Benet's Of Cambridge

Beautiful looking place with a rude manager (maybe owner) - hence staff seem demotivated and constantly in a mess. I'm relieved to see that after today's visit there are other reviews on Foursquare, Google+ & Yelp to back this up. 1) One staff member went straight from moving chairs & cleaning tables to making a crepe without washing or wiping hands. I decided against a crepe 2) I asked a member of staff "how much is this?" and was told "don't know, sorry" - and that was it. (Another reviewer mentions 1 staff member asking 2 others what flavour a certain ice cream was! Maybe the same person) 3) One member of staff was only serving ice creams. There was a queue of people wanting coffees, crepes, cakes, cold drinks - once she had established nobody in the queue wanted ice creams she stood with hands on hips and huffed.. serving no-one. (Various reviews back up the bad service) 4) Manager/owner was constantly shuffling around and trying to clear tables of those who were still eating/drinking, as if to move customers on, despite there being plenty of tables. Complained at a nearby table over a scrunched up tissue saying it "wasn't very nice". 5) Despite being an ice cream parlour there were no high chairs or toddler changing facilities - an un-child-friendly ice cream place! Amazing. Manager also complained about someone giving a child a biscuit they had brought with them. So unnecessarily grumpy!

There are always incredible queues here in the summer - probably just the overspill from Brick Lane, as I am mystified as to it's popularity. I love ice cream. And waffles. And cake. So I thought this would be heaven for me. Oh, naivety. The staff genuinely seem to have no clue about their own menu, prices, preparation techniques, or basic customer service skills. The last time I visited, I had to wait 40 minutes for waffles and ice cream because someone went to Tesco to buy more maple syrup. The flavours of ice cream sound tempting enough - and a couple of the flavours have been interesting - but it's no Gelato. If you're hot and fancy trying out an unusual combination (peanut butter and jelly has been a highlight for me) - go in, order it to take out, and get out as fast as possible. Tables are hard to come by, cleared slowly, and service to them is unbelievably slow. It's painfully obvious that, with a constant stream of tourists and visitors, they don't feel like they need to improve.