Wisley Café in Guildford

My husband and I stopped for a coffee before going round the gardens after a 2 hour drive up from Dorset. The cafe was not over busy but the complete disorganisation behind the counter was soon causing problems and customers ,including myself ,were being served out of order. When my order was eventually dealt with I was served 2 Americanos when I had ordered 2 Lattes. My scones and butter had been completely forgotten and I had to repeat the order again. Customers were getting so frustrated that they were making suggestions to the staff on how they could better organise themselves. I have to say that when they eventually arrived the coffee and scones were very good.

Well I've been here again and this time, yes, they had scones! On their counter was a notice for cream teas. One scone, jam, Cornish clotted cream. Imagine then my surprise when going to pay at the till that TEA was not included! They must be the only place in the UK to market a cream tea without the tea! Totally crazy.

4.00 pm 15th May. Just time for tea and scones. Not here! nothing left and anything that is, being cleared away. It was the same last year. They simply can't provide a service. Go to nearby Ripley where there are 4 decent tea shops and coffee houses.

I ordered a roasted vegetable panini thinking it was going to be toasted, only to find that the cafe don't "toast these particular ones" so I tried to eat it at the table and could only manage three bites. It was just so dry and bland. Took it home, added some cheese and ham and popped under the grill and it was transformed. It only takes about 2 minutes to grill making the bread nice and crusty and the filling lovely and warm, so not sure why it's so hard for them to do that instead of offering them as just dry and chewy. Also, the panini cost almost £7!

I wish I had read the reviews before I purchased food from this café. The quality was terrible. I arrived at lunch with my toddler, who was sleeping at the time. I got a sausage bap and a cookie for my toddler, which were both stale and days old. I didn't realise this until later when he woke up and I gave him his lunch in the garden, but the roll was so old that you could break someone's head with it. I only gave him the sausages which were also very dry. I wish I would have taken the cookie and the roll back to them to show how old and dry they were. If you go there, please only purchase the packed food and not anything that is supposed to be fresh at it was far from it. I was very disappointed as the garden is so lovely and this made our experience a bit more sour. To be fair I did have a packed toastie which was nice, and I noticed a lot of people going for the soup of the day and they seemed pleased. However the food I got for my son was inedible which is why I am giving this review. So the cafe needs to keep on checking the quality of the food that is supposed to be fresh.

Nice coffees, although quite expensive. They provided decaf Americano instead of the usual 'oh we've only got instant for decaf' which we encounter in most cafes! Quick service but a bit of a queue was forming as we were leaving at 10am.

Lovely gardens but outrageous prices in the cafe. £8.50 for a slice of quiche. £10 for soup and bread! Couldn’t believe how expensive it is now but won’t be eating here

Absolutely chaotic service. Queues everywhere a meagre selection of sandwiches and hot meals, some lurid looking cakes and biscuits. The most ridiculous ordering system for hot drinks where you had to wait for about ten minutes for the number on your receipt to appear on a screen or be called out by the poor harassed serving staff who were rushed off their feet . The food was overpriced and indifferent and the tea was nothing special. World food cafe ? Really? Very disappointing!

Had lunch in Wisleys World Cafe. A confusing ordering and payment system. Much queueing both before ordering and after paying - when customers are asked to wait for their orders to appear. My order announced on the screen that it was there for collection. But it wasn't! The order then vanished from the screen. I had to complain in an assertive but non-aggressive manner - I was then told the screen wasn't working. When we eventually got our lunch it was poor quality and very expensive. I wouldn't eat here again.

Terrible cafe service for an RHS garden.Paper cups, inedible scones, untidy service points. In the lunch cafe, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling over the tables. Tables not cleaned. Mediocre food. I will cease my membership of RHS Wisley until this improves and go to Kew.

The food in the café has deteriorated year on year and has now reached the worst I have ever seen it. I was charged £9.45 for a baked sweet potato and tuna, no salad, no coleslaw and the amount of tuna was miserable. Once in the garden there is little alternative so if you don’t pre plan you are stuck. The RHS are allowing the café to exploit and abuse its members. I am appalled.

My second visit to the cafe in the last few weeks, having just purchased RHS membership. Once the weather improves I will be bringing a picnic. What an absolute horror show of a place. Ludicrously expensive for a cafe with paper plates and cups, served by obviously unmotivated and stressed staff. Dry cake, average hot chocolate. My visit a few weeks ago was at lunchtime when the choices were poor, hardly any sandwiches, and what they had was overpriced and eaten out the packet, not even served on a plate with a token salad. I suppose the yummy mummies and OAP wax jacketers who frequent the place are happy with it, but for normal people just after a sandwich or a cake and hot drink, it's a shocker. I won't bother again.

Terrible cafe, service awful and overpriced. So disappointing. The cafes here used to serve delicious, high quality food. What happened?

At 2.30pm on a Sunday looking for a nice family coffee and cake, imagine our disappointment to find that coffee are dispensed by a generic machine, only choice of cake was carrot or shortbread, cafe operated by two 16 year olds who needed support, and an array of dirty uncleared tables. The cafe is operated separately from the main shop, which is full of gorgeous things, and badly let’s down the whole wisely experience.

Had a choice of salads and they were not nice. There was a choice of two tomato salads, they tasted the same, both watery. Bought a big biscuit which was horrible too.

There was a small queue as we waited to order, but that was fine. our hot drinks came quite quickly and there were plenty of tables to sit and enjoy them. We loved sitting in an outdoor nook at the top of the gardens

This is a relatively new facility but needs someone experienced in queues to manage. There is a combination of hot and cold food but for many meals you have to take your selection to the counter to be heated. There follows a long queue that is disorganised so that it blocks access of others to the food. The selection of meals is poor and the sandwiches ran out at lunchtime. However you can eat outside in the garden watching the gardeners at work.

Came here expecting there to be. Nice quality cafe finally. Wisely cafe was always overpriced and poor quality dated food. Well nothings changed hot drinks are worse than greggs cafe, food was of poor quality and standard, and it all overpriced and expensive. They need to have better cakes and cookies not rock hard. No one comes back. Not hard to get right in todays day and age.

A disappointing experience. Coffee had strange taste, hot chocolate not very hot, rock cakes so hard and dry they could have used in the garden. Flowline chaotic. Milk at far end of counter from tea collection point. No saucer nor implement to retrieve and squeeze tea bag. Cutlery back by entrance so have to negotiate queue and incoming visitors With drinks tray to collect any required. A poor start to the wonderful garden.

We ordered a flat white and a hot chocolate. Both arrived in disposable cups. Hardly green ! Both drinks were barely warm. I had to ask for mine to be heated up. It came back hot but I didn’t drink it. It was watery, not made with milk. Very disappointing. Not the hot chocolate I expected. We won’t return!

It’s actually so awful it’s laughable. An egg and cress sandwich is nearly £5. The potato and leek soup today was like eating salt soup. It was so salty I felt I was going to get a heart attack! Therefore didn’t finish. 2 teas, 2 soups and 1 sausage roll came to about £20. Cashier was abrupt. Choices super limited. And not environmentally friendly as disposable soup bowls, cups, cutlery were used instead of proper crockery and cutlery. Don’t even bother eating there. Drive 1.5 mile to the Anchor and get proper food.

Food and staff excellent - but, main ingredients verging on the ridiculously small. Sweet Potato Coconut Curry £8.50 - excellent flavour, just two or three small chunks of sweet potato. ( also not enough protein ) Avocado Salsa Nachos £8.50 - great flavour, however one eighth of a single avocado included in the dish.

We made a special trip to Wisley to purchase spring bulbs, and decided to start with a coffee and cake in the Wisley Café. Big mistake. There were just four people in the queue, but it wasn't moving; We must have waited 15/20 minutes to...

Our first visit to the cafe and defiantly our last. Should have taken note of lacq of customers during school holidays, but didn’t. Bottled water was over £2 and £2.40 for a can of coke or sanpelligrino. I ordered a flat white coffee at £3.40...

We’ve been here a few times so feel we can write a balanced and fair review. The choice is limited. The staff are quite slow so queues build up. The food is expensive for what it is. Why sell bottled water in a place that...

The cafe is very pricey and not particularly good. We went on the spur of the moment to Wisley one day so didn't pack a picnic. The service is slow, there is not a great selection to choose from and the egg sandwich I choose...

Too expensive. Nothing worth eating or drinking. Rip off of all the people. Like many other places gives the RHS a really bad image. World food nothing to do with world food The only thing worth eating and drinking is the child's sandwich at about...

Very busy, long queues, we went to the hilltop cafe at RHS Wisley. Not much selection 2 different baguettes, a few cakes, 2 main meals. All self service, we ate outside, all indoor seating was taken at the time. Plenty of tables outside and large...

To be honest the food quality is very good but you are paying premium prices, so quality should be a given, however the service is abysmal and the choices are limited. Bring your own, it will definitely be cheaper and just as good.

Went to the new building at Wisley for a coffee and cafe quite busy all the trays seem to be wet after cleaning. Had Two coffees and two brownies over £13 very expensive considering the cakes where on paper plates and paper mugs that price...

This is a new building so when visiting RHS Wisley gave it a visit on a busy Saturday lunchtime. It has inside and outside seating and a fun river the small children were enjoying. Long long queue to choose from limited expensive sandwich and toastie...

clean and tidy , but pricey as egg and cress sandwich £4.50 , was granary bread but I think there should be cheaper options as if family feeding would work out at least £18 for 4 sandwiches !

We both had caramelised onion and cheese toasties. It had an abundance of onion and very little cheese and barely toasted. Hope this isn't normal standard!

Ordered Americano coffee and received something that was so weak it could have been anything. As I had specifically mentioned that on two previous visits the coffee had not been great, I foolishly harboured a degree of optimism that sadly was not warranted. Secondly, the...

We visited Wisley this morning with snow falling lightly... Very quiet in the gardens. Wonderful to see Wisley with so few people there ! Went for coffee at the cafe. Just bought coffee as the cakes seemed over priced and we had to take our...

Great to sit outside in sunny weather and enjoy a coffee. These were well presented in cups and lids that can both be recycled.

It was a popular day - warm sun - enjoyable to sit outside and have a coffee from the cafe. BUT sadly, no iced tea. And furthermore, the metal seating leaves ridges on your posterior! But the coffee was very hot and good.

Visiting RHS Wisley, thought we'd start off with a coffe. Gave up when we couldn't even get a seat. Also, the offerings looked bland and boring, as well as being overpriced.

Lunch yesterday only a snack and fancied jacket potatoes First restaurant by entrance busy so moved to main cafe where plenty of room but sadly not doing jacket potatoes, seemed to be either sandwich’s or proper meals? Went onto glasshouse cafe as told jackets served...

Provides selection of sandwiches, cakes, savouries and hot drinks, bit pricey, but sandwiches well filled. Indoor and outdoor seating available.

We visited this cafe on Jan 1st 2020 but unfortunately the rest of South of England decided to arrive here on the cold day but that didn't deter the visitors and their children and grandchildren it was packed with queues. But it was good experience...

My friend and I visited the Wisley Cafe on the 2nd January as I had not seen the RHS refurbishment. We sat at a table for two but had to move as we were subjected to a blast of cold air every time the automatic...

We enjoyed fresh food and drinks at reasonable prices in a light airy atmosphere. There is a lovely courtyard area where plenty of people were sitting out, in spite of the slightly cool day.

Went here today with my inlaws and really impressive cafe and good choices of sandwiches . Latte was made how I asked for it and staff were really lovely and friendly. Lunch queue was not bad at all as we were served quickly

This cafe is far larger than the previous one with lots of seating inside and out and 2 queues for service. We had coffees and cake which were very good.

The cafe is part of the elegant, attractive and modern new entrance, shop and cafe complex at RHS Wisley. We only had coffees and that was OK and prices reasonable at £1.95 for filter and £2.90 for Cappuccino. Cakes etc were limited and expensive, around...

Much larger than the old cafe at the entrance and plenty of seating. Coffee nice but slow. The flow to move customers on to the pick up area was not very clear and one buggy made it difficult to get out of the pick up...

Conveniently near the entrance, so visitors can use this without going into the gardens proper. Having travelled several hours to get here, we needed a break, so a coffee, a sandwich and some crisps were welcome, all ok but little change from £20.

Stopped mid-morning and plenty of outside seating. They could have more shade/umbrellas in sunny weather. Limited food and drink selection. Service was ok, nothing special.

Stood for 15 minutes in a queue for a coffee. Folk gave up and walked off. What happened to cups and saucers - do not want half a pint of coffee in a mug.

We started our visit with a cuppa, salad and carrot cake. Very nice, no complaints and plenty of seating. The price was average so no nasty surprises lol! Free wifi which was easy to get on, no registering or passwords etc.

There is a new loyalty card for coffees - buy 9 and get the 10th free. I now keep the loyalty card with the membership card. The coffee was lovely and quickly prepared ( unlike the restaurant earlier). There were plenty of tables and chairs....

This place is excellent, the food was fresh and the coffee good. There was a queue but not for long and the staff were patient and friendly.

We stopped for lunch Monday and the service was really slow and frustrating even though the queue was short. Another member of staff is essential.