Oakgate Tearoom in Shropshire

We came along to the tearoom with our family who were visiting for the holiday, had lunch and it wasn't the standard expected. My daughter had a panini, and after taking her first bite she had a huge hair in it taking it back she asked for a replacement, and queried no bacon to which she was told it would be an extra £1.50 She paid it and when the new panini arrived it had bacon sure enough...... it was really fatty, she wasn't happy and didn't eat the other half of it. The staff are young and in experienced with the public as didn't know how to address the public correctly, called me love! Food was less than average with nothing adventurous in the salad bowl,just the usual lettuce pepper tomato and Cucumber. No dressing, it was bacon &chicken, the chicken was breaded,overcooked hard with re- constituted chicken yuck- £9 down the drain. I'm so disappointed, we have been coming to this garden centre for many years and I have to say it's the worst meal I've had! I hope that maybe the chef/cook has a more varied and better thought out menu with more interesting things,not breaded battered everything!

We often pop into the tea room but we recently visited as a group of 3 for lunch, unfortunately staff prioritised a large group over us to fetch out lunch even though we ordered before them, we ended up waiting for over half an hour, this was the worst service we'd ever experienced there, really need to prioritise in order of people coming in not the size of the group. We were offered free drinks after we had complained but it really didn't make up for the poor service.

Holidaying a few miles away we thought we would stop here for lunch. The queue to order food was not exceptionally long but it was incredibly slow to move. So much so that we gave up and went back to our cottage instead. The menu on the board was very limited (not everything was priced) and there were no menus on the tables. The outside eating area looked lovely but the service really needs looking at.

We arrived 10.30 ordered breakfast which was all freshly cooked no grease toast crisp and warm really enjoyed the meal it was also sunny and warm so enjoyed our food outside Brilliant will be back

Go regularly to Oakgates cafe. Staff are efficient and always pleasant. Not an extensive menu but there is adequate choice and it is freshly made and tasty. Never disappointed. Garden centre is very good and not overly costly. Highly recommend.

Terrible coffee. Ordered 4 flat whites. They came looking like milky coffee, no foam and a lot of the drink spilt in the saucers. We tried them just in case looks were deceiving but it literally tasted of hot milk with a hint of coffee. I took them back and asked for them to be replaced and was asked how many shots were in a flat white!!!! When the girl came back with the drinks , they were the same ones , colder by now , but with jugs of espresso shots to add to cups. By this time we’d eaten our cakes (average and overpriced ) so just wanted to go. Weirdly enough even with the shots added we could barely taste the coffee. So disappointing as we’d come a fair distance and the tearoom looked lovely , so we expected a decent drink and cake. We love the garden centre part so would come again. But not sure we would risk a drink or cake. We last came during Covid restrictions and had an appalling coffee then , but put it down to stressful times. Big mistake. !!!

We called in and spent in excess of £80 on plants.We decided to have lunch,we had eaten in the cafe before and enjoyed it.Today it was mayhem,queuing for 15 plus minutes to order,then realising when we got back to the table and looked at the receipt ,the order was wrong,we ordered different sandwiches one vegetarian, but both were ham,and a pot of mint tea for two was a pot of tea for one.We shared the tea,and ate the sandwich as didn't want to have to queue again to rectify the order The food was fine,but perhaps a,different nethod of ordering might be the answer or more than one person taking the orders.

We have eaten here before. Delicious food with really friendly staff. They wash all the tables down after every customer leaves. Spotless and clean. I had the lasagne. It was delicious served with a lovely dressed salad and garlic bread.

Clean, pleasant looking restaurant area, following good Covid precautions, polite efficient waitress /waiter service, food plentiful, tasty and good price, recommend the chips !! Seating inside - roomy so social distancing is achieved and outside seating pretty as it’s by a pond Just gets a bit busy on warmer days .... but then that’s to be expected, I recommend this tea room.

As cyclists, we have visited Oakgate tearoom on many occasion, prior to the new café being built and since. Overall a pleasant café to visit. My wife is Celiac, a medical condition and therefore must eat Gluten Free food. My wife ordered a Gluten Free scone, asking the waitress to double check that it was Gluten Free. On being served it looked exactly the same as the scone one of our friends were eating. Question to waitress, "are you sure this is Gluten Free", Reply "Yes". Would you please go back to the counter and double check. Waitress came back. "Sorry it isn't Gluten Free". "Will bring you a Gluten Free one", which looked exactly the same as the first one! So to avoid health problems didn't eat it. We got the same old excuse that this was a mistake and they were sorry. But that's not good enough, these are professionals serving the public who should be able to trust them. They obviously don't take Allergy disorders seriously. What are their standards for regular food?

Visited once for coffee and was given a disgusting mix of veg oils passed off as pouring cream which just floated on the top.....ewww Went with a friend yesterday and our two granddaughters. Service was painfully slow and menu on board consisted of sandwiches and baked potatoes, They refused to give us an actual menu. I asked for a salad, which apparently they don't do so they agreed to give me a side salad with grated cheese. Thrilling fI thought! Minutes later the girl appeared and said they couldn't accommodate that so I ended up with nothing as I follow a low carb diet. I had to sit and watch the rest of the table eat. My granddaughter had sausages (2) beans and chips,. It looks so unappetising. She said the sausages tasted weird and were really hard. I told her to leave them. When they collected the plates I complained about the sausages but no apology Two sandwiches, one child's sausage meal and 4 drinks were over £30. What a rip off Will never set food in the place again

Having made our plant purchases we had intended to have tea and cake, but we were wooed by the lunch menu and had a panini (him) and a mushroom and blue cheese toastie (me) with a portion of sweet potato chips to share, we had a lovely sunny window table and the food was well presented, and very yummy. The staff were friendly and helpful. Really enjoyed it, and had a sunny walk around the display garden afterwards too.Cannot go too often because of the danger of too many plant purchases from the great adjoining nursery (!) but we will return soon as the cakes looked good too.

Visited the garden centre and decided to have lunch. Steak and Ale Pie with chips and peas. Well cooked and good taste. Service excellent. Plenty of seats.

Good but could be excellent. Service needs looking at - slow, not good customer service, I mean - if you see me then acknowledge me! Food was good, drinks were good though not cheap. I would come again but only if I had both time and money on my hands.

Called in one weekend and was pleasantly surprised. I had a nice panini and my wife had the jacket potato, complete with coleslaw and crisps. We also had the milkshakes but not the best I have had, would definetly go again.

A real shame the food doesn’t match the improvements made on the old conservatory. Food was overpriced for the quality and cooked terribly. Sausages were burnt so we asked for new ones. Cheap sausages, fish fingers and fish and chips - all tasted like they were from Iceland. Soup wasn’t eaten as it tasted bitter and awful. Milkshakes were ok but a ridiculous price for what they were. Had cake here before and they have to be bought in as they are really nice but we will definitely not be returning for anything else. It could be so much better and is disappointing especially due to the money spent on the improvements to the building

We had visited the old tea rooms. The conservatory was always too hot to eat in. Food was always excellent. Travelled twice to go for coffee it was closed for rebuild. Have been back 4 times since rebuild. Gosh we did not think the food could be better than previous visits. Choice is excellent menu plus a specials board. Drinks are always hot particularly lattes. If hot sunny day lovely patio and garden to sit outside. Service at the till is excellent. Staff very helpful and friendly. Definitely worth a visit. The little garden and gift centre are worth a visit. Friendly helpful staff at garden centre. A lovely afternoon out.

The girl who I presume runs this place is lovely, polite, friendly. We booked a table of 6 for afternoon tea. Table wasn’t ready. Added 2 chairs to a dirty table of 4. Didn’t clean table. No placemats for 2 of us. Brought afternoon tea straight out - waited to order drinks. Drinks eventually arrived and were fine. Sandwiches were ok - bread bit crusty as they had obviously been left out. Ham was packet ham. Cakes were obviously out of a packet, fine I suppose. Scones were nice. Had to ask for plates as well as cutlery. It’s such a shame really. The girl is nice. Not convinced about the customer service from the staff they had in today. This place could be an absolute gem but the quality of food and service lets it down. Real shame.

Thought we'd pop in and treat ourselves to lunch in the new tearoom. Regular and loyal customers of the plant sales and cannot fault that side of the business. However, the service and length it took for a toasted panini to be served was ridiculous! 45 minutes and I genuinely think they forgotten our order and we had to remind them. We weren't the only table that we having issues either. Another couple up and left after getting a refund. Staff didn't care and no apology was given when the food finally arrived. Seriously how long does it take to toast a panini? Such a shame as the new building is lovely. Just up the attention to detail and service!

This is a newly built cafe in the grounds of a lovely garden centre, but sadly the quality of the food and the service lets the cafe down. Despite deliberately avoiding the busy lunch period, we still had to wait quite a while for our food, there appears to be no urgency to deliver the food to the table. The cafe is well decorated and clean but the service is so slow. Today we ordered a fish finger sandwich, which consisted of only 3 fairly tasteless fish fingers... given they cost around 10p per fish finger it wouldn't have hurt to put another fish finger in to fill the bread. It was like eating a bread sandwich with a hint of fish ! This was the first time I had seen brown fish inside a fish finger and after closer inspection we decided not to finish our meal. During our meal no member of staff asked if we were enjoying our food, this may have given us the opportunity to give our feedback, but instead we convinced ourselves that nothing would have been achieved by making a scene, so we opted to leave, doubt we will be returning whilst the food and service is this disappointing.

we took mother to this place to have lunch, the service was slow half an hour for jacket potatoes and then the one was wrong so my wife had to wait again.The Chairs were freezing needed a cushion on them the menu was limiting and the quality of the chilli was 2nd rate

The service and food are always great... Had tea and the most amazing cake... all handmade and so, so tasty and fresh... Love the place...

This tearoom has lots of potential but unfortunately little things let it down. It is outdated and a little dirty inside, the tables don't look inviting and were not the cleanest. The lady who took our order was polite and the food and drinks did come in good time, however it wasn't very exciting when it did come. The sausage sandwiches had hardly any sausages in them (about 1 and a half per sandwich) so more bread than anything. The salad garnish that was with my panini was wilted and horrible, the panini itself was ok but not great. Such a shame as it's in a lovely spot but I won't be returning.

I really didn't want to have to write a bad review. I have in the past enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere and food. But after our lunch today I have to say something.

Excellent tearoom with lovely gardens. Nice menu with lovingly prepared homemade food. The adjoining garden centre is fantastic too. Special mention for Carol who is very knowledgable and helpful.

Stopped off here for lunch today with my mom, and was very impressed.

Went for lunch with some friends. 2 of us ordered bacon brie and cranberry panini. Looked filling however only 1 slice of bacon which only filled half the bread and the brie could have been sliced thinner so that it filled the bread. Spoke to the waitress and she said 1 slice of bacon per sandwich so I suggested smaller bread and asked for discount. I didn't get any even though I left half of it. It cost £5. I found the wsitress rude like a smiling knife. I shall not go back

We visited the tea rooms today Sunday the 26th April whilst on our way to Shrewsbury.

Best cake I can honestly say I have ever had... Homemade and delightful... I would highly recommend the place

Had two all day breakfasts, cooked fresh to order and with very good local ingredients. Very friendly service and good coffee too. Didn't try a cake but they looked amazing. Would recommend and will return.

Went here to meet up with friends who live locally. They had a great selection of homemade cakes. All cakes made onsite and with local ingredients.

Went here on 27th May (bank holiday monday) to take my mother for lunch .Arrived about 1.30 and took the only table left inside. The lady in charge was just clearing it and said she'd be back in a minute for our order. We waited and waited and noticed that other customers coming in after us were ordering at the counter and therefore taking precedence so we then did the same. Was 1.45 by then. Could see it was busy but most people just seemed to be eating tea and cakes - nothing was said about how long the food would take. We ordered 3 main meals and 3 cups of tea. The tea finally came after 15 mins and we noticed that hardly anybody who ordered food from the kitchen was getting it. My husband eventually got his jacket potoato at about 2.35 but nothing else came. When he'd finished it he went to the counter to ask about the other 2 meals and after another delay they brought them out but 1 was wrong - ham instead of fish pie and the waitress seemed to be wandering all over the tea room with the plates before coming to us. We eventually did get the order after sitting there for 1 1/4 hours. The food was OK but only that - my mother had chicken pie which she said was nice but could have done with some gravy as meal was too dry. The fish pie had hardly any fish in it but a huge bone and a slice of egg instead and again was dry and although topped with potato came with more potatoes and cabbage and carrots neither of which are suitable veg to serve with fish pie and made it difficult to eat as again was too dry. We saw several people walk out and get wrong orders. Such a shame as we've been here before and it has never been this disorganised. We left feeling really annoyed by the whole experience.

my partner and i went to Oakgate for something to do this sunny Sunday, and got there at around 2pm, thinking we had hopefully just about missed the lunchtime rush. we ordered drinks, a jacket potato, and a sandwich and took our seats. we started to notice a couple of tables around us murmuring about their food taking a whole hour to arrive, and about half an hour into our OWN sitting, there was a couple who walked up and cancelled after waiting over an hour and a half! the staff were very abrupt with him, considering he wasn't shouting off and even offered to pay for the drinks they had.

We booked in for this special meal to take Mum. Not sure what to expect!

An enterprising tearoom north of Shrewsbury worth a trip out to - home made cakes (serving size quite generous and wellpriced) that are really good. Friendly staff, nice surroundings and extras such as a monthly newsletter and charity bookshelf.