Crepes & Cones South End Croydon

I and three friends visited Crepes&Cones on Sunday 20th November unintentionally. My friends and I had planned to dine elsewhere, which was fully booked. Crepes&Cones was on our list of places to dine at in the near future, it was relatively close to the fully booked restaurant we didn’t wait for, so took a chance going to Crepes&Cones. Despite a couple of reviews saying service was slow and waiting time very long we gave it ago and so glad we did. Service was excellent and waiting time was minimal to be fair it wasn't busy, a large group came after us and a few more people later on. We had an amazing meal with generous portions. We started off with the red velvet prawns, absolutely delicious in addition to the roulette of wings, tasty. Main course didn’t disappoint, once again generous potion and delectable. Service was excellent. We were served by a young lady named Olivia, she deserves 5 stars for being attentive and hardworking, she made us feel welcome, Olivia made sure we were ok. Definitely would recommend and hope to visit again.

Summary: We wouldn’t go back at all and sadly, would not recommend. Food ordered: Starters: Chicken Popcorn (2/5) Nice but tasted like KFC Salt & Pepper Squid (4/5) It looked like sweet and sour chicken but it was tasty. French Fries (1/5) Tasted like chips with freezer burn Mains: The Buff Burger (3/5) A nice basic burger, reminded me of a burger from a van. Grilled King Prawn Skewers: (0/5) Awful, so underwhelming given the title. They definitely did not use King Prawns and it definitely was not restaurant quality in terms of presentation or flavour - even for a diner. This was quite bland and supposedly took over an hour to prepare. They need to go to Billingsgate & invest in some actual King Prawns. Sides: (These actually came with our Starters & we waited so long for Mains that we’d finished by then) Return of the Mac (5/5) The Man N Cheese was really tasty, and a nice portion size too. Plantain: (5/5) Good portion size, nice and juicy. French Fries: (1/5) Still tasted like chips with freezer burn. Drinks: Pushing Pina (5/5) Orange Juice Pros: we were running late, when I called to move the booking it was done without an issue. The lady on the phone even explained that they had a booking of 45 people and the kitchen was very busy so moving our booking later would work out well because the kitchen would be less busy by the time we arrived. - The starters and sides came out quickly with out drinks - The salt and pepper squid was the nicest starter we tried, it looked like sweet and sour chicken but it was tasty. - The Manager was polite, efficient and had really good customer service skills. - We’d cancelled the order due to the wait time but the manager reinstated it and gave us complimentary take away boxes. Cons: - We had a booking but the waitress that greeted us looked confused as to what to do or where to seat us. - The place lacked ambience and the music playing was notably terrible. - Even after moving our booking to a time that worked better around the booking of 45 people, the mains took over an hour to arrive. We saw four people that walked in after us get 4 burgers whilst we waited an hour for just one. - we had to get back by a certain time so we cancelled the order due to the wait time and discrepancies on how long it would take from different waitresses. - Other than the manager, the staff we saw seemed miserable. Maybe a team visit to another restaurant could give them an insight into the customer service they should aim to deliver and also raise morale.

Great atmosphere it was just freezing because the heating was not working. The food was not quite up to par for the child but I enjoy the jerk chicken meal and pepper steak meal, coselaw and rice and peas. Was very fresh and tasty. Throughout though we were cold. Service friendly buy I think they could also be understaffed. They helped by making another kids meal.