Poplar Nurseries 'Thyme Out' Restaurant, in Colchester - Phone Number, Reservations, Reviews

Lots of stuff to see, buy and eat.

Great selection of plants, garden tools, lights and more. Also the cafe has some great food. We tried the tomato and basil soup which was yummy.

Nice place to browse around. But the amount of their hot chocolate drink in the cafe barely filled the cup to half way.

Pleasant and helpful staff. Excellent range of plants and shrubs. Gardening tols, etc Plus restaurant , train rides for everyone and food hall.

Superb experience,.great shopping and excellent cuisine

We had a lovely meal in the restaurant before buying some plants. Good selection and variety of plants and lots of other gardening goodies.

I always really enjoy coming here. Mainly for the huge selection of cake! The restaurant is nice and spacious which is great as I'm usually with a pushchair. There's ample highchairs. The staff are friendly and helpful. There's a good selection on the menu ranging from lite bites to bigger meals. The menu also changes with the seasons and there's a specials board so there's constantly different offerings. I find it a tad on the expensive side however I've always found the portion sizes to be generous therefore cancelling out the extra cost. I like the setting and have always felt comfortable bringing my little one. It can get very busy so I'd recommend booking. Most recently I had the burger and my husband the fish and chips, both were delicious and we realised it's possible to use a tastecard here (must pre book) which made it exceptionally good value for money.

One of the best garden centres in my area,great food as well 👌

I used Poplar Nurseries Food Hall’s outside catering department for a family celebration last weekend. They were superb. Mandy who runs the Food Hall was super helpful in giving me menu ideas and tasters. Lynne, the Head Chef and her team did an excellent job. For the first day of the weekend they provided a buffet lunch of quiche and frittatas and for the evening, chicken and vegetarian tagine with strawberry cheesecake and chocolate brownies. On the Saturday night we hired their young Chef, Chris to cook our BBQ. Lynne and her team provided locally sourced beef burgers, sausages together with the bread rolls, vegetarian and chicken skewers and a side dish of vegetable couscous. They also made a beautiful carrot cake as the celebration cake, duly decorated for the occasion. Chris the Chef was excellent and cooked everything perfectly. He was so pleasant and fun and even watched some of the Euros with us while waiting for the barbie to heat up. On the Sunday evening we enjoyed a delicious Fish platter, again provided by the Food Hall. So I’d like to say a huge thank you to Mandy, Lynne, Chris and the team for making our weekend so special. My family came from the Midlands, Ireland, Australia and the US so you can imagine the pressure I was under to impress. Boy did Poplar Food Hall and their wonderful team deliver!

Really great garden centre, just allow yourself plenty of time before closing time, because even if you have hundreds or thousands of £'s of plants in your trolley they will usher you towards the tills quickly by 16:50 which is a shame because it's my only negative point. The good ones, plants healthy, prices reasonable on most things, you'll pick a few rarer plants up, house plants are great most visits as they offer different to the boring standard as well. If you are traveling from distance like me, I'd recommend traveling early incase you get caught in traffic like I did so you have loads of time to buy before closing

Great place for all your garden needs.... Lovely to just have a walk around. The food is fantastic.

Such a lovely place for lunch and a wander around the nursery and shop

Never seems to disappoint. Xmas area is great for the kids and a great range is available.

Been to popular restaurant many times before and enjoyed the meal. Breakfast or lunch and it’s always been worth the money BUT 29/6/23 the breakfast put us off going again. Two full English breakfasts both came, one with tomato and one without. Both came swimming in cooking oil, you lifted the bacon from the plate and watched the oil dripping from it. Eggs over cooked and toast burnt to the point it wasn’t edible. Oh dear popular what has happened ? Would we…….. Definitely not.

Loved it. Loads of well kept plants. Everything for the garden, as well as gifts, garden furniture and home decor. The food is delicious and with 10% discount on a Wednesday for the more mature it is an even tastier treat. Well worth a visit.

Awesome selection of things garden. Little cafe there with nice quality food. Plenty of parking.

Everything is geared up for the current situation. Staff well trained and ensuring the 2 metre rule is adhered to. Still plenty on offer throughout the shop/nursery but obviously still no restaurant. Everything is back to something like normality. A great range of products and plants available.

Huge garden centre, their food hall is bigger than a lot of shops.

Love going here. Great selection of plants.

Poplar Nurseries is a very large garden centre, with all the normal stuff for sale but lots of it. The items we reviewed didn't look too expensive, the staff we spoke to were all helpful and friendly. There is a tea room, again great selection and good prices. There is a little train for the youngest and you test at heart. Plenty of parking Well worth a visit

Highly recommend the afternoon tea it is truly scrumptious. Fantastic value for money Sandwiches were so fresh and flavourful and the scones and different cake selection were lovely With a very decent pot of tea as well

My family and I had a lovely afternoon looking around and buying lots of beautiful plants and a gorgeous water feature. To complete our outing out we had a fish and chip lunch and wow, what gorgeous food! Of course we went back a little later for a piece of cake and wow again! Definitely recommend. Well done to all of you....a wonderful place to visit! Thank u

Great selection of plants and a great restaurant 👌

Great range of plants and the other things you can buy at nurseries these days. Grandson enjoyed the train ride and the cafe food was good.

Always worth a walk round even if your not really buying becouse you will by the time you walk out

Excellent variety of plants,trees & shrubs. Good restaurant and farm shop. Good couple of hours!!

Wonderful garden centre. Shame they don’t allow dogs like so many other of the best garden centres do.

Well stocked garden centre with a large range of products, a quaint little ride-on-train for kids and adults alike and a lovely cafe with plenty of seating inside and out.

I really rate this place, it’s one of these modern garden centres that is so much more than pot plants and compost…. There’s food, a huge shop, a cafe and even a miniature railway…. Not to mention a mega BBQ showroom. A day out almost! 😂

Give yourself plenty of time when you visit , so much to look at. Very nice cafe/restaurant. The service was quick and efficient with good food being served and the English Breakfast being very popular although personally I think £9,99 for a sandwich or a jacket potato is a bit steep. Overall a very pleasant experience, a nice place to meet up with family/friends. Miniature Railway was popular and kept the small children entertained.

Had an amazing Roast beef dinner in this restaurant. Lovely fresh vegetables, great roast potatoes and more beef than I have had anywhere! Great Yorkshire pudding and tasty gravy....very generous portions. Staff all very smiley and helpful. Would recommend highly.

Best plants in essex just so disappointing the cafe stops serving food so early 😖 Think your missing a trick really especially on a Saturday.

Freindly staff Quick unloading plenty of room in yard..👍

Great range of citrus plants and garden furniture - also has a lovely restaurant!

Went for lunch. Had fish and chips. Batter was not cooked thoroughly, which meant fish not cooked enough. Very disappointed.

This place needs to decide if its a cafe or a restaurant. Despite having at least 6 people behind the counter (1 of whom was the cashier), there was nobody to take our food order because they were all too busy delivering food to tables. We got fed up of waiting, and left.

Great nursery to visit, everything you could need for your garden. Popped into cafe today, coffee and sausage sandwich, definitely go again.

Amazing selection of good quality plants, brilliant gift shop, lovely cafe well worth a visit

I take my elderly parents out each week & often we go to garden centres as plenty to look at, but the restaurant here always has no scones left! Whether it’s because we tend to visit after midday but they always tell me that they have all gone already. Surely if they are that popular they would cook more, I ask them if they could possibly make some more as with a kitchen on the premises it wouldn’t take long. Such a shame as it’s a lovely garden centre & cream tea readily available would be perfect. Now we have to go elsewhere if it’s a cream tea in the afternoon that we want.

Well stocked place and a nice café with cakes. Shame they don't do a loyalty card. Please keep asking the servers about loyalty cards. If the management read this, can they consider putting heaters up for outside seating,as some of us are vulnerable to infections.

We had the Cauliflower cheese and Chive tart. It was not great all we could taste was egg and what happened to the cheese and chives and cauliower. Very poor and will not have it again .

Love it here never manage to visit for a browse always get tempted to buy. Picked up a lovely planter for mum for mother's day. And a couple of bits for Easter

Very clean and tidy! Staff were helpful and friendly

We bought a fresh made chicken and vegetable pie from the food hall. It was delicious. I could not praise enough. Just wish we lived closer.

Really lovely garden centre and the food hall was brilliant. So much variety. Their cafe was really nice. Food great and reasonably priced.

One of the better garden nursery around : excellent restaurant : large garden accessory area with everything required: large outdoor space with plants bushes pots etc This year's Christmas display large and colourful : Another fantastic Christmas display this year ( 2023 ) And then the food hall some good things to be had

Good variety of plants and ideas for Mothering Sunday gifts!

Very nice garden centre. Lovely restaurant. Wonderful delicatessen but wait for your inheritance to come through before going in!! Some really lovely products to purchase. You could always offer a kidney in exchange I suppose? But definitely worth the visit and plenty of parking. All on one level so easy for wheelchairs. Staff are friendly and helpful. Lots of products on offer in the garden centre which is nice to see. As said, definitely worth a visit.

Lovely Garden Centre and even better restaurant. Would highly recommend the afternoon tea.

I’m new about gardening and knowledge is very limited. We went to Poplar Nurseries because some of my plants have problems. The plant advice name Shaz. She is very nice staff and gave me some advice about the plants. I greatly appreciated her explanation and advice.

Lovely place to visit, staff very friendly and a pleasant experience, the cafe is good value. Shame the train wasn't running today. Have been quite a few times always a pleasant visit.

Love everything about this place, best garden centre without a doubt!

Loads of great stuff, love the food hall.

Lovely garden centre, lots of parking, good cafe with plenty of seating and choice and highchairs

This review relates just to the restaurant of the garden centre. Any establishment that does chicken burger and chips need to send their staff here to see how it should be done. Supremely moist chicken breasts (yes, plural) in a very good crumb coating, cooked to perfection and served with the best chunky chips you'll find anywhere.

Good restaurant. Love their Guinness cake.

Great place to meet santa.well done, guys.

Christmas visit. Wonderful displays, miniature train ride perfect to keep the kids entertained. Quite pricey across all areas.

Great but very busy this time of year but to be expected

I've always been a fan but found the stock unexpectedly uninspiring and sadly overpriced. An item you'd expect to be 3 or 4 pounds was 8!

Lovely place. Easy to spend lots of money though! Restaurant amazing!

15 years I work there! & I love it 🤩 wonderful Job! I’m still there. That why I never give up that Jobs ❤️

Love it there the Christmas decorations are amazing and food in the restaurant is delicious 😋

Food was fantastic love the food Hall too Christmas Dec's amazing

Fantastic garden centre and excellent Christmas decorations

Good Size Nursery with plenty of choice. Has large Garden Centre. Lots of Garden Furniture and BBQs and currently (Late November 2023) a large Christmas Area with lots of Christmas Trees (both Plastic and Real) The outdoor Nursery Area has a Mini Train that can be taken round a small area of the grounds. There.is also a small cafe onsite as well. Plenty of parking is available.

Asked for a gluten free cake, what I got made me ill Will not go there again

Very frustrating experience! Took our family for lunch and to buy our decorations. We waited nearly two hours for our meal. Then, as soon we’re done our daughter Has a ride on the train (crazy price for around a minute ride) and then we head for the shop. As soon as we reach the decorations we’re told we have 15 minutes to get out! So we rushed about, no time to look at what we’d traveled for (nearly an hour)! Queued for the non-Christmas items, only be told they don’t accept cash!!! What a horrible and rushed experience, which is a shame as it could have been nice. Clearly they want your money, then want you to P off as quickly as possible. I prefer to support local rather than Amazon - looks like they’ll be getting our money this year. We won’t be back.

The kids lived visiting here at Christmas, seeing all the decorations and jumping on the train

Great day out. The Christmas lights display was amazing .

Great atmosphere and lovely food

Loved it here great selection of everything 👌

Absolutely gorgeous place Really do feel very festive after our visit It looks absolutely fabulous & christmassy Also had coffee and cheese scone in the cafe which was delicious and very reasonably priced Will definitely be visiting again soon..

Cafe is lovely and the food is great. The Christmas section is really festive. There is a train ride out in the garden section. Lovely family day out

Lovely garden centre cafe ok/ cakes great coffee arrived tepid

Such a lovely place to visit,in a great part of our wonderful county of Essex,huge range of plants and garden accessories, and the interior decorations are all very classy,,myself and my girlfriend particularly enjoy how they have set out there jelly cat selection,,

Fantastic place, the miniature railway. Decorated for Halloween and very good value for money. Lunch in the restaurant. Food well presented. The children's activity lunch is good value. There's a bit of a wait for cooked food. Try the honey glazed ham and Cheese Sandwich, the filling is generous. As for all the cakes you'd be spoilt for choice

Extensive choice for a garden center. Polite staff. I bought some travel hard cherry sweets and a seltzer for the journey home. Fast and efficient service.

I found it expensive and the Christmas display is not the best they have done.

Great variety of plants, accessories, gifts and Christmas gifts. Cafe always good, with good service.

Came to this place for a mowtown weekend staff were friendly and rooms were nice but. Drinks were very expensive my partner had a beer and I had wine and it cost £17 that was disgusting so we want be going back there

my partner and I visited Poplar Nurseries for Sunday Roast today we had read

Lovely centre for food & plants.

Lovely place for coffee and cake, or lunch. Rather busy, but worth the wait. Beautiful flowers etc

Lovely place for plants and lunch. Really nice food and reasonably priced. Good day out

Great experience, came here for the gift section and stopped by the flowers and café. Allergy friendly is a massive win for us with a good selection! Happy, helpful and friendly staff.

Excellent stock of all plan 9t types. Family friendly and a good atmosphere. More like a day out than a trip to the garden centre.

Found on line and went to the farm shop today for the first time and would recommend to anyone and will be back soon

Lovely garden centre covering all manner of needs, the center has a lovely clean restaurant and restroom.

Good coffee and great selection of cakes

It's a bit blah I rambert it when there was so much more over there

Have visited the Thyme Out restaurant many times in the past with no problems regarding the food and service. This time however was different! On 30th. August we sat at table number 13 (unlucky for some, especially for us!!). We ordered two coffees, pot of tea for one, prawn mayo sandwich, egg mayo sandwich, chips and chicken pesto jacket potato. After waiting 40 minutes all the food and drinks were served and, whilst no problem with the coffees and chips, everything else was a sham. The pot of tea was luke-warm, the jacket potato was the size of a tennis ball, the egg mayo sandwich tasteless and only enough for a 5 year old, the prawn mayo sandwich again not enough for an adult and the 'salad' items to accompany all the dishes was not fresh and quite tasteless. For the sandwiches we asked for brown bread but got white instead and no butter was served with the jacket potato. We did not complain at the time because the staff were very busy and did not want to do so there and then to upset the staff because they were working very hard in a busy customer environment. Also, we would have had to wait another 40 minutes for the sandwiches to be re-prepared with brown bread instead of tasteless unfresh white with uneatable crusts. At a cost of nearly £38 this was poor food lacking in quality and quantity and coupled with poor presentation and service. Why we got childs portions that for the most were tasteless and unedible, I would like to know why! Standards have fallen very low at this restaurant and more needs to be done to bring things up to what people expect to avoid really poor value for money. We all know how more expensive it is to eat out these days, but accepting what was put on our plates that day and having to pay nearly £38 was an insult to our intelligence. In hindsight, I should have said something at the time so as to get a part refund. David in Stanway.

One of the better garden centres in the area, shame the attention is moving over to the food side. Have now been travelling longer distances to get to more plant oriented garden centre. Much better plants and larger specimens for the same price.

Resturant brilliant, the garden shop and plants amazing

Always enjoy visiting here , the cafe food is always very tasty and the selection of plants in summer is great , in winter the Christmas display is epic

Very well stocked garden supplies shop. They have plants, seeds, tools, decorations, etc. Good amount of parking. The cafe on site also offers a good range of snacks and meals. There is a toy train to keep the young kids engaged.

Lovely friendly centre. Has a lovely and well stocked farm shop. I was impressed by the selection of gluten free items stocked here. Well worth a visit

They have nice stuff here and it’s not any more expensive than other garden centres so from that aspect the place is alright. The thing is, part of the joy of going to a garden centre is going for food in the adjoined cafeterias. I was appalled and felt so awkward by the really horrible attitude of the staff in the cafeteria. They acted like they did not want us to be there. Dirty looks, one word answers and basically just rude and so wrong. The waitress slammed our tray on the table, gave a sarcastic smile and stormed off. The customer in front of us at the till was being rather challenging so we assumed that perhaps these young ladies behind the till thought it was ok to take it out on us. As an aside, the person that was with me has crippling anxiety and fear of being around strangers. For the past few months she has been getting better and better but the way the cafeteria staff treated us has put her almost back to square one. If you’re going to train people how to do the job then please include warmth and kindness as part of the training process.

This was our first time eating here and the food was delicious with plenty of choice, will definitely be back.

Great place with an abundance of stock