Bea's of Bloomsbury

I've been visiting Bea's on my lunch breaks and for morning coffee ever since I started working nearby. I consider myself blessed to have such a lovely independent cafe that I can go to, rather than one of the usual chains. The thing I like best is that the menu changes all the time and there is always a new soup or salad or sandwich to keep things interesting. The cakes and other sweet things are gorgeous, if a little rich sometimes. I have only ever experienced grumpy service once or twice when they were busy. I would agree with Bea's comment below that their St Paul's shop is better suited to the full afternoon tea thing. Highly recommend if you are local!
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Harriet
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, April 18, 2012

i quite agree with all that is said in the last review. This place as a reputation that unfortunately it mo longer earns. They have taken their eye off the ball and think they are actually above their customers. Oh and the coffee... its nowhere up to the likes of St Ali up the road
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Em
2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Thursday, September 01, 2011

Huge dissapointment to be quite honest!! After reading lots of reviews i was quite excited to visit this exciting tea shop, heard the cakes were fabulous & also the atmosphere.

my take on it was, you enter the shop take a seat, there was no instructions on the table what we should be doing - should we read a menu, order at the counter, will someone come over- who knows!

so firstly not good customer service. after maybe 5 mins or so it was apparent no-one was going to come over so we went to the till, i ask the lady where is your menu - she didnt speak but pointed behind her to the mirror with a bit of a menu written on it.(not much choice at all). So i ordered a cupcake & tea & a herbal tea we wanted lunch but they didnt do anything other than afternoon tea. after the first impression we weren't prepared to spend £15 each on a few sandwiches & cakes. In the end the cupcake was a bit boring to be honest chocolate with pistachio, buttercream was gooey on a hot day - think it was melting.

Dont get me wrong the decor is fab, the afternoon stand looked lovely, like the open kitchen look (although it did look quite messy)

Thought the prices were ok guess you'd expect to pay £3 odd for a cupcake in london i suppose.

The one thing i was most disgraced about were the toilets, you go down some stairs & you can smell them immediately, i opened the wrong door (of which had no sign telling it was a cleaning store) the smell was horrendous, old cleaning materials & bins & old paint & building materials in there, if id of had my children with me &allowed them to the loo on their own this would have been a seriously dangerous discovery for them)

All in all the toilet were very old & unmaintained, no care & attention to a premises toilet shows what their other back of house could be like. you have a great shop front, lovely display counter, nice looking produce, trendy seating but it makes me wonder what the kitchens are like with the state of the bathrooms.

Shame as it was my husbands birthday and i dragged him all the way across from notting hill to show him this place.
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5 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 6
Sunday, July 03, 2011