The Pannier Pantry

Lovely little café which we haven't visited before. We only had hot drinks and cake as we had lunch booked elsewhere. Cakes were delicious. Not much seating downstairs but there is more upstairs (we didn't go up there) We shall be back next time we visit Bideford 🙂

We came here for lunch and the food was so disappointing considering how expensive it is. We had two very basic meals which tasted – fine, certainly no better if not worse than what you'd get in Spoons. I've added a picture of the salad which was a very sad bunch of lettuce, a 1/4 of a tomato and one tiny cucumber slice cut in half. I believe that's what you get in return for paying the £2~ extra per item for eating in. It was also shocking how long the food took considering how empty the place was. It is a real shame because the cafe is well located and has a cute, cosy interior.

Omg the coffee cake is amazing. I haven't had coffee cake that since i was a child and my nan used to make them. Omg the memories just flooded back thank you so much xx Darryl,Amelia and Dylan were amazing and super friendly and extremely helpful 😊. I love places that feel like home and the pannier pantry is exactly that ❤️

The food was standard panini's, jacket potato, eggs on toast etc, as well as a range of pasties and pies, all for reasonable prices. Someone in the group had the steak pasty and said it was very good. Service was fab – they coped with a table of 9 of us speedily and friendly, and all of our food arrived at the same time, which is impressive!

I would like to start by saying that the staff were friendly and clearly dog friendly. I am hesitant to continue with the rest of the review but would hope it provides some useful criticism.The service seemed fragmented at times and the staff were quite busy. A few instances had them looking around trying to find who the orders were for. Reading the other reviews this seems an often encountered problem. Since it is self service I would suggest table numbers.We asked if we could have some water for our dog and the staff were happy to say yes. In fact they even brought out a complementary dog biscuit for her which is very much appreciated. However, no water was provided.Unfortunately I found the food to be fairly tasteless. I had cheeseburger with chips. The cheeseburger itself was a standard takeaway style pâté with cheese. It came with no sauce and none was offered. The chips had the typical oven cooked metallic flavour. My suggestion would be to not offer burgers, especially on a waterfront café.I will, no doubt, try the café again at some point in case I just caught them on a particularly bad day.