Coffee Shops in Cardiff - Tea & Cake in Roath

Tea and Cake is a Gift come Coffee come sweet shop, situated right in the middle of Wellfield Road. It is always very pretty to look at, and stocks fun unusual gifts and house hold items, as well as a whole selection of traditional sweets. The gift shop is a little pricy (as you could get a lot online cheaper) but if you are after a fun special present its great and convenient. Their selection of funny and unique cards is always good (again if you don't mind the pricy) and I do like that they sometimes stock hand made jewellery and accessory items by local crafts people.

I have bought the odd item there as a gift and the quality is always great. You will always find quaint unique items so that is good in my book.

This hub is a brief review of their cafe services and what I thought of them.

The coffee shop is situated to the rear and in the garden area. With only around 10 tables it is often busy or completely full at lunch times and on the weekends. Its the kind of cool place that students go to to drink coffee and local 'hipsters' like to eat in. They have an amazing selection of fresh teas and do some lovely coffee's and juices. The coffee's and hot chocolates are actually really good value as they are massive usually. The menu consists mainly of sandwiches, bagles, toasties and panini's with the occasional soup or salad dish as specials. And Cake! Lots of cake! Which you can take away too. So the selection is pretty good and the prices of the food and drink aren't too bad, pretty much the same as a Starbucks or Coffee #1.

The deco is comfy and quirky, brightly coloured and they often have interesting gallery pieces on the walls. It has a very relaxed atmosphere. Very hip, if you get my drift. They have fun wallpaper in the shop area and in the toilet. As the coffee shop are is very small it can sometimes get a little cramped, especially if there are pushchairs and people with bags of shopping in there too.

Now I have been a few times as it is convenient to our home and the food is pretty good. Overall our experiences have been good, but the service is often quite slow due to there usually only being 1 member of staff in the cafe, or 2 on a busy day. And if it a busy day you will often end up hanging around to order at the counter for ages while they prepare all the drinks and food of the previous order themselves, before taking your order. I have also noticed that you don't really get a 'service with a smile' with half of the girls either. Some are ok but others are often a bit rude, as if taking your order is making their day difficult as they are already busy. So I would definitely say not to visit on the weekend or at lunch time! Its much calmer and nicer mid afternoon for a huge coffee.

On our last visit we were very disappointed though. We ordered 2 of the panini specials for that day - Brie, Bacon and Cranberry and 2 mix berry smoothies and took our seats. After 10 minutes we were told they didn't have any Bacon. It was the special of the day and it was only 12:30! How could they have run out and why hadn't they gone across to TESCO (which is directly opposite) for more! So we changed our food order. 10 minutes after that we were then notified they had no berries in so couldn't make any fruit smoothies! So after changing to an Orange Juice and Coffee we finally got our food. The cafe was not that busy that day as it was mid week, and to run out of the special at lunch time is just silly and very disorganised! I also had to ask to get the difference back from the order when we left as it had not been sorted and brought to the table even though we had been there nearly an hour in total.

We didn't get any sort of appology at any time during our visit, and I really think the staff should have known what they were out of up front so we didn't end up waiting around to only be told they didn't have it. The special should have been taken off the board as well, which it wasn't, even after informing us it still remained up for the hour we were there. It is a chalk board so could easily be wiped off.

I will still probably go there as its convenient and the coffee is good and huge! But I was very unhappy with our last visit so I would go with lower expectations and expect a wait. I probably wont be going often and it's unlikely I'll order food again, Coffee #1 is across the road and far more organised and well staffed! I really would only advise drinks and take away cake.