UKH

We had the 'pleasure' of parking at 'Eric's Cafe' on Friday.  Now, we all know that things have changed since Eric sold up and retired...  I thought we'd give them the benefit of the doubt.

I bought a pasty after our long journey from Bristol and tried to pay for parking using cash.  No, they couldn't accept cash, so i had to use the JustPark app.  It's hopeless.  Took me half a dozen attempts because of traffic noise and its inability to go back a step if you misheard or pressed the wrong button.  While i was faffing about, Nev asked if he could use the toilet.

"No, you're not a customer"

"But we're paying to park here and my mate's just bought a pasty from you".

"He's a customer but you're not.....".   Nev is speechless, temporarily.

"The parking doesn't count because JustPark keeps most of it.  And YOU haven't bought anything".

She eventually relented but flippin 'eck.  We pondered what would happen if a family stopped there.  Would she try and stop the kids using the loo unless they all bought something?

Hadfer Glamping.....bonkers, completely bonkers.

And are they using JustPark, or is JustPark using them ??!!

Nev should have had a crap in the car park...

Perhaps it would help if they just charged a fee to use the Toilet, business water bills are expensive and so is Toilet Paper, and truth be told many of the general public do not leave toilets in a fit state, never mind climbers, who seem to be unable to change a toilet roll in their own huts, so maintenance is an issue.
When I drove past Waterhead in Ambleside last week, I needed to nip to the Toilet at the Car Park, the charge is 50p.
Would you be happy to pay 50p at Tremadoc, no need to buy anything.

Some people were never meant to go into hospitality but they persist and go on to make the world a more miserable place all around.

Eric's cafe is an easy formula to win at: park for a few quid, offer a good range of stuff suited to the footfall, open the right hours and strike the right balance between opportunity and cost. 

However, they don't seem to have grasped this or the fact that a layby in the middle of nowhere is not really an attraction without the climbing.

The "glamping" is simply delusional - I know there are challenges around the planning and campsite regs but this solution is nuts.

Sadly the sort of people who were "never supposed to go into hospitality but do" tend to be the sort of people not to accept the error of their ways and they never seem to be able to learn their way out of their hole so we're stuck with them until they go bust.

Perhaps the most importantly lesson is: charm cost nothing and being nice to people pays huge dividends that well outweighs the occasional pisstaker.

Given the circumstances this could limp on for years when the alternative vision would be vibrant and a modest money maker.

Yeah, this fits with ours and others' experiences.

We went there a while ago, not long after they'd taken over, and they were pleasant, helpful, made all the right noises about their plans.

Not long later we went back and they had turned into this. We were an inconvenience. I'm pretty amazed they've lasted but they somehow seem to have. I guess there really is one born every minute, since their yurts with shared crappers, resident mosquitos and septic tank aroma cost exactly the same as a double room with en-suite and whirlpool bath in the 4* Aberdunant hall a mile up the road...

As a person with a sometimes urgent need to 'go', i now have no hesitation in paying 50p of £1 to use the loo.

Also had a pretty weird experience there a couple of years ago… stood eating our sandwiches in their car park (car was parked elsewhere) as we were going to pop in once we’d finished them for an ice cream, owner came out, told us we were destroying local business, refused to believe us when we told her we were literally about to come into the cafe and started trying to film us on her phone. Bonkers.

Went in 10 minutes later to get the ice cream just to see her face, the levels of embarrassed backtracking were spectacular. 

I'd hugely rather pay to use a business's toilet than have a pointless and awkward discussion about what I need to buy to do so.  Make it a profit centre in its own right.

Not being willing to do this sits up there with businesses saying "You're the 20th person I've told today - we don't sell that".

It should a be a requirement of planning to host a public toilet here. 

I strongly object to paying to use a toilet in much the same way as I strongly object to getting tap water to drink from a cafe and strongly object to paying for air to breath.

The alternative is discriminatory and leads to unpleasant side effects.

Their attitude is just incredible. So different from Eric's. Surely they realise just how fortunate they are to be situated so conveniently close to Craig Bwlch y Moch (and the other crags)?

Major property developers build huge retail parks with no toilet provision, meaning the only toilet is in Costa Coffee, so though I do think the provision of Toilet facilities in the UK is poor, I do think it iniquitous to expect a small business to be forced to accept this role, when some public buildings such as libraries do not.

I went there at the end of April, paid £4:20 to park using the Just Park app, same as I do at Portland climbers car park and hundreds of other places. I went to toilet (discretely) the same as I do at every crag I ever go to and, this is the only thing that differs from the usual cragging experience, I enjoyed a tea and a warm welcome in the cafe next to the car.

None of this struck me as unusual or problematic. Nothing above your day strikes me as unusual or problematic either so why the entitled whinge?

Entitled whinge?  We were paying customers....  No wonder europeans think we Brits have an attitude problem when it comes to providing customer service.

Because parking has become a real issue and I’ve seen delightful human sh!t there more often than back when the cafe was friendly.

Whilst I think Tyler was a touch harsh, the issue of wether or not Nev was a paying customer is the Crux of the issue, in their opinion, parking did not qualify. Maybe if you had bought the pasty between you and asked to split the bill, it would have all been okay.

Should have just told her that you were in there once before but didn’t use the toilet…

Which is utterly wrong. Especially as people are encouraged to travel distance to get there and spend time visiting multiple shops, meaning that it's highly likely that you will be caught short.

Personally (and I have said this before) I think planning regs should require all businesses which are large enough to be affected by Sunday trading laws to provide public toilets. Yes there is a cost to providing toilets, but that should be born by all retailers rather than just the fast food establishments.

I was disgusted recently about a headline regarding public buildings being required to do away with gender neutral facilities, I'm sure the majority of the population would agree that by far the highest concern is actually finding a toilet, not who else they may be sharing it with. By which I mean that I'd sooner see a single shared toilet with huge queues than absolutely no toilet provision, which is of course the easy solution to being told that your current facilities don't meet the grade.

A year or two after they took it over me and a mate went in for a cup of tea and a cake, still wearing our harnesses and carrying all of our gear and ropes. She gave us a sob story about how climbers don't spend any money as I was literally tapping my card to pay.

I've got very little sympathy with the "justpark take most of the money" angle - in that case don't sign a contract with them!

All in all it feels like a huge loss to the community.

So people shitting at the crag is the fault of the cafe owners? What happens at other crags?

Ah hostitality is alive and well.

No wonder catering businesses around are going bust left, right and centre when people start a social media pile at the most minor of grievances. From what I can see you got to park for the day, Nev got to use the toilet gratis and you got a pasty but somehow that's not enough?

That cuts both ways, the parking contract is between the driver and Just Park, if the OP doesn't like those terms he can has a choice, he's not owed anything by the cafe owners. 

"Because you won't let me use your loo I'm going to shit right next to where I'm climbing"

Sounds to me like you have very little sympathy in general.

There is no climbing community, there are many little communities of people who climb, but not all climbers are part of some, larger community.

Sorry just fixing a typo!

I strongly object to paying to use a toilet in much the same way as I strongly object to paying to get tap water to drink from a cafe and strongly object to paying for air to breath.

I was there this weekend. Visited the cafe at lunch time as it was so hot and bought a pasty and some cold drinks and ice cream for the dog chatted with the owners who were very pleasant. Went back later they had just closed and were leaving, I mentioned I was going in to the vending machine to grab a pasty, they then offered to re-open and sell me one of the ‘still hot’ ones from that day. I think that’s good service.

It’s their business, they can run it as they wish. I’ll go back.

Seems to me a private business can do what it wants. They don't have to be concerned whether it suits the clientelle of the old owners of the business. Whether or not random people think they are making bad business decisions is not their problem

I haven't been there since it was Eric's cafe. 

Perhaps climbers could look at themselves and think why does this business not want our custom.  Have we behaved badly, not wanted to pay for things, had arguments with or moaned at the owners. Or is it just that they are taking the business in a different direction as they are quite entitled to do.

And as for the suggestion that if I can't use your private toilet then I am entitled to randomly crap elsewhere I despair.

Fwiw the new incarnation of Caffi Siabod, at Eisteddfa Fisheries not far from there, is lovely. 

Agreed

Although if you urgently NEED to go and there aren't any facilities entitlement doesn't have anything to do with it. As discussed many times on here, not everyone can plain their bowel movements ahead of time, although that's no excuse for not trying to dispose of waste responsibly.

Could this sort of situation have been the original inspiration for Christmas Curry?  (Or, bombshell, dream topping, leg slip, etc)

Agree with you that sometimes and for some people these things can be hard to plan. The nearest public toilet listed on Google is less than a 5 minute drive away though so it is not like there is no alternative.

You do understand that you pay to use the toilet in your home. Cost of property, insurances, maintenance, water bill, bog paper, cleaning products. Why do you expect the toilet free elsewhere?

I went in last year and the guy there was actually extremely friendly. Was climbing with Jez B that day who mentioned it had changed hands...

Has anyone popped in to chat to the proprietor? Gareth Streatfield and Joanna Wallbanks according to companies house / BMC website. If this is a well-managed business I'd expect them to want to keep the climbing guests moderately onside, perhaps they aren't particularly experienced hospitality people and feedback would be helpful? Or they don't climb and the culture is a little different. Sounds like people wouldn't mind paying to use the loos for example.

Feels like this thread could gather its own momentum and then whenever anyone goes in every niggle is perceived as a grave slight... and these people end up stuffed financially.

Reminds me of a documentary about these supercar owners that meet around Harrods and were annoying local residents by revving their engines at all times of day and night. The BBC documentary interviewed all these posh old English people who (quite rightly) had all sorts of nasty things to say about the car owners - mainly Middle Eastern chaps. But it concluded with the interviewer asking them if they had every complained and it turned out they hadn't. So they did complain and the car revvers were actually very polite and apologetic. 

I've had them threaten clients with calling the police one too many times to ever use them again... 

...or One Step In The ...

Harrods, or the Cafe? 

What had the clients been doing?

Yes. The first time we had a long chat about how they got there and their plans, hopes, dreams, ambitions. 

The second time we had a very short conversation about what parts of the menu they would only serve to campers, which items they weren't prepared to sell us, where we weren't welcome to sit and where we were going instead. Chippy Dre, by the way, was excellent.

Probably taking a shit in the car park 😂

I'm not just talking about climbers.

In that case just a simple sign in the safe window 'toilets for customer use only, nearest public facilities are at ...." Although obviously you then loose your parking spot, plus it would be good to know with paid parking if a return visit the same day requires you to pay again. 

Simply charging a small fee for non customers, to discourage but not prevent them from using the toilets would seem a good compromise. Like a few others on here I don't like to pay to pee, but there are times when I'd be very relieved to have the option.

I guess many of us view sanitation as a basic human right which shouldn't be monetised. Same with a glass of tap water, using a phone to call 999 or offering someone supplies out of a first aid kit.

At popular locations suffering the costs of allowing people to use your facilities is probably preferable to dealing with the waste if you don't. Take Snowdon cafe, only reason I went into the building was to have a wee, generally I'm happy doing so al fresco, but with such a concentrated number of people the summit would soon become an open sewer if they limited access to customers.

Left skid marks ?

Doesn’t seem like things have changed much since the previous thread on this topic.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/erics_cafe-745866#x9614702

Ultimately, it’s their business and they are perfectly entitled to charge for use of its facilities, or to make some sorts of customer feel less welcome (which was my experience, though the lady did backtrack and become more charming later on) if that is their preference.

The lovely cafe at Llanrothen recommended as an alternative seems to have closed, but I imagine there are others to frequent. 

You're a fan of trickle down economics then?

Asking if the cafe was open.

Cafe in Llanfrothen has recently reopened with new owners (in the last month or two). I haven't been in yet though.

Toilets are a basic amenity that should be provided by civic society for the benefit of all. 

I don't put 20p into the lamp posts to see at night, I don't pay-as-you-go for zebra crossings, teachers don't come with card readers and while I would actually pay 20p for you not to behave like a complete arse I don't think I should have to.

I do understand that things cost, however, I don't think we should pay to use the toilet, drink water or breath air at a cafe.

I've had veggie breakfasts there a couple of times in the last month or so. Very good and reasonably priced.

Something we agree on.

Hmm, degenerating to crude language tends to demean people.

If you are a customer you generally do not pay for tap water or to use the toilet.Why should a private individual provide a public good though for non customers.

I have every sympathy for the people at the Cafe, they have probably borrowed a lot of money and invested their heart and soul into that Cafe, and want to run their business their way, and with the pandemic and inflation have probably had a tough time of it. It was up for sale for quite some time, but non of the climbers who seem happy to tell them how to run the cafe seemed so keen to put their money where their mouth is and buy it.

It is a poor analogy. You don't already pay for the cafe toilets through your council tax, unlike the street lights.

all those things you list (except for the air) are provided by the state, funded out of taxes. Why do you think private businesses should be obliged to do the same?  How about feeding people who are unable to feed themselves, either through poverty or a disability. Since being able to eat must also be a fundamental human right, should the cafe feed those people?

I think most of us would feel that if we are paying to use their carpark (even through a third party) we were paying customers. 

(not familiar with the site in question, so not sure if they own the carpark or not)

I normally say that I have a tortoises head, which usually gets me the key to the bog. It's going to happen regardless.

You pay for teachers, lighting, road safety and their maintenance (holidays) via your taxes. You pay for you home toilet via your water bill, domestic cleaning products and your own time.

A small business has a cost of water,  time, bog roll and sheer indignity of cleaning up last night's bad curry for their toilets. I'm sure you've been to service station toilets. Many are disgusting hell holes. Humans can be the worst creatures. 

I don't think it unreasonable to expect customers to buy something to use the loo, or pay a charge for the same. 

The cafe owners don't need to be rude but I can quite understand it after days/weeks/years of dealing with literal shit either in the bog or verbally if a 'customer'  doesn't get what they want for nothing.

And those using this as an excuse to crap in unsanitary ways in the countryside have zero excuse. Take a couple of zero weight, good quality bin liners and take everything home. Some even come scented.

And public toilets should be provided by the same bodies that provide those services.

Personally, as a fit and healthy 40 something man I can generally find workarounds for an absence of public toilets. Not everyone is as fortunate as me though and the closing of public toilets due to council budget cuts is having a huge impact on the ability of some people to enjoy the outdoors.

Yet another example of how the erosion of public services has the greatest impact on the most vulnerable.

You are of course 100% correct. Towns, cities, even village should have access to public loos. In my, long since passed youth, public conveniences were pretty commonplace. What is 100% impractical, and probably not desirable, is a toilet block in every layby across the land. It would be an eyesore, they would be vandalised and ill maintained, cost prohibitive, and left to decay.

Which wasnt my argument, which was about the use of a private facility as a non-paying customer. You could argue that making them more accessible would perhaps increase the takings but I suspect that the owners have simply gotten to the end of their tether with people taking the, ehem, piss, mistreating the bogs and not, ahem, spending a penny. Perhaps a solution, in the absence of mass public layby betoiletting, would be for owners of cafes to get grants to cover the upkeep of commercial bogs. Win-win.

Plus, I always have an emergency bag, roll and bottle in the car for long, country journeys, or make sure that I'm no more than a few miles from a public convenience. It's no different than preparing for emergencies and as folk who enjoy remote and dangerous areas, I would assume they use the same level of risk avoidance. I have IBS and sometimes the urge is unstoppable (sorry for those reading whilst eating their breakfasts) so I make sure that I am prepared for the time I have no option, which, thankfully hasnt got me yet, despite some close calls. Humans shitting unsympathetically outside is no better than hanging your freshly coiled dog's egg bouble in a tree.

Speaking as an older man who occasionally suffers from the traditional weaknesses associated with that (!), I'm surprised no-one has challenged LA toilet provision on discriminatory grounds. Basically, making no provision for toilets or charging extortionate sums (e.g. 40p or more, à la Ambleside or Tenby), disproportionately affects older people.

I am not disagreeing with you on how we would like it to work.  Same as I am taken aback at being charged separately for a butter pat or a ketchup sachet [or the need to tip the guy who hands me the towel in the loo at the Garrick.... ].  My point that this is a private business and as long as they comply with whatever regulations are out there, they can price up their services, goods and facilities however they see fit.  If we do not like the way they do it, we can go somewhere else and spend our money [and do our, um, business] with a different company.

Along the same lines, how come gas, electricity and telecoms companies have to provide special services to low income users [or not cut them off], but Tesco does not have to?  It would seem that we should have the social security net provided by all companies [including the provision of loos] or none.  

In some places where  councils have closed public toilets, they have agreed to pay local cafes and pubs to allow passers by to use their facilities. This seems a good solution.... though doesn't help when cafes have shut in the evenings.

Is this a joke ,probably not, and judging by the likes, it shows how male UKC is. White middle class man gets old and starts complaining of toilet discrimination.

Enter the world women live in, the Toilet provision across the entire developed word as far as I am aware discriminates against women. Most venues provide 50:50 space for toilets for the genders, but even the dimmest of architects must have seen the queues at womens toilets and thought, hang on, it takes women longer, they need more facilities. And with out being crude, it is much easier and safer for a bloke to nip round a corner and take a wazz, than for a woman. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/29/urination-equality-amsterdam-...

I do agree though that there should be more public toilets generally.

I also think they are missing a trick, over the years I've brought drinks and the odd meal at Eric's, mainly because I parked up (paying) and used the loo. All that spend had stopped now, because I just don't want the hassle of dealing with them.

Absolutely their business and they can do what they want but it doesn't seem like a smart move to me. 

Eric's used to be rammed with bikers as well and their absence over the last few years has suggested to that climbers aren't the only group they have been unfriendly to.

While Eric was an excellent proprietor it should be noted that he did remove the handle from the outside water tap so that only those camping in his field could access the drinking water.

Even the most sociable hosts have their limits.😀

All you need is the 'Just Crap App'

Crikey, I shouldn't bite, but I will. Older, middle class white male makes complaint on behalf of the larger group of which he is a subset - I.e. older people generally - and in a classic non-sequitor gets slagged off for being middle class, white and male. To quote Woody Guthrie 'I can't help it, I was born that way I guess.'

Incidentally, the last time I went to a Dylan gig the queues for the gents were noticeably longer than the queues for the ladies...

It think the world splits into two camps here:

Camp 1: those that wouldn't be prepared to see someone soil themselves for the sake of 20p.

Camp 2: those that are happy to see someone soil themselves for the sake of 20p.

I'm in camp 1, the "who pays" aspect is a secondary detail and I advocate paying for this provision through taxes for what I consider to be a basic human need especially as the lack of provision is discriminatory and can be severely disabling for a significant minority.

I also believe that in remote areas it is in the interest of shops/cafes/whatever to support their communities this way and that this should be encouraged through the planning system.

I feel that those in camp 2 lack empathy, imagination, and compassion. I can understand that you might not appreciate this just now but spend a couple of minutes trying to understand and you might just get it.

If you can't get it through empathy and imagination you might get it by considering the benefits to the immediate environment and just consider that this is simply in your own best interest.

But that is not what you said above:

And that is where the debate has come in:  whether or not a private firm is obliged to offer a [incontrovertibly essential] service for free.  Not about who can claim ownership of a superior moral plane than others with a different opinion.

Doesn't the BMC own the crags above the cafe?
If so, perhaps they should be contributing something towards providing toilets as its climbers that want to use them

Don't go there - someone in the BMC will bite your hand off! It is the nature of bureaucracies that they constantly try and expand their scope... I've never understood why the BMC took it upon themselves to become a magazine publisher, if they start providing toilets what next? running hotel chains?

Veg boxes

I dont think anyone wants to to see anyone else soil themselves and I would imagine 99.9% of the population, including the owners of this cafe, would be happy to accommodate a person in specific oblutionary needs. Its the piss taking that needs to be dealt with, which is reasonable, and my solution would be for a grant to be provided to remote cafes with toilets such that if they are a necessity for many people, costs can be covered for the maintenance and consumables. It seems a later poster thinks this happens, which I hadnt realised. 

Empathy works both ways. I also have empathy for the thousands of cafe/hospitality owners across the land who have to deal with the likely millions of toilet visits each week, some of which will be pretty unpleasant, with no transaction taking place or funding to cover the pre-stated costs and time.

At the minute I severely doubt that, they are very much in focus on keeping the BMC boat afloat at present, not acquiring a further set of toilets to look after (noting the fuss about the ones at Harrison's Rocks years ago).

In reply to Crest Jewel:

Back in 1970 the Williams - who then owned the crag and the still functioning garage - used to serve tea and Wagon Wheels from the garage pay booth - there was nowhere indoors to sit in those days. They were a lovely couple, very friendly to climbers, but IIRC you had to ask for a key to the toilet. In the Gents anyway there was a toilet roll holder with the legend 'Don't sit there all day dreaming of that £5000.'

I just don't get it   We seem to agree on little beyond

• Things aren't like they were in the golden days (that means different times to different people)
• Climbers aren't happy 
• The cafe owners aren't happy 

Am I being  simplistic here, why don't the cafe owners have free toilets to paying customers and charge £1 toilet fee to non customers. Sure some people will grumble on the amount, but it's enough to be attractive to the cafe owners and has to be better than the status quo of seemingly everyone being dissatisfied 

Sure, but never in my life have I been to a cafe where a group of people has to individually buy an item each to be allowed to use the toilet.

A private business can do what it wants and get flack for doing bad things

I've been there a couple of times and thought it fine. Doesn't mean they've treated others well.

The Grindleford cafe used to have a sign saying the toilets were for customers only. I don't recall this amount of pearl clutching about it.

Why not? 

My golf course has a half way house. A lovely little business in the middle of a field with toilets, which inevitably I use after 9 holes, flush the loo, use the paper towels. At the very least I buy a bottle of water, often a sausage roll or a cup of coffee, as do my playing partners. I would feel bad if I didn't.

What folks seem to forget, and this is a symptom of modernity, is that everywhere we complain that local shops, independent businesses etc have closed and our high streets are barren wastelands of vape, charity, and betting shops with the usual crappy high street mono-retail yet spend our money with Amazon or out of town megastores. If the golfers want this facility to exist, it cant be free, like this cafe which has started this thread.

I dont personally know it and cant comment on whether the current patrons are pleasant or not but I can absolutely imagine a situation where she has had enough after a stream of people have come through the doors all day, not buying anything and pissing all over the seats or worse, then someone comes in after a day of climbing, buys a 2 quid pasty and his mate wants to go use her toilets. Why not buy two pasties, or a bar of chocolate....? She probably made a few pence from the pasty and the flush plus paper towels/leccy for the drying after the water to wash the hands all come off that, after costs for rates/wages/maintenance/raw materials/insurance/travel/toilet cleaning/etc. 

I have no dog in this race, but the cafe will survive or die based on its customers, not pixie dust. 

Please read the original post, which is the context of what I said. Party of two. One paid for a pasty, both paid for parking. The one that didn't buy a pasty was told they can't use the toilet.

It's very normal to have toilets for customers only. However, if I go in there with a couple of mates, I get my usual assortment of stuff, and one of my mates hasn't ordered anything, the last thing I would expect would be to be told that my mate can't use the toilet because they didn't order. In all fact that would be the last time I go there.

Because it's a ridiculously shortsighted way to treat your clientelle and will soon result in no customers. I certainly wouldn't be going back after that, and I've been a few times (and ordered a lot more than a pasty).

Fair enough, you'll reap what you sow.

Hence 'going for a crappacino'

On the same theme, but not about morality, social justice and giving free business advice to cafe owners... 

We are talking about economics, specifically bundled pricing.  Should the cafe bundle its toilet provision with its food and parking offering?   I think we all accept that providing toilets is not free [both the original install cost and the ongoing maintenance/clean up].  Thus, TINSTAAFL [there is no such thing as a free lunch].   [same debate with university tuition... it will never be free, but we can certainly argue over who should pay for it and how]

We see bundled/unbundled pricing every day - airlines and luggage charges, bottomless cups of coffee, 'free' shipping from online shopping - all trading off admin simplicity with giving customers what they want with managing demand and costs.  If the business gets it wrong, they lose money, maybe going out of business.  In my view, the cafe can set whatever pricing model it likes.  If I object, I can go elsewhere or maybe even put my superior insights as to what they should be doing to the test and open my own place. 

The cafe could sell a monthly toilet pass, price differently between #1s and #2s or time of day, charge per minute spent in the loo, not charge at all, give one toilet break per coffee to you and all your friends or to just you.... it's up to them. 

How about weighing your dump at the counter and charging per 100g

In reality it's easier for them to just say toilets are for customers only.

None of this is new as the linked thread below shows.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/erics_cafe-745866#x9614702

Climbers who have bowel issues can still keep a chemical toilet in their van, or carry WAG bags (or cheaper green poo bags) or load the public toilet Ap on their phone to find the nearest public facility.

I'm not going to defend any bad behaviour of the owners but it happened in reaction to too many climbers abusing the toilet situation and the short stay parking (next to the old longstay). They were more restrictive on cafe times (fully closed to the public for a while) as planning regs meant glamping was the only way they could afford to run and those customers had to take priority.

I still visit the cafe occasionally (and even more commonly any Snowdonia area cafes I know near climbing that really support climbers) as such businesses have been going through tough times since 2020. Others chose not to which is perfectly OK and some actively avoid Tremadoc cafe which is also OK. However, I and some others who climb and do visit don't get treated badly.

and sometimes by the litre?

Surprised you didn't get laughed out of the place

E

One of the things that really sticks in my memory was this 'priority'. We were told the big room with all the tables in was reserved for campers. And shown which bits of the menu were only for campers. We were not to sit in the campers' chairs, nor order the campers' food, despite having wallets ready to open and wanting to be fed. 
"How many campers were there?" I hear you ask. None. Not one. There was not a single camper there that day. They were keeping the room free for.... nobody, and turning away people who had gone in there to exchange money for food. Everything about our visit that day was simply impossible to take seriously. Their google reviews are full of similar accounts of just batshit exchanges, so I don't get how they're still going. But it's been 6 years now and somehow they are.

You could say the same about Grindleford Cafe once: with it's mad rules and angry exchanges. Then there is a certain White Peak pub thats a must visit if you are a lager drinker.

Is this a euphemism?

Just to clarify, haven’t had any issues with them and would go back, I’m stating what I would do if it’d just been told what the OP was told by a business owner. 

What would that be?

Not an intentional one, the staff are keeping it afloat on the back of hard work with the support of volunteers.

I presume you are referring to the Three Stags' Heads? I remember going in there on a Saturday night to find 3 blokes sharpening knives at the bar with a sign stating " please do not ask for lager as a punch in the mouth may offend" directly above the bar man who was knocking back a can of special brew.

They keep their beer well mind you.

No, I don't think it's a joke. Prostate Cancer and Prostatitis affect men regardless of class, but your chances of developing them do increase with age, even more so if you're black.

The 2nd largest male cancer killer in the UK.

In our defence we had parked in a layby back up the road. Come to think of it, probably to avoid paying for parking....

A copy of the old books would show a good cafe will make far more money than camping of any flavour. Your target audience isn't even limited to passing traffic as many would divert off route to go there. 

That’s the pub where it’s helpful if you’re talking on a mobile phone while ordering lager. Maybe Carling Black Label.

Some of Phil Eastwood’s batsh*t signs are still up in the cafe. He had a morbid dislike of providing mushrooms with anything, However, when I was a student back in the day, he used to let us sleep in the cafe in return for painting and building work. No free food though😩Underneath the bluster he was a very likeable and funny person.

The BMC Office doesn't see the need for a toilet as they find it difficult to pass a satisfactory motion.

It's not always the answer, but a she-wee will go some way towards equalising the opportunities for a waz.

That's really a very naughty suggestion 😁

Show me a pair of trousers that has a sufficiently low fly to actually pee through a she wee without dropping your trousers.  IME trying to route through the fly invariably requires you to be able to defy the laws of gravity and persuade the flow to go uphill.

They are really useful devices, but by no means equalise the gender disparity of toileting.

If people know the toilet situation is so poor on at the crag,  why don’t people do one of the following to avoid being caught short. 

Go before you arrive. 

Walk back to your car & drive to Tesco for a toilet break at lunch time/any time. It is after all a road side crag. 
 

Go to another crag which has  a toilet near by if you have medical issues 

Take your waste away with you. 

Offer  to buy the caffe and open the toilets to the public as you see fit 

Fund raise for a portaloo  at tremadog during  the summer months. 

Pay £15 to go indoor climbing where there are toilets and a cafe.

I work outside  quite regularly with no toilet provisions & have frequently  worked 12 -18 hour days . I have had various stomach issues over the last few years & have managed to plan around this by knowing what is in the area if I start feeling unwell. You’re never that far away from a Tesco or McDonald’s. 

If people were stuck there all day on a rescue mission I can understand crapping in a bush. If you’re only there for a day’s climbing which is a hobby to most ,  why should  you be entitled to shit on the floor to avoid paying a visit to a local toilet. You wouldn’t do this in your local playground. 

I don’t see people complaining that there aren’t any toilets at Careg wastad, Gogarth or the grochan. 
 

It would obviously be fantastic if the caffe opened their toilet door to climbers  for a fee or for free like Eric did , who I think was brilliant. But they don’t have to so I wish people would get off their soap boxes &  stop moaning or do something about it !! 
 

If you have that much free time on your hands to complain about not having a toilet at Tremadog then count yourself lucky that you are living quite a privileged life ! 
 

Hope this response doesn’t cause too much offence, I just feel there are worse things in life to get upset about right now.  

I like the couple in the Tremadoc Cafe as well. Expecting someone as climber friendly as Eric was almost an impossibility.

The reason people don’t complain about lack of toilets at Gogarth is that there are toilets at both South and North Stack car parks. So people complain about out stuff instead, e.g. the South Stack cafe not being open late enough for a post send ice cream. 

" No, they couldn't accept cash, so i had to use the JustPark app."

Shite...you're saying you can't park at Tremadoc without a brain-rot device?

Gap in the market?

Which is why I said "will go some way towards equalising"; I do appreciate it's still more difficult.

I think in time they'll realise the climbing, biker(motor and pedal), passer-by clientele are a safer business bet than a mossie ridden camp site. If anything Eric could have developed the cafe more without losing its character, but he was content with it as it was. 

I have found this thread entertaining and I think expectations of how the café should be are unrealistic because they are based on the halcyon days of Eric, a character who brought you tea in bed and politely asked you what you had done, even though the answer was almost always Christmas Curry or One Step.

Although I also can't help thinking my response to some of the situations mentioned in this thread would be similar to the present owners so I have some sympathy for them. I will admit to be entirely unsuited to any form of customer facing role though!

We would all have loved the cafe to have remained as it was in Eric's day.  However the new owners have a different vision for the business. We may think it is short-sighted of them to turn their backs on a well-established customer base, but perhaps to them scruffy climbers and bikers dropping in for a cup of tea and beans on toast aren't compatible with the more up-market plans they have for the place. That is their choice, and either they'll make a success of it or they won't. 

We climbers can't expect, let alone demand, anything from them. If they choose not to allow drop-ins who make a single token purchase between two of them to have the run of the facilities, that too is their choice. I wish it were otherwise, but we have to accept that times have changed.

If I owned that Cafe, and saw this comment and that 60+ climbers liked it and only 2 disliked, I would take a dim view of climbers.

 

Then perhaps they should try to understand more what provoked it. 

I stayed there once under their new mangement in, I think 2018, not long after they'd taken over. When I asked them the price of an overnight for a van in the field they gave a very reasonable price  so we accepted. When we paid they said that price was for one person, not two ! Despite this, I defended them on the first of the threads that cropped up on here, taking the view that either I'd mistaken/misheard or that it was just a teething problem - even got an email for doing so from them, thanking me. But it seems there have been too many complaints now.

At that time Eric was still living across the road and I had a long chat with him. I wonder what his take on it would be now...

Many going to there don't make token purchases, they get a brew or breakfast before climbing, lunch, maybe a drink and ice cream before heading home, it all adds up. It's a trickle flow of trade, sell a few bits of kit and guidebooks to feed those who've forgotten something lures people in. The pictures on wall previously, nostalgia etc.. People buy into that, loyalty and semi locals will travel even if not climbing at Tremadog. The now sadly relocated Moel Siabod cafe being a prime example of what can be done.

Seem to be just glowing reviews? Have the bad ones been removed or am I looking at a different review site? 

Here is one of our friends reviews for example. They are so obnoxious that they added that update with CCTV later when they saw a lot of likes on it.

I'm a bit surprised no one in the thread haven't went to upvote comments about rude behaviour so that more people could see it. I haven't read the full thread and it seems like people are talking about toilets for some reason but on the ground zero for any cafe you would have thought that staff shouldn't be rude which is my main problem with them

If you go to see all reviews you can see quite a lot of bad ones 

Check out this review of Y Beudy / Cowshed on Google Maps
https://goo.gl/maps/LKLZ1DugFyotSVof6

Check out this review of Y Beudy / Cowshed on Google Maps

https://goo.gl/maps/qEkN48BKo6696VLa9

Thanks - was looking at the Glamping one.

This is getting ridiculous now, there are 267 reviews on there and the average is 4.5 but here you are picking out two of the worst and tacitly suggesting that people go and boost the poor ratings. This is someone's business and livelihood who we know is likely to read this yet you want to stir up negativity for them instead of just moving on. You don't have to park there, you don't have to use the cafe.

You might not agree with their business model but it has absolutely no negative impact on you or any other climbers wanting to climb at Tremadog. 

It's tough running a business - I've done it a few times though never in hospitality, thank goodness.

I usually loathe unverified reviews because inevitably there are some a*ses about, but those on Google do indicate that there are issues. Sadly it doesn't matter how hard the owners are working or how much they strive to give efficient friendly service, it is the customer's perception that matters and there seems to be quite a bit of negativity there - too much to be purely malicious. Really, the owners should take note,.

I think most people here are understandably sceptical about the potential success of the glamping model, for reasons that might be a bit painful to enumerate. But what this thread does illustrate is that there is a market for a range services for primarily the climbing community, but also as noted motorbikers and possibly cyclists - parking (I personally prefer to pay a few quid to park in a recognised place than try and get something for nothing, especially if that includes access to a loo), refreshments, meals, climbing gear and guidebooks, camping (it's a good location and within walking distance of pubs) - and is barn accommodation out of the question nowadays? Barns may not attract high rollers but the customers still have to eat.

I think this comment will explain my point of view better than I would be able to, more specifically:

In reply to the owners response, my intention is not to ruin a small family business but to enlighten others of the changes made ...Unfortunately we now won't be because you no longer offer this option.

https://goo.gl/maps/VFxwGdbJmaqi1MXu8

The more people see that cafes direction changed is better isn't it, and you can increase it's visibility with upvoting. Then all of these climbers hikers and bikers finally will stop bothering them and they can run business as they find appropriate. I wouldn't go if I saw any of these comments and wouldnt get my day ruined like these ladies had https://goo.gl/maps/4EPbVxR2aJFF5kwLA. I don't understand your beef with feedback as I think many would be happy to receive it in order to improve. All of the situations described in comments are not made up ones and hostile comments from owners to quite a lot of them is a sad sign. They can run their business as they want but people who visit it have rights to leave negative feedback if they haven't enjoyed provided services

P.s. some persons theory about rating. I think even if rating is high there is quite a lot of negative comments in the same time
https://goo.gl/maps/VYSVzpqmJobCYYZYA

I think the bigger tell is in the owner responses to some of the reviews. The customer says the owner was rude, and then the owner has taken the time to respond by doubling down.

I mean, FFS.

That’s all fair enough and good luck to them, but they don’t have to be dicks as well. Last time I was there myself and my mate had snide remarks made about us being climbers while we were trying to buy hot drinks (and go for a shit). It took us aback somewhat and we knew we weren’t welcome. Bit of an odd, discriminatory feeling. 

Can't help thinking you have a bit of a grudge going on here. No posts older than 6 months, just these posts in the last 6 months. Links to 5 very similar negative reviews and encouraging anyone reading the thread to upvote them.

The owners might well be dicks, but life's too short for this nonsense IMHO.

I’ll take online reviews with a cellar-full of salt, there are some very strange perspectives out there, both positive and negative.

I take the owner’s responses as gospel though. They might be better not responding.

Last night I was staying in the pub/hotel right by Kilnsey Crag. Perfectly fine as far as I was concerned. If you read the Google reviews (rank them high/low/newest) you'll find people whose lives have been destroyed by a frayed napkin or a beer ring on a table. Unbelievable.

If we didn't take the piss, we wouldn't have to suffer this.

Loss of parking in Borrowdale

Loss of access to the upper car park on Ben Nevis.

Loss of the online Range West briefing

Loss of crag access

All due to the actions of climbers in the main. How folks choose to run their business is up to them. We were spoiled by Eric and by Martin at Shepherds. My, aren't we showing it now with our temper tantrums?

Bottom left is where to throw your toys from your pram.

For those not familiar with Angry People in Local Newspapers........... 

Slightly OT but I only went to treemudrock once and on the approach to Boo-Boo I stepped in a huge poo-poo.  

Afterward the climb - such as it was - we had a greased tea and perhaps a cake in Eric's (this was 2008 ish)

We sat outside as the traffic roared past on the main road and I was reminded of Morrissey's 'Everyday is like Sunday':

Trudging slowly over wet poo

Back to the (picnic) bench where your cams were stolen

This is the coastal caff, that has become rather naff

Come Armageddon, come Armageddon, come..."

This has to be the beginning of a limerick

the smell was intense

people fled from their tents

and bog roll ran out in the loo too

There once was a climber or three

Who said that they wanted a pee

A man in a caff said 'you're avin a laff!'

So they dumped under Christmas Curry

making me mad as a hatter.

Scraping poo from my shoe

I wrote a google review 

Blaming the rude woman from Hadfer. 

They don't get our climbers' right

To do what we bloody well might

If owt costs us money

It just isn't funny

And will lead to an Internet fight.