The Common Cafe and Bistro

Good food and coffee. Reasonable price. Nice place. Solid decision.

The sign in the window indicates that the café opens at 8:00. We arrived at 8:15, sat down, and was told by the half-dead and hungover waitress that we could have coffee but “the kitchen isn’t open yet because… it’s quite early”. So I asked what time it would be early – she paused to stifle a yawn and replied “when the chef tells me”. So we left and will certainly not return. If they want to treat customers with such a lack of bother, then I’ve no confidence in the place no matter how early or late I’d arrive.

I feel prompted to write and defend this great local cafe. We often eat here in the evenings when the bistro menu is served and the service is friendly and easy going and most importantly, the food is really good. The BYO aspect makes the evening brilliant value which is becoming a rarity these days and we love having this place on our doorstep.

I work at a software company almost next door to this restaurant. Myself and 5 of my colleagues wanted to eat here in the evening before a social event in a local pub. We wanted to use the TasteCard offer which allows 50% off the food bill if you have one TasteCard per two people – so with 6 of us we would have needed 3 cards.

On calling to book the reservation, I was told that the offer only applies per two people. I explained that was fine, we had 3 cards so that should cover the 6 of us. I was then told that it only applies to two people, per booking. I asked if that meant I was supposed to call back two more times to make two further separate bookings for the offer to apply? Or did that mean all 6 of us would in fact need to sit across 3 separate tables for the offer to apply? I offered both of these suggestions which I said we were prepared to do, and after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the waitress who answered the phone and the manager who she was relaying all of this to, we were told that we could not have the 50% off food offer for all 6 of us, despite us meeting the criteria specified.

This is most disappointing and has resulted an an internal email being sent across the 200+ staff who work here to avoid dining at The Pavement due to the inconsistency in their offering and poor level of service. They have now potentially lost a lot of local business, just because they wouldn’t stick to their offer. If this is the way they conduct their affairs, they’re in for some tough times ahead.

It is a very popular cafe at weekends and really well located if you want to walk on the Common before or after.