April 2025 by Sarah
I used to visit here often when it was owned by Dobbies but after learning a family run company had taken over maybe I was expecting a little more in the way of quality/service on this visit.
The larger outside seating area for the cafe is lovely with the tables well-spaced, however, the staff inside were absolutely pig-ignorant. I was with my elderly Mum. We were the only two people standing at the counter with two members of staff the other side pottering about. NOT once did they look up to enquire if we required assistance, or to let us know they were in the middle of doing something and would get to us soon; in fact they both turned their backs to us before continuing on their own conversation in front of the coffee machine! A younger staff member then appeared from the seating area and proceeded to serve us. We said we would wait and take our drinks ourselves - we were hoping for a snack as well but all they had on offer were sponge cakes which is great if you like sponge as they had a decent variety, no-so-good if you don't - but she told us to take our seat and it would be brought to us. It was, roughly five-minutes later and both the cappucino and tea we ordered were stone cold. We were offered no spoons, or sugar either.
Whilst drinking our iced tea and coffee milkshake! we witnessed another member of staff watering plants yank the hose without warning two other ladies who were looking at plants, thereby hitting one of them in the leg with the hose; he then proceeded to shout back to them - he was about thirty-feet away from them - to "move out the way". It would appear someone in charge needs to take all the staff in hand and teach them about manners and customer service.
I did expect there not to be as much stock as they used to have in it's previous incarnation but what stock they did have looked tired and not appealing at all. Half the plants were wilted or well over and the garden furniture looked as though they'd just taken pot luck as to where they fancied dumping a chair or table.
It was a really disappointing visit to what was once one of our go-go garden centres.
April 2025 by Lawrence Andrews
Very poor for its size, for me had very little to offer, restaurants coffee and hot chocolate
lukewarm
had to go back. Sorry won?t be back.
April 2025 by Michelle Wiggins
Went in to the cafe with an elderly client, and I found the lady serving behind the counter to be rude. My food came out over cook with a lack of topping, especially for £8.49. Had to purchase extra cheese at £1.79 for a small handful.
April 2025 by Summie
The prawn salad was way too salty! The people sitting next to us didn?t seem to enjoy their wraps either ? they barely touched them. This was our first time visiting the café, and it?ll definitely be our last. Also, I felt like the new garden centre had less variety of indoor plants.
April 2025 by Brad Tyler
We had come for the grand opening of Havant Garden Centre, and while queuing outside, I was impressed with the restaurant's decoration. My wife and I had been visiting Dobbies for some time as it had a dog-friendly section within the restaurant. We were sorely disappointed to see that this had been moved out of the main dining area and placed in the shop instead. It was cold, uninviting, and frankly unpleasant to sit and eat your breakfast while people shopped around you.
If you're going to keep the dog-friendly section where it is, I would strongly suggest relocating the cards and other items to another area of the shop, and using trellis and plants to create a more welcoming environment. This would also provide customers with ideas and inspiration on how to best utilise the products you sell to create unique spaces.
The rest of the shop very much remained the same, but it was nice to see that a lot of the Dobbies staff remained.
March 2025 by Gabby Alford
Great selection of plants but disappointed at the que for the restaurant. You really do need more staff. So many seats but very little staff.
March 2025 by Bev Tune
Came to visit the Garden Centre today since its renaming, shambles as far as restaurant and play area are concerned . Took 25 minutes to queue to order food, then once we were ready for the children to go into the play area It took a further 30 minutes to queue just to pay for the play area.
Food is very expensive, a single slice of cake is nearly £6!! There were lots of empty tables in the restaurant so no idea why the service was so extremely slow, not like it was jam packed?!
The play areas is the same as Dobbies, however doesn?t look like it?s been cleaned at all, the garden centre was closed for 6 weeks for the refurbishment, I would have expected the play area to have been cleaned in that time or even upgraded. My grandchildren?s socks were disgusting by the end of their session.
March 2025 by Tom Cleverly
Popped in for a look at the refurbished and new ownership of the garden centre. Was okay. No new layout and not much other than new product labels had changed but it?s great that they?ve kept the two main attractions, soft play and cafe!
March 2025 by kevin street
Not amused with the cafe waiting too long to be Served and only wanted 2 hot drinks.The Cafe was a let down
March 2025 by T Garmonsway
We enjoyed the opening under new management, however the experience was somewhat ruined by having to queue at the restaurant for half an hour only to get the tills at exactly 11 and get told we couldn't order food anymore and had to return at 11:30! Absolutely ridiculous considering they knew they were busy and that people would be waiting longer than usual to order.
March 2025 by Linda Small
We were regulars at dobbies popped in last wk no semi skimmed milk so xouldnt have a drink went back on saturday to find that u have to wlk the whole length of the shop to even get in my husbands disabled so by thh tine we walked in he had enough complained to the manager who was friendly but said i could have waljed it waljed to the front of the sop and let him in the exit doir we will nit be goibg back
March 2025 by Sandra Parkin
Very disappointed with the restaurant, after waiting in the queue for 20 minutes with no knife forks or trays but plenty of dirty plates stacked onto trolleys. There where no cakes left or tea cups so had to have large coffee cups all very slap dash, when our food arrived only half the order arrived had to wait another ten minutes before the rest appeared you would have thought that an effort to impress would have been made in the first week of trading definitely will not be returning..The plants and flowers were lovely but then had to queue to pay as only one check was open plenty of costumer's were complaining and this was at 13.10
March 2025 by Melanie S
Lovely new lay out friendly staff in the Garden Centre but let down by the cafe spent 20 minutes in the queue only wanted a sandwich and a cup of tea. Then had to wait another 25 minutes at our table before our sandwich was brought to us.
You need more staff especially on a weekend you had the girls taking orders of food and drinks then they would stop to make your drink order and take the food order out to the kitchen before returning to see to the next customer.
Surely they is a more efficient way of serving and reducing the waiting time think 45 minutes just for a sandwich is not acceptable we won?t be eating there again neither will other customers we spoke to on other tables who were also waiting a age for their meals.
Come on sort it out ??
March 2025 by Jonathan Harrington
Went in today for opening weekend. Never seen it so packed. Great range of plants, tools, equipment and usual garden centre extras. Vast improvement on the previous incarnation Dobbies.
February 2025 by jacky mason (Jacmascat)
Still very quiet in shop and cafe, scones swwill delicious and dogs still welcome. Site closing tomorrow. 4 rails ofcloting 30 %off some small kids items pspr stuff. . No wortwhiepots 0r plantsno seeds an d every long queue at cafe hot drinks and cake only
