Fowlds Cafe - Southwark

This small coffee shop etc. is not far from the home of our London based son and it is certainly not closed! It seems to be just takeaway (for the moment? , but serving great coffee (Climpson’s and pastries with a matching smile.

Amazing space, although it’s tiny it’s very welcoming. The team are always really nice chatty. The coffee is the best in the area and food offerings are delish. Always feel really welcomed and valued. Keep up the good work team fowlds.

I have been visiting the cafe on and off for 5 years now. It had always been a lovely place to eat and drink coffee with friends, but sadly the staff have become incredibly rude and unwelcoming. They refused me a sandwich, even though I was in the queue before 3 (when apparently they stop serving) and were very pompous in the way they mumbled “food stopped at 3”. You’re a small independent cafe that should really be a bit kinder to your locals. It’s not hard to find some staff who don’t look and act like they can’t be bothered to be there. Staff used to be so welcoming and lovely.

It would be generous to give a cafe like this even one star. The food is overpriced and at best average and even more so the management running this place really let it down which is a shame for the other staff working there who are friendly. For a neighbourhood cafe the management team are especially vicious and lack poor customer service skills, threatening, provoking and basically telling anyone who complains about their food or services an idiot brandishing their reports as 'bizarre ' and false. I had the joy of having their manager Alex Wilkinson mansplain to me how inappropriate my genuine concern was. Upon reporting a health and safety concern to management regarding one of their dishes which left me needing to take time off work, in extreme pain I could not eat, having to pay for medical treatment due to the object being so sharp that was found in the food, I was then brandished a liar, that I was making false claims, that I needed to stop wasting everyones time and stop attacking small cafes. I found an abnormally large product in one of their dishes that was so huge it dented a hole in the roof of my mouth. I had this stuck in my mouth for 20 minutes and had to leave the cafe in a rush to go home and remove it as I couldn 't even close my mouth, the object was so big it was impossible to. The next day after removing this object I had to take the morning off work as I was in such bad pain from their product, spending the morning ringing 111 and organising an emergency GP appointment as the pain was so intense and the right side of my mouth was swollen. Following this I had to have an emergency dental appointment which the medical practitioner concluded the product had dented a hole in my mouth, caused an ulcer and that I should have my tooth removed so the condition didn 't worsen. Instead of even trying to understand the concern or even faking empathy the management team dismissed it and told me to stop wasting their time. No resolution from their side, even recalling the product or putting me in touch with the supplier, instead they said I shouldn 't blame them for my 'dental woes 'when I never had any problem prior to this and the medical practitioner confirmed that their food product did cause these problems. The management team told me they had watched me from the CCTV and 'it didnt look like I was in pain ' I 'm sorry but how can you tell that from CCTV, especially when my back was against it. Surely asking for my coffee to go and rushing out the cafe to go home and remove this object since you don 't have bathrooms would be the likely reason. I asked the cafe for compensation, which to be honest a refund would have been fine considering the scale of how this escalated, but instead all I received was threatening and impolite messages from their manager, when I had even kindly asked them to meet in person so this could be resolved. Unfortunately I believe had I been a different skin colour, or possibly even a man, I wouldn 't have been treated in such a disgusting way by their management who couldn 't even refund a customer or provide a solution by ensuring this product was recalled from the menu, instead I was told to 'get over it ' since I clearly couldn 't handle penuts. Even if the food product was the result of another supplier and not them they clearly can 't take any criticism or complaints here professionally, I would indeed be worried if someone had a more serious condition like an allergy. Clearly the cafe like to 'fight ' customers instead of resolving issues communicating face to face like adults. Customers beware.

I love Fowlds! I’ve been going there for years and the staff are always polite and friendly. They make great coffee and stock beautiful pastries and have kept their little general store bits and pieces they started to carry at the beginning of the pandemic.