The Village Cafe - South Tyneside

I ordered the minced meat and dumplings dish. The gravy was thin and there was hardly any meat. The owner seemed irritable and almost rude.

The food was good but unfortunetly was tainted by extremely rude service, a severe lack of menu, lack of space, and an unfriendly atmosphere. There were 2 young staff members (one making the hot drinks and the other a waitress) who were very helpful and friendly and the sole reason for the second star. The 3 elder staff members were rude, unhelp, unwelcoming, and downright judgemental! They ingored customers for 7+ minutes as they were too busy gossiping about regulars, messing up orders, or watching the traffic, one openly scoffed when asked for a simple adjustment to an order (keeping 3 disliked foods off the plate from a set menu) while ordering, and acting put out being asked what items they were currently serving as over half thier wall menu was unavailable and none of the items on thier 'todays specials ' board was being served. If you 'd like any kind of dessert get there before 12pm as they were sold out by 12.36pm, it 's also £7.50 for a bacon sandwich for a bun with just 2 rashes in, extra if you want sauce, you were constantly dodging having hot coffees spilt over you while staff shouted 'watch it ' as there is minimum space, overall the food we did manage to get was nice but we won 't be going back as they seem to unwelcome anyone they don 't know by name as a village regular, very dissapointed today.

Visited following a recommendation. What a shame about the service as the food was actually nice. All staff failed to crack a smile and there was a very unpleasant atmosphere. Felt like we were inconveniencing the server by placing an order, especially when I had to rethink the order as they didn’t have what I wanted. We moved to an available outdoor table which needed a clean and this seemed to annoy the server too, even though they never took a table number and just shouted out the orders from the door. The server then pointed out our table was dirty but made no effort to clean it. Really disappointed and certainly won’t go back.

Went in with my 4 year old son earlier today for some food and honestly it felt like we were an inconvenience. We waited ages to be acknowledged, and ages to be served. The older lady had no manners (no please or thankyou). Order was just dumped on plates on top if the counter no mention of the total price. Won't be back

This was a pleasant setting. Coffee was ok and cake nice but staff very unfriendly and uninterested. An older staff member was totally miserable and has no customer service skills at all. Won’t be returning.