Green Fingers Cafe - Wealden

Called in today on way home from Brighton. £5.95 for Toasties I thought to myself these must be good at this price. Standard toastie plan white sliced bread a wafer thin tomato and piece of cucumber on top of a piece of lettuce that was smaller than them. The coffee was a small cup overpriced. The only saving grace was the fruit strudel with cream at £4.95. Total bill was £25.10! Would I go back not on your nelly at these prices. The toilets were to their credit spotless.

We often visit this café and garden center after walking in the forest. The staff is consistently friendly and helpful. The coffee and cakes are delicious. Dogs are warmly welcomed with complimentary dog biscuits and water bowls. Sitting on the deck or in the courtyard during the summer is particularly lovely.

This cafe reuse milk left on the side in other peoples drinks from the days leftovers and milk bottles are visible on the side and do not seem to be refrigerated throughout the day in between use , no hairnets and only one chopping board visible. Overall, the owner was not very accepting or accommodating of people with learning difficulties or mental illness.Would not recommend the cafe, the food is poorly prepared and overpriced for the disappointing meals presented. When I visited, the bathroom appeared unclean and cats and a dog seemed to roam behind the counter of the cafe which is an issue for me as my daughter has a cat fur allergy so sitting inside the cafe was not a viable option for us. Overall, incredibly dissatisfied.

A lovely little cafe situated in a garden centre on Ashdown Forest. Having gazed at delicious looking cakes and scones on the counter, our light lunch arrived after a 45 mins wait, by this time very hungry. The large jacket potato was far from large and had been microwaved so no crispy skin and just cooked. The so call roasted vege as a filling, dare I say had not been roasted and tasteless. Plus a few slices of goats cheese. A small inadequate , poorly presented meal for the price. Instead of a lovely big chunk of fresh crispy bread on the ploughman’s, there was one of those small repacked frozen baguettes meant for the oven. Ours and all the others in the restaurant looked a pale insipid colour. We wished we had, had a piece of cake. But we were out for lunch and wanted a bit more. NOT a satisfying meal.

I had written the glowing review below on Friday and decided to revisit on Sunday. I’ve now marked down from a 5/5 review due to the poor experience on Sunday:I went to the counter and began to place my order, starting with Welsh rarebit for my co-eater. The older (usually quite flustered lady taking my order turned round and looked at the clock over her shoulder, which read 2:40pm. She then looked back at me with a pained expression on her face, as if expecting me to interpret her meaning. I enquired if it was too late for hot food (it can only take a few minutes to grill a few slices of cheese on a piece of bread? to which she replied, “it is getting on a bit, yes”. There was no note that we had seen on the menu, no apology, just that she wasn’t willing to prepare hot food. We left and I phoned a few minutes later, to ask if there was a hot food cut off time. I’m sure I spoke to the same lady, who told me the cut off time was now, to which I asked if there was a set time listed on the menu; she replied 3pm, but they had run out of everything (even bread and cheese?! and so had stopped serving hot food for the day. She made no mention of this to me when I tried to place the order! On the plus side, there is now the option of paying by card, but you must first be allowed to place an order! Green Fingers Cafe is a hidden gem in the heart of the Ashdown Forest; we only discovered it via TripAdvisor! It is more of a nursery than a commercialised garden centre and it even has resident cats! The cafe itself is housed in a small wooden hut, which is cosy and decked out with homewares which are for sale. The menu is quite extensive for a little place and has a specials blackboard too. A wide variety of items feature, such as sausage and beans jacket potato and very reasonably priced ice cream sundaes. In fact, the only thing that seems to be missing is ice cream milkshakes. The service was prompt and friendly but the slight downside is that payment seems to be by cash only.We paid around £12 for a luxury hot chocolate (so impressive I wish I'd taken a photo! , a slice of treacle tart and a cream tea for one. The cream tea consisted of a large, warmed, soft fruit scone, a tray with butter, jam and cream and a 3 cup teapot with hot water and milk jugs and was presented beautifully. My co-eater said the scone was excellent, which is high praise indeed! The hot chocolate was not too sweet, despite the mountain of cream and marshmallows (and bonus marshmallows hidden under the cream! However, the main draw had to be the treacle tart, which must be the biggest slice served in Sussex!! The photo doesn't really do it justice, but it must have been approaching 2 deep and 4 wide at the crust! I chose to have mine served warm with custard and ice cream (just in case my blood sugar level wasn't high enough after the hot chocolate . The tart was delicious; very sweet but tempered nicely by the ice cream, with light pastry. Whilst we were eating, we saw someone's order of quiche, which looked delicious and enormous, so we'll definitely be returning to try more of the menu!