The Gardener's Retreat Restaurant in East Dorset

Three of us had lunch here today. The service was good and the food tasty and fresh. I was impressed that the coleslaw was freshly made. The furniture was very comfortable and the ambience was relaxed

I visited The Retreat Restaurant at The Gardeners Centre, off Magar Road, going towards Wimborne, today. it was very clean, tidy and the staff were very friendly and helpful. I visited with my mum, as we had a nice tuna mayonnaise baguette with side salad. The were very good by cutting it into two and placing it on two little plates for us, because my mum and i shared the baguette. We also had two coffees which was nice, however, they were cold after we had eaten, but i like mine not too hot anyway. There was loads of food on the menu to chase from and it was a very nice place to go for lunch. I will be going back sometime for another snack? i am Severely Blind and the access to the Restaurant was very good with double doors to go in and out, if somebody was in a Wheelchair and the Gardener Centre was also good for access, bu having disabled parking, accessible toilet, wide aisles and room in The Retreat Restaurant for wheelchairs to around and also sitting comfortably at the table. Thank you for the good service, hope to see you all soon? .

We took our 2 grandchildren here for lunch and we’re a bit disappointed. The staff were friendly and helpful, and social distancing and COVID precautions were all in place, that was all fine. I ordered a Wensleydale and Mango Chutney panini (I think that’s what it was called) which had very little cheese in it and lots of over-sweet Mango Chutney which I had to scrape out as it was like a heavy jam. I had hoped to have a Broccoli Bake, but they’d run out. The children’s chips were dry, and the sausages even worse, so dried out at the ends that they were almost biscuits! My husband’s burger was ok he said, not wow, but ok. I did see some nice looking plates of food going out, and I’d like to think that had we chosen something else we would have had a good meal. Sadly, we don’t feel like going back. Before the garden centre changed ownership we had enjoyed some great sandwich lunches there, so maybe we just caught them on a bad day.

We popped into the garden centre to buy some plants and were delighted to see that their Gardener's Retreat cafe is open. We were impressed that we had to fill in our contact details in case of Track & Trace need and comforted that the tables were well spaced and the staff religiously wearing visors and thoroughly cleaning tables as guests departed. Add to that that the coffee was very nice, as were their toasted teacakes. My only small gripe? With decent size teacakes, as these were, you really need more than two small butter packs!