Notcutts Reviews 177

We visited this garden centre today and while there decided to grab a drink and some food in the cafe.

The cafe itself is nice and comfortable but one thing I detest is companies taking advantage of it's customers.

My daughter asked for a portion of chips priced at £3.25 and to call it a portion of chips would arguably be a trades description infringment.

They were served in a cup, yes a cup there were probably about 8 chips in it max.

Absolutely disgusting especially when you consider what they charge for them.

This left a negative impression on us and we won't be going back.

We came for afternoon tea on 19 August to celebrate my friend's birthday. The welcome and the service were excellent. The food was superb and the 4 of us couldn't eat it all as there was so much so we were offered doggie bags to take home what we had not managed to eat. The afternoon tea was excellent value and I would highly recommend it.

Food was awful. Homemade fishcakes were more like homemade mush, my partners so called sausage sandwich consisted of cut in half dry cheap sausage nothing else in the sandwich. We had to go home and eat. What a waste of food and our money

Monkspath - Solihull.
Needed somewhere for a bite to eat after travelling to take my son's assistance dog to a nearby specialist vet practice. I thought a garden centre, with a pet store and a cafe, was a safe choice. How wrong I was. Not dog friendly and the staff were awful.
Was a warm day (24*+) so gave the dog a bowl of water in the part of the café we were told dogs were allowed; the dog was in the corner, the bowl of water under the canopy of a plant, and my chair pulled out blocking the corner due to wanting to restrict the dog’s movements (due to him being ill – hence travelling to the area for the specialist vet). The café manager demanded the dog was to be taken outside. I told him I wouldn’t be taking the dog outside in this weather as it was too hot, to which I was told ‘I’ve got a dog sweetheart, it’s not too hot’. I’m well versed in dealing with people who say assistance dogs aren't allowed in restaurants/shops/even a dentist once, but I wasn’t prepared to be told we had to go outside because the water bowl was a health and safety hazard ‘that anyone could fall over sweetheart’. I did ask who could trip over the bowl, in the corner of the room, under the canopy of a plant, with me blocking access; to be told ‘all of us could love’ – as he motioned round where only one other table (in sight) was occupied. I lost count of the times he called me love, sweetheart, or darling as I got visibly upset. Eventually he blamed me and said had I explained from the beginning that the dog was an assistance dog he would not have asked us to go outside. So clearly not the life-or-death health and safety risk he spent 10 minutes condescendingly lecturing me about. We left without our food (not a bad thing either if the reviews are anything to go by) and we didn’t wait around for a refund.
Credit where it’s due there was a wonderful member of staff on the customer service desk who was exceptional but that was it. The entire place is grubby and outdated; in the garden centre it felt dark and dirty, outside the plants looked half dead and incredibly expensive, in the cafe there was no fridge so bottles of drink were 'displayed' on a trolley where used trays were put. And the water... kept on a dirty shelf in a 1970's tupperware plastic drinks jug.
I never thought that the other, well known, national garden centre chain (that ryhmes with hobbies) was anything exceptional, but in comparison to Notcutts, it's like the Four Seasons.

Visited Notcutts Solihull and was very disappointed with how the stores had changed. It used to be an upmarket garden centre and was a pleasure to walk around looking at what was on offer. I felt like I was in Poundland and lost the will to muddle through to find the plants!
Webbs Garden Centre although huge does have a better sense of flow and plenty of appeal.

Been to Notcutts in Ditchling and Cranleigh. Ordered a super food salad and the quality and portion size was terrible. The avocado was so hard I couldn’t get the knife through to cut it. Also ordered chips and a tiny bowl with about 4 chips came out. Felt completely conned. One star is far too high for the rubbish served

I am reviewing Notcutts restaurant at the Norwich store.
I used to eat regularly at this branch and it was always good however I haven't been for a few years but visited last Tuesday the 22nd July 2025.
The menu hasn't changed much however the quality has. There were four of us for breakfast and we all had dishes with eggs. Not one soft egg between us ,the toast was budget bread and the ham was also of the budget variety. If I want a budget breakfast I'll go to a budget restaurant.
I will add that the staff were all professional and helpful but whoever is now in charge needs to stop the cost cutting and provide some quality meals for the money you charge.

Helpful garden centres, I use my local store more than the website but have found it to be informative and has a great range. Their loyalty scheme is generous in my opinion and their products high quality

Notcuts garden centres are good. Great choice of garden plants, garden items, furniture and other retail items. Prices are competitive but cheaper with a loyalty card.
Today we went to Ashton Park centre in Ashton, Manchester. We had gone to get some lunch at the cafe. What a regrettable decision that turned out to be.
Slow service, chaos behind the tills, red hot plates for pastries and cakes without any warning and not a very interesting menu.
We ordered the Gardeners Ploughman’s at £12.95 promising cheese, bread, home made sausage roll, pickles, coleslaw and salad.
When the food arrived, the cheese was in chunks, slices and the Brie was literally only the crust. The sausage roll had given up on life, soggy, tasteless and needed a spoon of pickle to make it edible. It’s summer time, salads should be crisp, fresh and full of flavour. Not here, I’ve never had a tomato that tasted of nothing. The lettuce and cucumber were old, limp and ready for the compost. Three slices of a French stick, no butter and two slices of prepackaged ham.
When we complained, nobody came to speak to us. Absolute rubbish. Definitely will not be using this part of Notcutts again.

Nottcutts Norwich, we love this place!
Always friendly and accommodating in
the restaurant, Celso and Josh run the restaurant extremely efficiently and are so welcoming.
Food choice is varied and high standard, always a pleasure to go
There.

I had my first bad experience in the restaurant in Rivendale Warrington today. It is always a bit hit 'n' miss there, but usually ok in general. Today, however was awful. We ordered A baked potato and Fish cakes. The baked potato with Cheddar and beans was luke warm, so the cheese was not the slightest bit melted, initially we were brought the wrong meal and had to cange it. The fish cakes were awful, uncooked (white breadcrumbs) and barely warm. We has a side of onion rings which again were cold. With two Pepsi's this cost over £30. Terrible food.

Maidstone Notcutts Garden Centre. We purchased a set of solar lights which, became faulty after a few weeks. I phoned them and spoke to the General Manager Jon Kemp who was extremely helpful and managed to source a replacement set. This was available the next day. Very impressed.

Terrible service in the cafe/ restaurant . The follically challenged man on the counter was extremely rude. On 2 occasions we were unable to purchase take out coffee because he was too busy. REALLY Certainly wouldn’t spend my money here and will definitely not recommend.
More training in customer service is needed.

Tunbridge Wells.

The worst customer experience ever, 2 broken solar toys after two weeks, young till assistant told me it was my fault as I didn’t have a receipt even though I have a store card.

Needs training as has a real no can do attitude combined with no manners whatsoever.

Will definitely not be purchasing anything from here again.

Called for lunch amd to make purchases.
Thheer were only 2 staff at the dealing with all meal and food requirements, including making drinks helping with menus etc. That was dfor potentially 100 tables (according to the numbers) and around 2/3 of them were occupied. After 10 minutes waiting in a very slow moving queue we laft. The purchases .. well there was a large selection of hundreds of cabbage plants, penty of expensive grafted tomatoed and just a few lettuce etc.
Understaffed restaurant and poor vegetable offering.

Just crazy, overpriced plants. Petunias@ £2.50?

Never going back!

Visited Notcutts Brampton. It gets three stars because the plants are very well laid out, look good & the prices are reasonable. However, customer service rates somewhere between acceptable and very poor. The lady on the till at the tearoom was pleasant & friendly; however, service was very slow. And the lady on the till at the exit needs some customer service training. How difficult is it to make eye contact, smile & say hello?

Had lunch here
Not great, chips hard and no flavour to them. Hot dog not great either. Very disappointing

We visited the Maidstone Notcutts on May 6th with a view to buy a new BBQ and a selection of accessories. We were helped by Charlotte who was very knowledgeable on the range and a very nice lady. Can the management please pass on our thanks to her as she helped us on our choice of products. She was up against it as a dog had fouled the carpet nearby.

Attended Notcutts restaurant, Widnes, today (3.5.25) and experienced extremely poor service from one particular member of staff who had an atrocious attitude and if I was in charge of this store I would send her on a Customer Service training course ASAP before she looses you more custom!!! When placing our food order we were asked if we had any food allergies. One member of the party informed she was unable to eat peppers and asked for them to be omitted from her side salad. When her food arrived there were peppers in the salad!! The food was returned to the counter with an explanation re the peppers. The member of staff in question had a poor attitude which clearly expressed she was not happy about being inconvenienced by the food being returned. After waiting a considerable time for the correct meal to reappear I went to the counter to check on the meal, mainly because I realised our table buzzer had been removed when the food originally arrived, so I actually thought I was helping the staff, who may not know which table to meal was for but once again I was met with a very poor attitude from the same member of staff who, as she walked past me, informed me quite strongly that I would just have to wait for the replacement meal, eventhough it was right by her in the service hatch and just need her to pass it to me!!! On checking our receipt we noticed that next to where it was written any allergies the member of staff who served us had actually written "none" eventhough she had been told my Sister-in-law could not eat peppers. When my Sister-in-Law was having a reasonable discussion with this member if staff about the possible dangers of staff putting no allergies on the order when they have been told customer does have allergies along comes the arrogant member of staff who decided she would join in the discussion and stated by saying loudly "what's up with you this time". At this point we asked for her Manager who explained there had been a communication error between staff and agreed on the severity of not recording notified allergies on order. Managers of Notcutt you really do need to address the attitude of some of your staff at the Widnes restaurant before they loose you custom. We will definstely not be returning and I will be informing people to eat elsewhere in future!!!