Squires Garden Centre - Café Bars in Wokingham

Went in to get a spot of lunch around midday after a busy week away for family. Very warm welcome and quickly offered a table. It wasn’t busy in there but several tables were occupied. An extremely nice lady came and took our order with a few minutes and brought drinks out quite quickly. However, this was as good as it got. My wife could see the kitchen area from where she sat and after 10/15 minutes she could see what she thought was her order on the hot tray at the counter. After another 15/20 minutes we concluded it couldn’t be hers as it was still sat there. Eventually another plate arrived next to it, looked like my order. The waitress then brought both over to us - my wife’s had been sat there nearly 25 minutes!! I had a pie and mash dish; the pie was piping hot and tasted pretty good. The mash, I’m afraid was, at best, warm and the roast carrots were tasty but cold. My wife’s meal was little more than warm, the peas she had were cold and looked shrivelled and if a pea could look sad, these were very unhappy peas. I said we’d tell the lady but my wife said we’d waited 30/40 minutes already and she didn’t want to wait another half hour so we did the typically British thing and ate it. Probably our mistake, we should’ve sent it back and left. I’m not a fussy guy but simply ask for decent service, the same I would provide in any job I would do. We won’t be going back again. Disappointed to say the least.

Popped in here with my wife for a quick, Saturday lunchtime, bite to eat. We ordered a very simple sandwich each. The restaurant was approx 1/3 full, so by no means busy. But you’d have thought they were run off their feet - so bad was the service. We waited over 40 minutes for the 2 sandwiches to be delivered. After 30 mins we chased and were simply told - they’re on their way. No apology for the delay. The sandwiches arrived and still no “sorry for your wait” I went to pay the bill no “sorry about the service today” not even a “how was your meal today” Absolutely shocking - weve been here maybe 15 times over the past 4 or 5 years. We will not return. I suspect others have made the same decision based on the fact the place was 2/3 empty on a weekend lunchtime.

Terrible food , Welsh rarebit is not a scraping of cheese on untoasted bread !! Sent it back then they sent out toast with scraping of melted cheese salad was not fresh slimy rocket and charged 9.99 for that …awful

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have had a similar experience at this place but it will now be the last. After waiting some time for anyone to take our lunch order, although the place was not that busy, our food eventually came. The food was quite acceptable, but after finishing our meal, we were then completely ignored. Following several attempts to get someone to leave us a desert menu, we ordered our deserts. When our deserts arrived, our main course plates had still not been cleared from the table and the waitress tried to leave our deserts without clearing our table first until we objected, following which, she reluctantly took our used plates away. It is a pity because the food is of reasonable quality but it is clear to us that the staff, who on weekends at least, are mostly youngsters, are obviously not given sufficient and proper training. It is therefore not their fault and the failure lies fairly and squarely with the cafe management. When there are so many other competing garden centres within the locality, I am surprised that Squires believes this is acceptable service. We will certainly not be returning however, which means they will be missing out on our garden centre purchases also.

Comprehensive menu, ordered carrot and squash soup, nice fresh bread, welsh rarebit on chunky toast , bacon bits, lots of cheese, nice chips. Very tasty. 2 pots of tea. Food came quickly and hot. Place clean, busy, but not noisy. Average price, good value.

So let’s do the positives first. Went for lunch with my three autistic kids. We ordered 3 burgers, chicken bites and an egg mayo sandwich. The food itself was good quality and manager Liliana was friendly and accommodating given our special needs. What wasn’t so good was me having to ‘educate’ her staff about autistic children having to wait a long time for their food. I politely asked if they could take our order quickly to then be told there were tables waiting to order ahead of us. I patiently explained our situation to then get a ‘computer says no’ response. I had to insist on them getting the manager before the very nice Liliana took our order personally and the food arrived a short time after. The food, along with 3 diet cokes, came to more than £70. The burgers, while nice, were not worth £14.99 each. So all in all (and with thanks to Liliana) we won’t be returning.

I don’t know what has happened but I couldn’t eat it. I have had this other years and it was lovely but this year something changed. My choice of prawn cocktail was lack lustre comprising of minimal effort or ingredients; shredded lettuce a couple of tiny tomatoes halved, two pieces of celery, prawns and sauce. It was edible though. The main turkey dinner had very suspicious sliced turkey. I believe it was processed cooked reheated turkey that had been mechanically sliced with a putrid musty taste. It was vile. The dessert arrived with some vanilla ice cream that was full of ice crystals. We will find an alternative venue in 2025.

Shockingly terrible. Waited 45 minutes for food to come out. We ordered sausage and mash with peas and pie of the day with chips. The mash was instant mash, if not it’s unfortunate that someone can make mashed potato taste that awful and the sausages looked anemic and tasted as if they could have done with being cooked. As for the pie the outside crust was very hard and the inside dried up with plenty of space where the filling should go and the chips were soggy. Yuck

Went in with high expectations. Really disappointed….. Service was terrible, food took ages to come. We ordered a flatbread, a salad, a bottled water and a Cappuccino. The coffee was barely strong enough, there was no ice for the water, the flatbread was tiny, over toasted, so more like a wafer , and the Waitress dropped half of the bread on the table. To be fair, the sandwich filling and salad were as you may expect, but it was too small, and simply not good enough for £21.

I am lactose intolerant. I ordered coffee specifically with coconut milk. My friend wanted to order a gluten free cake. Non was available and when my coffee arrived I started to drink it and it was made with cows milk. Totally unacceptable. It made me ill

Great breakfast, very fast service, lovely staff in cafe, and outside, very good selection of goods, a lovely place to go. Went last year in may, still a great garden centre.

Sorry to say but this cafe is still struggling with organisational skills. Waiting staff wandering around in blinkers not being aware of customers needing attention to order or requesting their bill. Had to leave table twice to order another round of drinks and to request the bill. Paying by card gives you the option to leave a gratuity which sadly have to say there was no customer service.

Decided to go out for breakfast and our preferred choice is the Squires cafe in Wokingham. Got there early as we know how popular it is on a Friday. We love being able to choose from the selection to make your own breakfast and they added extra spinach to mine. Service was excellent as usual. Lovely to see familiar staff and to be greeted with a smile. The breakfasts were cooked to perfection- great sausages, perfect soft poached egg and crisp hash browns. It won’t be long before we go again.

This looks on arrival like a very stylish garden centre cafe but!! The layout is a bit odd as there is a long bar where you’d think you would travel along and get your order but no. You have to wait to be seated which I think just for a quick coffee is totally annoying and quite a lot of tables were reserved. Being stuck on the end of a long table and given a time limit isn’t great. We weren’t given a menu so after figuring out what the system was I went to request menus. There is a selection of cakes at the bar but they’re not listed on the menu so unless you’ve got very good eyesight you need to go to the bar to take a look. Our cakes arrived before our coffee and this seemed to be happening to other tables too. It seemed to me there was a shortage of staff which meant there was not always a member of staff at the entrance and so some customers were wandering around looking for a table and staff seemed to be doing a bit of everything. I was amazed when the waiter said that they’d been open for 3 years as I had assumed it was newly opened. In my opinion this cafe needs much better organisation.

Myself and 2 friends went to this Cafe yesterday for our Christmas Lunch. The meal was good and staff were very attentive and friendly. This cafe is freezing ! We ate our meal sitting in our coats as did 9 other people sitting around us. They cannot turn the heating up……..it’s the owners who regulate it. Do not go to this cafe if you feel the cold ! We have complained many times re this issue…….. nothing changes! 🥶