If you are only after coffee, you already have what you need from the map result and you can stop reading. This page is for whoever got handed the job of organising the rest of them — and it is written to be forwarded, so that you can send it on instead of answering the same four questions eleven times.
Every table in the room with its actual number against it, including the two that cannot be pushed together and the one that is no good in the rain.
Marked line by line, with the counts printed underneath so nobody has to read all of it to find out whether there is anything for them.
Section 05. Six of them, in plain words, so that nothing on this page falls over once you have sent it to somebody else.
Nearly every café website in the country says it seats about sixty and leaves it there, which is no use at all to somebody counting heads. This is the actual furniture. If your number does not fit any single line of it, that is worth knowing now rather than at the door.
One piece of timber, bolted down, twelve chairs. It is the only thing in the room that takes a group that size without splitting it up, and it is the reason most people ring us.
It cannot be shortened and it cannot be moved. Ten people on it is fine; thirteen is not, and we will say so rather than wedge somebody on a corner.
Booked out most Saturdays · 48 hours' notice
These do push together into an eight, and that is the only pair in the room that does. Anything larger built out of small tables ends up with somebody sitting on the walkway, which is not a table, it is an apology.
Pushed together on request · no notice needed
Five tables of four, sheltered on three sides. It is the biggest space here and the least reliable one: there are no heaters and the cover is slatted, so in real rain it is unusable and we will move you inside or ring you the day before.
Between November and March it is the best part of the building. In July we would rather you did not plan around it.
Weather dependent · we ring you if it turns
The whole of the inside for a set start, Monday to Friday only, finishing by 11am so that the ordinary morning is not cancelled for everybody else. Saturdays and Sundays are not available on any terms — see section 05.
Weekdays only · set menu · two weeks' notice
These are the rules the room actually runs on, printed once, so that whoever you forward this to gets the same answer you did. Under eight people you do not need any of it — walk in.
Groups of eight or more get a booking. Under that we do not take one, because holding a small table empty on a Saturday morning is how a queue turns into a wait for everybody in it.
The notice we need for the long table or the courtyard. Less than that and we will try, but we will not promise, and we will tell you which on the phone rather than later.
Above twelve it goes to a short set menu — three choices, sent to you in advance, chosen by you not by us. One kitchen cannot cook sixteen different things at once and have any of them arrive warm.
No deposit, for any size, and no card held. If you cannot make it, ring. Twice without ringing and the next one is a set menu paid up front, which is the only sanction here.
Everything above is also true on the phone, and the phone is faster: 09 555 0447, answered between about 7am and 3pm by somebody who can see the book. The form in the last section is for the ones that need thinking about — a date a fortnight out, a set menu, or a room to yourselves.
A page you can send on is a page that does not fall over when somebody else reads it. Everything a café usually leaves to be discovered at the counter is here instead, including the parts that will lose us a booking. That is the trade.
Not for any amount. Half the regulars here have been coming for years and turning them away for a private function is not a thing we are willing to do twice. Weekday mornings before eleven, gladly — section 01.
One payment for the table over six. It is not meanness, it is that splitting fourteen ways at the till on a Saturday stops the queue dead for ten minutes. Pay us once and sort it out between you afterwards.
Got told at the counter we could not split fourteen ways, which I thought was a bit much until I saw the queue behind me. Would have been better to know before we sat down.Sample text — not a real review. Written by Skyward to show the placement.
Fifteen minutes on a group booking and then it goes back into the room. Ring and it is held as long as you like — the fifteen minutes is for silence, not for lateness.
What is marked in section 02 is what can be changed. Beyond that the answer is no, said at the time of booking rather than discovered at the table, and we would rather you went somewhere that can.
Sixteen people at nine on a Sunday, or a group in the courtyard in a southerly. We will tell you what we think will happen and offer the alternative, and if you want it anyway we will say no rather than take the money and disappoint everybody in it.
Rang about a birthday and was talked out of the time I asked for into one an hour later. Took it personally at the time. It was the right call.Sample text — not a real review. Written by Skyward to show the placement.
It has a slatted roof and no heaters. In winter it is cold and in real rain it is wet. Twenty outside in August is a worse morning than twelve inside, and we will say so when you ring.
| Monday | 7am – 3pm |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 7am – 3pm |
| Wednesday | 7am – 3pm |
| Thursday | 7am – 3pm |
| Friday | 7am – 3pm |
| Saturday | 7.30am – 3pm |
| Sunday | 7.30am – 3pm |
We come back with a yes or a no and a table, not with a question. If the day you have asked for will not work we will say which part of it will not and offer the nearest thing that does, in the same message.
Faster still: ring 09 555 0447 between seven and three. Somebody has the book open and a group booking takes about two minutes on the phone.
On a real build this form emails the café and copies the phone behind the counter. On this page it does neither — nothing typed into it is sent or stored anywhere, because Gannet does not exist.