Shopping Guide: Ravenscourt Garden Centre

Ravenscourt: A Visitor's Guide

Why You Should Visit

  • The Garden Centre Experience: This is a smaller garden centre, and you'll find it's easy to navigate, with a mostly level layout after an initial slope. Plants appear to be well-cared for and healthy.
  • Healthy and Reasonably Priced Plants: Shoppers can expect to find well-maintained plants at reasonable prices, a pleasant surprise.
  • Relaxed Browsing Atmosphere: The staff is friendly and helpful if you need it, contributing to a relaxed browsing experience.
  • The Village Café & Deli: This cafe within the garden centre is beautifully decorated, offering breakfast and lunch menus, as well as a variety of cakes and sweet treats.
  • Delicious Food: The cafe is known for its excellent food. You'll find gourmet sandwiches, quiches, soups, and cakes, all made from scratch. The pie and cakes are particularly praised. Specific examples include a breakfast burrito, maple sourdough French bread (perfect to share), a Ploughman’s wrap, quiche of the day (ham and cheese with a mustard kick), and caramel shortbread.
  • High-Quality Coffee: The cafe serves delicious coffee, including cappuccinos and perfect cafe americanos.
  • Unusual & Filling Food Choices: The menu includes interesting food combinations that are filling and worth the price.
  • Take-Home Items: The cafe sells items to take home, such as jams and olive oil.
  • Unique Gift Options: The cafe offers sweet and unique gift options.

Why You Might Consider Alternatives

  • Inconsistent Service & Wait Times: Be aware that the cafe can suffer from understaffing, leading to long wait times for food. Some customers have reported waiting over 40 minutes for their meals.
  • Disorganized Operations: The cafe has been described as being run by children and disorganized.
  • Menu Inconsistencies: You might encounter issues with menu availability, even within the specified time frames (e.g., being told you can only order from the brunch menu at 10 am, despite a breakfast menu being available).
  • Potential for Disappointment: One visitor drove a long way to find the location closed despite voicemail indicating otherwise. They are closed on bank holiday Mondays.
  • Pricey Menu Items: Toasted sandwiches might be considered overpriced, with one costing €11.50.
  • Busy Lunchtime: The cafe gets busy close to lunchtime, making it potentially harder to secure a table.