Sainsbury's in Darlington

I love my local Sainsbury's Café in the store. The staff are amazingly friendly and will do anything for their customers, including bringing their food/drinks to the table even when they're extremely busy and short-staffed. I've been going to their café for quite a while with my daughter after college for a coffee, toasted sandwich or a meal and it's always great, no matter how busy the staff are. I like the café particularly because of its open space and the air flow is good, so I feel it's safer during the Covid pandemic. I would highly recommend Sainsbury's as a store in general because all of their staff are friendly and approachable and will help in whatever matter you need.

Came into Sainsbury’s cafe today only wanting something small, not much hassle, when greeted by the staff member at the till she was rude and blunt, I wasn’t a fussy customer, when my food was brought over to me it was just thrown down on my table where i was sat i said thank you and before i even finished the girl serving me had already left. Really disappointed.

Went into Sainsbury’s cafe and simply asked for a ham and cheese toastie, I had not been disruptive or rude in anyway, however I was greeted with a very rude, blunt and abrupt attitude from the member of staff serving me. She had a tone in her voice and had quite a lot of attitude even though she barely said anything. The reason she barely said anything is because she was very short and blunt with me, giving me one word answers or not an answer at all. When I went to pay she shoved the card machine across the counter and threw the table number card down onto the counter with attitude. She did not say a single word after this she simply walked away and did not advise me to pick any table I wanted or too take a seat. The service was then very slow as it took 10 minutes simply to toast a pre-made ham and cheese toastie. Then when I did receive the food she proceeded to strut over to my table and throw the plate down onto the opposite side of the table from me, meaning I had to get up and reach over to get my food, even though this takes very little effort it is still bad customer service (especially at £3.85 for a simple ham and cheese toastie that was served luke warm). She also did not inform me as to where any condiments were for my meal. Once she had abruptly ‘placed’ my food on the table she strutted off before I even had the opportunity to say thank you, despite this I still said thank you but her back was turned and she was walking away, and as you can probably guess I got no response. It was a very bad experience and aswell as the poor customer service the toastie wasn’t even that nice.

Unbelievably problems with the coffee machine, yet again. Despite the store selling all types of coffee, they can't even do a basic instant decaf coffee for a customer. Service is slow and scrambled eggs were luke warm and watery. I used to like it here,but have been let down too many times now.

waited ages in the queue..felt sorry for the staff. nearly all our crockery was chipped..not a good look.apart from that food was ok

This is quite a good place to go for a meal but the only disappointment was the only toilets in the building were all the way downstairs in the store.

Feel on top of the world as you peer down to the shopping madness below. Or lounge in the comfort of the leather armchairs.

Excellent food and friendly atmosphere with excellent staff.

Big, has a bit of everything including Argos.

Great for a quick lunch