and very helpful!

Shame there were no fruit scones as I really fancied one but the sandwiches were big wedges & certainly very filling. The staff were very friendly & the unusual way to order seemed to work well enough. It got freezing & blowy when they opened the roof but luckily it didnt stay open for long.

Lovely food as always but the staff need to be faster at clearing tables and cleaning them. I saw 3 tables move dirty things to another table all because staff weren't clearing

A nice restaurant attached to a plant nursery. The place, from the outside, looks like an old Victorian hothouse. Inside is a lot more contemporary. The menu is very limited and today especially, being very wet, it looked like God's waiting room, consequently two or three of the dishes were no longer available (this being 2:45pm). That being said the coronation chicken baguette was tasty and the chips were very good indeed.

If you're looking for a very pleasant coffee/tea room with well made coffee and a nice variety of cakes, this is definitely worth a detour. Their decaf coffee is one of the nicest ones I've had. You wander around the beautifully curated garden centre which has thoughtfully laid out little gardens.

This is a fantastic restaurant attached to Groves garden centre in Bridport. Lovely food well worth a visit.

The food here was excellent, and the seating areas felt relaxed and comfortable. The staff were very friendly and helpful. It's setting in the garden centre is fabulous.

We arrived just after 1.00 on a Thursday lunchtime. The specials board (electronic) showed a good selection. I chose the beef and mushroom casserole and my partner had the blue cheese tart and coleslaw. The service was good and couldn’t be faulted but the casserole when it arrived was aweful. It was solid and dry, good flavour but absolutely no gravy or sauce, just a pile of stodgy on the plate with dried (cooked) carrots and chips, special request. It was so bad I left most of it. I did not recognise this as a casserole. It was as if this was the last order of the day and they were scraping the remains of the casserole out of the bottom of the dish. My wife had the tart served on a piece of paper on a narrow plate. It was impossible to cut into the tart without it flying off the paper on to the table. I asked for a proper plate, the waitress was very understanding and returned with the food on a narrow plate without the paper. I don’t think she really understood the problem. A proper round plate would have been ideal. The food was ok, the coleslaw was ok but for the price, it didn’t taste home-made. We haven’t been her for a couple of years, the prices have gone up but the quality of what is offered has gone down. We won’t hurry back.

Stopped off for some lunch and we were very pleasantly surprised. Had the Chesil Smoked Fish Platter which was delicious. Food was fresh, tasty and generous. Usually I cant manage salad because of IBS but this salad was well chosen when put together, loved it.

Gave up waiting to be served despite plenty of staff & not busy....seems like table service isn't working here Ivy house Kitchen!

We stopped on the way to visit family in Devon hoping for good coffee efficient service and a scone each. We received none of this, although not at all busy it took ten minutes for a waitress to arrive ( we were told to wait for table service). Then another ten minutes for our coffee and scones. When questioned as to which coffee was decaf the waitress didn’t know. The coffee when it did arrive was more like dishwater. The scones were okay but a bit dense. The bill was £22.60 for three coffees and three scones. Make what you will of this but we will not be back!

Superb hot chocolate, made with oat milk. Full of flavour Full Circle Chocolate. Very hospitable lady serving in ‘The Cabin’, very pleasant sitting in the garden.

Long queue at lunchtime and no table apparently. However it was not as seemed as half the restaurant was closed off as there was only 3 staff to wait on tables. Some very unhappy customers were asked not to queue as there was no prospect of a table. Don't know how they'll get on when it's busy in the summer.

We called in for a cup of tea and ended up having a coronation chicken roll and with chips and salad , it was excellent with plenty of food and extremely tasty.

Good selection of all garden plants ready atm for Spring planting. Coffee shop good.

Food was good. Waitress service was very slow - being allocated more on luck than order of arrival. When asked for the dessert menu? “We don’t do desserts” How strange when you sell ice cream, cakes etc!

When your greeting starts with there is a 30 minute wait. When the sign says wait here to be seated and told here is our menu find and empty table. When you see and hear staff asking which tables they have taken orders for and which still need to be done. Then when you get a waitress says she has had enough of working for the place. A chase to see where food is and told when she checked that it will be another 10 mins after a 40 minute wait at a guess because kitchen couldn't answer. Red Flags! Saving grace was breakfast was decent! Note: this was a bank holiday Monday!

Had a lovely breakfast here. The big breakfast bap did not disappoint and the pancakes with bacon and maple syrup were very good. Polite and fast service.

Visited the ivy house today for coffee and cake we were seated and told that are ordered would be taken at the table I know that it was busy but after 30 minutes no order was taken then customers that had just sat down they had there order taken so, we got up and left

The lasagne was very tasty and filling. Highly recommend 😋

Reasonably priced, good service, and a filling meal. Followed by a walk around the garden centre..

A lovely venue, excellent service and the food was lovely

Wonderful macaroni cheese on the specials board. Thank you.

Stopped for breakfast - fab brekkie & plenty of it. Lovely coffee. And plenty space to park the camper ( assume busy at weekends probably not goid for camper then?) Will use again.

Had the Mac & Cheese special. Not sure what happen to the cheese, but didn't taste like it was any, if any, wasn't mature cheddar. Tasted more like bough in cheese sauce. No taste, no seasoning. £14 its steep for what you get and cannot get it right.

We were greeted by the worst waitress you could ever have, extremely rude, we were clearly bothering her by coming in. The food was tasteless overcooked mush. An experience we won't be repeating.

Our regular stop on our way from Devon to Southampton. Excellent service. Very clean. At table service. Nice cappuccino.

Friendly and attentive table service and great home cooked food

Dropped in for coffee on our way home to Devon. Quite busy but no queue. Good coffee and scones. Sat in the main area,which was very warm.

I came here with my cousin for a mid-morning snack. The scones and tea were lovely, but the waitress had very little sense of humour, and a cheery comment I'd made fell on seemingly deaf ears....no matter, having said that, the food was lovely, Dorset scones, jam and cream. The seating area was bright, airy, and clean, the sun shone, so all was good. The shop and garden centre are very nice, good selection of plants, etc., gift shop nicely stocked with the usual suspects, as well as the local biscuit company's (Moore's Biscuits), there to tempt one. Try the Walnut Crunch biscuits... you won't be disappointed. All in all, a very pleasant visit, and I'd go again.

Called into here for lunch on the way back from Southampton to home and what a gem of a place it is. Was very busy and realised it's table service only which was a welcome surprise. One lady was showing people to tables and another was going around taking orders from tables but in the correct order people had been seated.....thanks to the very good team work of these two lovely ladies. We were warned as so busy there would be a long wait but waited no more than maybe 7 or 8 minutes for order to be taken. Then our food arrived no more than approx 5 mins later. We ordered a sandwich and chunky chips between us as we'd already seen the size of sandwiches beforehand coming out and absolutely massive portions. Was an absolutely lovely lunch and freshly made and a good garnish of crisps and salad accompanied it. Staff were very friendly and organised and I'd highly recommend a visit to this lovely place tho it may be a good idea to book in case it's very busy like on the day we stopped there.

Not very disabled friendly entrance is a long distance from car park

Food is nice, but the service is not great. Very grumpy staff member ruined it sadly

Chilled environment to have food And coffee. Chips taste awesome. Sandwiches looked appealing. Cake selection was very good, nice glass display cabinet full of baked goods to tempt you walking to a seat. 😁 Chairs and table were clean and comfortable. There was a limited selection of lunchtime options. Coffee was darker roast. Had the dark hot chocolate which was expertly prepared. Had the chocolate and orange cake which was a good option had a side of clotted cream....yum. Staff were friendly and helpful. Service was swift, table service.

Place is amazing the food is more amazing and the portions are totally amazing first class drove by this place many times from Newquay to my daughter in bovington army camp decided to stop off , will be stopping again Garden centre is well stocked

Brilliant time at Tea with Santa great fun ,games magic show met Santa good food. Children enjoyed it

We went for the Christmas event with our 4 year old and it was brilliant! The entertainment from Picklebottom the elf was perfect and Santa was the real deal 👌🏻 highly recommend.

To slow !!! Everyone is to slow!

We visited Groves last night so my autistic daughter (4) could visit Santa for the first time. This was the perfect setting, it was quiet, organised and very relaxed. Santa was lovely & patient and spoke to my daughter even though she is non verbal. I wish more places did SEN sessions like this. Would throughly recommend this and will be back next year!

An unexpected gem. Lovely welcoming staff and great food.

Just popped in on our way home to Poole. Delightful staff good coffee and scone.

The best breakfast at a garden centre restaurant we’ve had. We had the small full English and it was perfect. Lovely local sourced sausage and bacon, perfectly cooked eggs and lovely big chunky granary toast - fab 😀

It was busy when we arrived which was around 10.30 AM.The tables were being waited on and staff were jostling to and from the kitchens and the counter to customers tables . I didn't order any food, But a few on our table of 8 or so did. A selection of cooked breakfasts and also toast and preserves and a rather large looking waffle with fruit and cream also arrived promptly after drinks were served. Coffee, juice and my tap water ..... I can't drink tea or coffee. Parsons looked happy , conversation was jovial and jocular. There was a lovely selection of cakes and such on display in a glass fronted display to the side. Customers and staff seemed happy. The disabled toilet was.lovely and clean with a nice sink. rubbish bins and also a nice waist high bench with a soft padded baby nappy changing mat. Bins for soiled nappies and sanitary / incontinence pads were also available, toilets smelled nice and fresh, the water was hot and the toilet paper was plenty . All in all it was a nice experience, The cafe / restaurant is set in a nice garden centre . Many thanks peter P.s I can't advise as to prices of food or drink as I didn't look at a menu or pay for the food or drink (sorry)

This restaurant is situated at a convenient junction on the A35 at Groves Garden Centre. Lunch selection is limited but there are nice surroundings and a good fish and chips

Nice food. But wanted cake. Went to ask for it and was told that it’s a table service. Never came to us to take the order. Shame.

Had a lunch at the Ivy House. Easy to park and table had plenty of space around it. Menu choice was varied and a special board. Service was excellent and we were not rushed. Would go again. Only a 4 for the food as we picked the one thing they had run out of.

Great portions Excellent quality Quite busy

Very good size portions and quality.

Excellent cooked breakfast, the eggs were perfectly done, sausages were perfect and the doorstep toast was nicely done. Good quality tea and coffee. Clearly well used by locals and travellers alike.

Came here for lunch, a lovely place to eat as like a giant greenhouse, lots of sunshine beaming in! Great choice on the menu, went for the soup of the day, and was delicious. The bowl was massive and came with lovely chunky bread. My partner had a tuna sandwich that was also giant but more bread than filling. Would definitely go back, quick service, although very busy, so might be best to book next time!

The food is a good price but the cauliflower cheese was rock hard when arrived and when cut into almost smashed the plate, definitely wasn’t worth it for £12, had chips also which are dry and really pasty, not impressed

Having been served a very lack lustre prawn sandwich with stale bread and far too much margarine, I eyed the salad and could see it wasn’t look particularly fresh and crisp, but ate the first half of my sandwich before trying it. I unearthed a massive slab of slime, which was black, rotten bagged salad and slid it on to my paper napkin. It put me off finishing the rest of the sandwich. Mistakes happen and things go wrong, but when I called the waitress to show them the slime and explain that I couldn’t eat the rest now, she went to speak to her manager and came back saying I could have a cup of tea. I said “no thank you” being that I couldn’t finish my lunch I felt I should have some money taken off the bill. She went back to her boss and came back and said they’d only give me £4 off as I’d already eaten half the sandwich! The problem for me was there was no accompanying apology and I was made to feel that in some way I was at fault! They have a notice up saying they’re short staffed, I appreciate that, but don’t treat your customers badly when you make a mistake. I’d rather have had a good customer experience than the measly £4.

The restaurant is lovely to look at and the breakfast was excellent. However it was so uncomfortably cold that we had to eat wearing our COATS! The staff were also wearing coats also which is probably the reason their welcome wasn’t particularly warm. Perhaps we’ll return in summer

Very popular restaurant in this garden centre. If you wish to enjoy their delicious soup then ensure you get there early. Good home cooked food with a delicious counter of home made cakes and desserts which can be boxed and taken home with you.

Very disappointing. Had coffee & walnut cake. Very dry and over baked. Coffee served just warm., like mine hot. Staff eating food behind the counter then serving people. No hand washing! You get given a menu when you walk in and told to find a table staff not friendly. Overpriced for service & quality.

We only popped in for a hot chocolate! It was delicious! They do so many flavours and for extra you can have marshmallow and cream. pay extra for oat milk coconut milk. We will be delighted 😊 and will return again.

Lovely place delicious food and cakes so handy to meet everyone and go for a cuppa or lunch etc

Service slow , waitress miserable , don't bother with the place

Stale thick bread / reheated chips / overpriced. Avoid avoid. Slice of stale cake £4…..out of most things

Dropped in for a light lunch . We had a cheese scone and the pea & ham soup. I’ve never had such a huge portion of soup ! There must have been a gallon of the stuff . Service good. Groves is a good garden...

Really nice café attached to a garden centre. It's very large and light and the building is really nicely done and very clean. The food was really good! We ordered two breakfasts and the quality was superb. Quite expensive, there are definitely cheaper options but absolutely worth it! I would definitely recommend a visit. My only quarrel was that one elderly member of staff who greeted us was a bit unfriendly. But all the others were absolutely lovely and even chatted to us a bit. Overall very good indeed.

Late afternoon family visit for cake & tea very disappointing. Floor was dirty & many tables left uncleared. Very few staff on duty and wrong order supplied. When tables were cleared they were not wiped down. Such a change from previous visit at lunch time...

Srevice was just good. But food was great.

Breakfast before shopping for garden furniture and planter. excellent service and amazing food . Good start to theD ay

Much improved especially the quality of food & nice specials board options. Staff always friendly & helpful.

Really disappointing teacakes. Virtually no fruit or spice, doey , not recommended. Service was average, non communitive except to point towards the cutlery jar on the table. The actual setting is very pleasant, shame about the food and welcome.

Always enjoy my visit to the garden centre and restaurant looking at all the plants and shop also love looking at the fish 🐟

We visit regularly and are always impressed by the quality of food and service. Bring friends when they are visiting.

Great food, fab staff, lovely atmosphere, reasonable prices.I get cranky if I go a week without a visit.

I came on a Friday in July when the rain was absolutely horrendous! I came in to get some bird seed and was feeling abit low in spirit so I thought I would treat myself to a coffee. I had my two year old with...

Unfortunately we arrived at a ‘busy’ time. Waited sometime for someone to take our order and then, unfortunately, the chai latte was not available! However, when our alternative drinks arrived they were very nice.

We eat regularly at the Ivy House. Unfortunately for our last two visits he fish dishes were off du to a fryer being out of commission which is a pit because the fish dishes are excellent. Otherwise our experience has always been very good. Staff...

Awful menu choices, nothing we would of eaten so we left without ordering

Service and food as always was very good, despite a warning of slow service due to staff shortage, we didn't have to wait very long for our order to be taken or for the food to come

Massive breakfast, great service.

Driven past many times travelling between Plymouth and Portsmouth but never stopped until today. At first it seemed like a long missed opportunity - ample parking, beautiful outdoor seating area, and surprisingly well isolated from the noise of the A35 - but was ruined by...

Good sized portions, limited menu but well prepared and presented. Good selection of cakes.

A great place to stop for breakfast on the way to Cornwall. We'll be back !

Lovely surroundings and friendly, helpful staff.