John Lewis Cafe in Ashford

We were so pleased to see John Lewis reopen their cafe a couple of months ago but so disappointed that there are no vegan ( dairy and egg free options ( aside from a couple of cereal bars which are often sold out)).Visiting today we counted 18 cake and scone options, none of which were vegan, and 7 sandwiches, none of which were vegan. We appreciate that a more limited menu is available than before but with this range of cakes there must be room for one or two vegan options and at least one vegan sandwich!Prior to lockdown there were two vegan cakes and two vegan sandwiches/ wraps so we know it can be done!The cafe offers at least two non- dairy milks and the hot chocolate is dairy free also so there is an acknowledgement that there are customers who can't/don't have dairy.With vegan options expanding in virtually all cafés, restaurants and supermarkets John Lewis café is, sadly, lagging behind the times ☹️

Out of the main selection of 18 cakes, scones, and shortbreads available there were zero dairy-free and egg free (vegan) options. The only other available dairy-free and egg free (vegan) option was a tiny chocolate and coconut Honey Buns bar. Come on JL in the year 2020 this is just not good enough.

Having a smaller selection should not be an excuse to disregard different diets and provide no vegan options but a few cereal bars and fruit. In terms of vegan cake there was one before however the recipe was changed to non-vegan. Another issue is labelling, with many products they could easily put 'gluten free' 'no traces of dairy' 'vegan' 'vegetarian' on labels however you go through the long process of looking up what is in each item in a folder. A lot more could be done to improve John Lewis' efforts to satisfy the many vegans, vegetarians and gluten free people.

So we had a nice little outing to see the Easter bits in store along with other bits. Always seem to have so rather nice bits in. We decided to have some drink & cake whilst visiting. The drinks was nice but the cakes were certainly delicious & looked incredible!I marked it a 4 point instead of 5 just due to one of the members of staff being a tad rude. Ignoring me and asking for a little request to swap the milk over to soya milk was like I told her santa wasn’t real. She didn’t speak and when I said thank you she just handed it to me. There was a really nice lady that did approach us towards the end who took away our empties and had a little chat. I think her name was Lorraine. THANK YOU! We will be sure to return soon.

Options my parents (trying Veganuary) and I can have (vegan) are limited. Although now available is: chickpea wrap, one other sandwich and one cake, this isn't enough with the growing demand for vegan options every year. It's great that the milk options include: soy, almond and coconut but again oat is another popular choice (that some vegans/non-vegans prefer). I would say John Lewis is behind the times on the vegan front but there are limited options available. Others enjoyed their meal too.

Staff under pressure - food good but long wait to be served and customers who can’t clear their own tables leaving huge backlog of piled up plates and trays rendering tables unusable :(

After a quick Black Friday shop, my family and I decided to take a little lunch break. The Staff of John Lewis either in the retail section or cafe, are always so lovely and give their best service ever. 2 of us orders hot meals which were served to us as soon as we found a seat. Once we were done we always pile everything onto our tray and a lovely man took it away from us. My only suggestion would be to make the menu easier to see, as some things that were ordered by other people, wasn’t actually on the menu behind the counter. An amazing branch with amazing staff. Thank you John Lewis

What a shame that John Lewis can’t employ enough staff to manage their cafe! We waited 40 mins to be served a piece of cake and a cup of coffee..

So after our morning out at Canterbury me & the wife decided to stop off here for some food & drink.We find it good here with a nice variety of food & drink, followed by looking around John LewisWas rather warm inside I must say. Sitting next to the windows on a hot day is rather stuffy But limited choice of where to sit as it was rather busy. We will be back.

This cafe is run by some very friendly staff, but the choice of food both hot and cold is limited and very expensive. If you are looking for a cafe I would suggest a couple of garden centres which are in the area.

I decided to walk to John Lewis, have a good wander on my own, and have a coffee. Great idea, highly recommended

Title says it all really, went on a Sunday to browse, didn't realise there was a restaurant there! It's John Lewis, so just had to have lunch. Sure enough, it did NOT disappoint. Fab Food and Fab Service - problem was it's so popular that getting a table was a little difficult - but worth the wait!

I had a bacon and cheese toasted sandwich and my wife a £5 egg sandwich. She had a cup of coffee and I had a small latte. That came to nearly £16. The toasted sandwich was very bland, the cheese totally insipid. At £5 the egg sandwich should have been excellent: it was not. Disappointing.

John Lewis offers the card holders free coffee and cake vouchers every month. Three of us go to use it and most of the time but we end up having lunch and the free coffees. We always find not a huge choice of food available specially for my vegetarian friend. We often find tables are not cleaned in time. But we don’t mind moving the stuff from the table and wiping with a tissue in order to use the table. We also ignore the dirty cutlery. Today we had tomato and basil soup which clearly came from a tin or even frozen, quite cold and very very sour accompanied by a very hard piece of bread.

John Lewis being John Lewis have a fancy array of cakes and coffees for a nice afternoon tea after an afternoons shopping. It is worth the slightly above average price as the quality you will receive is above average.

Turned up at 320pm to be told no hot food. This was disappointing.

Popped in to pick something up on a Saturday at 3pm, thought we'd grab something to eat while we were there........OH so easy you'd think,

Great for coffee and a slice of cake but seems to be a bit too dis-organized now. Used to much better so unless it's all new staff who have recently started then maybe it will improve.

Did some shopping downstairs and then came up to the cafe for a bite to eat. Queue quite long. Whilst we queued all hot food removed from counter. No soup available. Despite someone three in front being served panini and more available in cabinet we were told the panini machine had been switched off for the day. There are 4.5 hours left of the store being open yet all that’s available is drinks and very few cakes. I’ll not be back in a hurry.

Does anyone from the company read these reviews as it is totally disorganised, dirty, pitiful service and more. Our second visit for lunch and was as bad as the last time we went weeks ago. One man standing around to make hot drinks, one taking our order and then going to the till leaving no-one serving. Two in the background doing very little and a long queue. You collect your own cutlery and on each occasion there were no knives. When I brought it to their attention more knives arrived in the hands of the serving lady!! Not very hygienic especially as she was holding the blades!!! I brought it to the attention of the man in case he was the manager but he was totally disinterested.

Hoped to get a sandwich, jacket potato or scone. 2.30 in the afternoon and no hot food available except parsnip and honey soup. No sandwiches, scones or cake. Staff advised this was because they were so busy this morning. Had the soup only to find the only available spoon was a very small plastic teaspoon! Appalling experience. Would not be returning unless we only wanted a drink.

Terrible they only could provide paper plates plastic knives forks and paper cups . The prices should be reduced as this is the case at the moment . Had been like that for 4 days

No advertised vegan options on menu. But you could have: jacket potato with beans or chips and beans, hippeas crisps, white choc raspberry (tiny) cake. Should be improved - with vegetarian,gluten free options- you would think they would do vegan. If you see this please add vegan cakes at least one sandwich and salad (just take away the salad dressing) Overall ok for vegans.

Visited for lunch today. A little late and all jacket potatoes had gone, so chose British Chicken Caesar Salad. I didn’t realise that British chicken was so expensive - just 3 tiny slices about the size of 2 fifty pence coins, and 2 slivers of parmigiana cheese - but heaps of lettuce!!

Overpriced, bland cold food and lukewarm coffee at the Ashford John Lewis at Home. Too much competition for me to bother to return - Waitrose is much better.

I always related John Lewis to good customer service. Not today...

I wish out of all their cakes etc they had even just one vegan option. They do a choice of soya milk instead of cows milk but no vegan cake or biscuit to accompany this which is quite unusual with the growing trend of people not wanting to eat animal products

Visited this afternoon and wasn’t impressed!!! It felt like there wasn’t enough staff to manage the cafeteria at the level you would expect from John Lewis. Don’t get me wrong the girl behind the counter was absolutely fabulous! Considering she was alone with a huge amount of people waiting to be served she still carried on with great professionalism apologising to each and every customer for the wait they had to endure. But after waiting a long time to get served we had nowhere to sit because each and every table was full of dirty dishes! A very young blonde girl appeared briefly, walked around looking at the dirty tables and decided picking one tray up and disappearing again was her job done?! Not sure if it’s down to management or lack of decent staff but definitely not a good look for John Lewis!

I visited JL Aberdeen at a lunchtime. I chose the Lentil Dahl. The only hot Vegetarian meal option . Only hot in the loosest meaning of that word. At best this food allegedly kept warm on a hot plate ,was at best tepid. When I returned with this meal . The serving staff suggested they just put my tepid food in a hot bowl. I find this totally unacceptable . So said I wanted fresh food not my tepid meal in a hot bowl or the tepid Dahl that was still cooling on the hot plate. Some fifteen minutes later my husband had finished his meal . So as my food had not appeared we asked for a refund on my meal then left .

We were hoping for a light brunch, sadly the offerings were poor to say the least unless you wanted baked potato in which case you could have had 4-5 different offerings! Other than that soup or fish and chips (£9) but as the fish looked quite anaemic I thought maybe just some chips - I was told this was not an option to have separately!!!!

I understand that the Café` can and does get a little busy at times, but there is no excuse for Terrible or Sloppy" service from: what can only be described as "girls" from behind the counter!!! One of the girls threw milk at the other girls legs and thought this was so funny it was embarrassing to watch, as they both giggled like little girls as they were serving?

We had a voucher for cake and coffee but left it at home, but decided to go in for a drink anyway.

My friend and I visit the John Lewis Cafe every so often when John Lewis send us through vouchers for a Free Hot Drink and a Cake. The Cafe feel itself is pretty average, looks like any other cafe in a supermarket.

We go there every now and then to meet friend for coffee for the location and parking. Since it opened we found the quality of service is going downhill. We normally go in the afternoon when we found staff looks tired, slow service, tables are not cleaned, cutleries are often not cleaned properly. Cakes are overpriced and very dry-not the good quality, drinks come cold. This is not the quality of service one expects from John Lewis.

This cafe was really nice to visit but has sadly lost its way. I think the food quality is slipping along with the service standard.

Excellent sandwich and proper tea served here. Clean and well managed by efficient staff. We will definitely return to the cafe next time we go to the wonderful store.

.......in the length of time in line getting one food, and then in finding a table that is free and CLEARED. More often than not diners here have to be table clearers as well which might be OK if the prices were parred back but at current prices one does not expect to clear and clean tables.

When opened up the food was great quality but now not so much. Food left under the heat lamps for too long and either go dry or swim on its own oil. Surely JLP knows better.

The tables were not cleared it was 4.30pm but all the tables were left with trays of dirty cups and plates. The staff need serious training and cakes have to be fresh. They have been dry most of the times that i have been there. The store's good name is getting tarnished. A bit of training and making sure the cakes are fresh is all that is required.

We had soggy cold and stale fish and chips. Took it back for a refund. No offer of anything else, but they did apologise

Pleasant enough in store cafe with very limited menu. Self service, clean and presentable, but although the drinks are average price the food seemed expensive for what you get.

Nice coffee shop within a John Lewis at home store. Little expensive and limited food. Ideal for quick coffee. Easy access for wheelchair users and high chairs for babies

We used this cafe' for tea and cake after shopping in John Lewis the staff were very helpful and friendly, there is plenty of seating clean and tidy.

Used it for a buisness meeting. Coffee was served quickly and they had soya milk for my companion. Plenty of seating well laid out to allow privacy. Free parking close to M20.

I went there for lunch at the weekend. The lady who served us was friendly but didn't have any idea about the allergies ingredients of any of the foods (my partner is a Celiac so can't have gluten). The lad at the till was very miserable and didn't say to us that the cutlery etc was at one side of the restaurant (They watched us walk to the opposite side of the room before informing us). The food came quickly, we both had baked potatoes, and they were fine. The table and the cutlery were not very clean though.

I've used this café a few times, more for it's convenient location than for any particular liking for its drinks, although I've never been disappointed in that respect. The free parking, and opportunity to rest the grey natter and while away half an hour looking around the store after a busy day working, makes this café a good place to recharge with a quick drink. Having only used this of an evening when custom is fairly low, I can imagine that service can be slow at busier times as on a few occasions I've had a slight wait despite there being only a couple of people in the queue. Nothing major, and I think any wait is more to do with the machines they use and general set-up, rather than any employee related slow service. Staff are pleasant and helpful I should add. I can't comment on food as I've never eaten here, but for a pit-stop and wander around this place is perfectly adequate, and I'd recommend purely on these reasons.

popped in for a light snack. asked for jacket potato - they were disgraceful and the filling was poor. cutlery not clean. many tables not cleared. overall very disappointed with the standard usually very good at other JL places.

We visited for coffee and cake. The staff were attentive, the food and drink is always high quality, tables cleared promptly. A great haven when everything is going mad around you!

Very poor service - don't go there if you are in a rush . It took over half an hour for a bacon sandwich and the staff just kept saying 5 minutes !

Don't go there if you are in a rush . It took over half hour to serve a bacon sandwich and the staff just kept saying 5 min !! They weren't even apologetic.

Good stop whilst shopping in John Lewis as long as you have a while to wait in the long queues. The serving staff are very pleasant but the system, if there is one,is terribly inefficient especially at the drinks counter. Wouldn't visit unless I was shopping in the store

Called here while having a look around the shop, to find it you go up to the first floor to the left of where the entrance/exit is. It's fairly average with the usual snacks you can get, wooden seats and tables. If you're shopping there then it's handy for a cuppa. Nice enough and the staff seem fairly good, but I can't think of anything to extol.

Well if you are going to have a coffee, make sure it's a John Lewis coffee.

If all you want is a coffee/tea this is a good place. If you want food it is expensive and often they have rub out of hot food. All pre-prepared food and not even using Waitrose ingredients. Roll with soup was so cheap and tasteless unlike freshly baked rolls in Waitrose 1/4 mile down the road. Very busy.

Went to John Lewis just before Christmas to buy some new outside lights. Decided to have a drink & bite to eat. Very good latte coffee & the cake was naughty but very nice. Recommend.

Had a lunch time light meal with my daughter.

Ok - so it was late lunchtime - I asked if there were any jacket potatoes the answer was positive - unfortunately they failed to mention that it was hours and hours old and nearly cold -

Service is excellent, cream cake was very good, cappuccinos very good. A good meeting place as just off junction 9 on the M20 before the town centre. Adequate choice. Very clean.

Plenty of light airy seating, Service from the counter, good light lunches and vegetarian options available, reasonably priced.

I often pop in here for a break if out shopping around lunch time - nice little clean cafe. service on this visit was very slow and staff got very confused as to which soup of the day was available.

Called into JL for a coffee and cake. Had to wait ages to be served as only one person serving food, drinks and till. I Had the gluten free victoria sponge very dry and crumbly. Regular sponge not available. Coffee was a good in inch from the top of the cup. Love the fact they have cream for the coffee.

The cafe is very pleasant,the staff welcoming ,even the coffee was good but sadly Ihad one of the worst cheese scones in a long time. Heavy and not very fresh,I could only manage about a quarter of it before I gave up. My friend had a slice of raspberry tart which tasted good but was very soggy.

John Lewis are kind enough to give members a voucher for free coffee & cake now and again. ThIs is a great enticement to bring you to the store and view what is on offer in store.

Met friends for coffee, had a lovely piece of cake so delicious. Very busy but was not made to move quickly. Had a lovely time

When John Lewis first appeared, this cafe was lovely and the food they served was really nice. Unfortunately, the service is extremely slow and the food tends to be rather tasteless especially the cakes.

Good value as we used our drink and a cake vouchers, however there was only a limited selection of cakes on offer compared to other John Lewis cafes. Bright cafe but a shame that not all the tables were wiped clean after having been cleared. Nice artwork on the walls.

Today we had Soup of the day Tomato and Basil which was average at best. The Ginger latte cake though tasted very good was very dry. Considering the price they charge this should be rectified.

Very nice location with interesting views through large windows. Clean and spacious. Nice food but for a cafe a bit too expensive.

We were hungry, we couldn't park anywhere, so we nipped into John Lewis, Ashford - and had a lovely bite to eat. Sausage sandwich and a cuppa - lovely fresh bread, plenty of freshly-cooked sausages for me, and my husband had a cake and a coffee with hot milk - and it was hot, too!. Not cheap (is it ever?) - but quality is what counts. Happy to return.

The quality of coffee and food was very good, as expected, although prices. However, it feels like the cafe was a poor after thought, stuck on the side of the building. It has a view to pass the time albeit a busy roundabout, but the blinds obscured the windows, the temperature became unbearable even with a winter sun (must be hell in the summer) and it just lacked the feeling of a nice place to be - more of a quick pit stop.

Ah a nice oasis from the hub bub of Xmas shopping. John Lewis was surprisingly quiet which must be a little alarming for them. Food and drink good quality as you would expect from a chain that aims at the high end. A little pricey but it does come with wall towall yummy mummy's and spoilt sooo well dressed kids armed with uggs etc. had the festive pie very nice.

This is a nice little cafe that does a pretty good hot chocolate and the sarnies are nice and fresh. Was a very welcome break from my shopping and even though I thought that the prices were a little higher than I would usually pay it wouldn't stop me from using the cafe again

Great for hot chocolate and indulgent cakes as well we a small range of hot foods sufficient for lunch

Dropped in for a coffee today whilst shopping in store. Coffee was fine but can't reccomend the cheese scones. They tasted doughy and had an extremely crumbly texture. Won't return, only to shop

My first visit to this Cafe as the location is an 'easy fix' and the Parking is very good and quite secure.