Riverside Cafe - Hackney

Nice eating and caffe, but unfortunately the waiter (because he is also a cook) that served me was incredibly rude. he cried with people beside me, the tables in the sun moving, took my phone, bag etc., when I did not know the table without. and when I finished eating and read a book, he came to me quite aggressively asking if I had ordered something and said that I should not sit at the table if I had not ordered anything. it's a shame as it's a nice place, but I won't come back here again, as there are many other places close to with better service.

Eating is not bad here, but the people who work here are absolutely dirty and rude. I wouldn't trust them to cook for me if they had a bad day. they were angry at my family and I don't just ask about anything as my partner has allergies. that was when we came to lunch. poc bad to treat, but nice to white people is always noticed, especially when pocs are the aggressors something is right with the personal here deeply not.

A visit to this café, beautifully situated in a once-elegant now slightly shabby Victorian building next to the High (foot) Bridge over the Lee Navigation Channel, is usually enjoyable. Good prices (a vegetarian breakfast with hot drink costs about £8) and efficient staff (be patient:...the kitchen is small) make this a jolly and bustling food station. Empty tables may be hard to get at lunchtimes; just pop out to one of the many outside, and delight in the swans, mallard, coots, moorhens and rowing skiffs gliding past. On cold days, knee/shoulder rugs are available. The tiny toilet next to the kitchen might raise eyebrows but in other ways owner-cook Francisco’s pitching of his café to middle-class strollers — ie, the majority of passers-by — works. The instant coffee, crisps and chocolate bars of previous managements are happily distant.

Not impressed with this cafe Hackney today, which I’ve visited many times before. I managed to win idiot of the week by badly clanging my head on the metal fencing coming down from the low railway bridge on the other side of the river (distracted...by dog while ducking After mopping blood from my head and calming my three month old miniature schnauzer, I thought a cuppa and some chocolate would help. But heading to the toilet, in this (I thought) dog-friendly cafe, to clean up blood on my head, face and hands, I was angrily told by the cook that I couldn’t take the little dog in under my arm. She was still to jumpy to leave in a strange place with unfriendly strangers. Just three months old. That’s the last time I use that place. Got my money back and headed out.

But service is VERY slow and chaotic depending on who is there. Reasonably priced and lovely setting but only one person taking money and serving drinks means that the queue is sometimes out of the door and on its way to Stratford. One Sunday they...were unable to serve coffee from 3.30pm. Hit and miss. Beautiful setting.