"We visited this café as a family after spending a lovely weekend in Pitlochry. Although the café had little to no social media presence and no website, we chose Café Rhubarb due to their good reviews and were excited to visit and support a local business! Upon entering the café with my partner, we quickly picked up on a very unwelcoming atmosphere which was then backed up by a very dismissive, what seemed to be manager, who mumbled at us to sit down. We very quickly felt like an inconvenience. The café itself was not well maintained. The décor was chic but needed updated/maintained. There was a major ventilation issue as there was condensation covering every window and there were plug in heaters around the floor of the restaurant with cables draped over the booths – not a nice atmosphere to relax and enjoy some coffee in, let alone sit and eat breakfast! Our family then arrived, and we asked if there was a way we could sit together, the manager suggested pulling over an extra table if we were to move to another booth. This was a great suggestion, appreciated by myself and my family but what wasn’t appreciated was again, being made to feel like an inconvenience due to the managers dismissive nature. The manager explained that staff had let them down. I can only imagine that with the customer experience being dreadful, the employee experience isn’t much better so understand why there are staffing issues. At this point, we were all taken back by the service so far as it is certainly not what we expected, certainly with our experience of smaller local businesses (usually keen to leave an impression to ensure customers come back! . We thought that maybe the food would make up for the poor welcome… we were wrong. The menu was very limited, pretentious and overpriced. We are willing to spend more on a good meal however the food was not worth even half of what the café are charging. My 9 year old niece ordered banana pancakes without syrup, she was served banana pancakes WITH syrup and was disgusted to find a long blonde hair on top of her breakfast. We sent the meal back and had it replaced with a fresh plate. My partner pulled a long hair out of her coffee, so did not finish the drink. The food in general was very basic and not worth more than what you would pay in a supermarket. Salmon gate… My sister ordered a salmon and cream cheese bagel. When served to her, she immediately felt uncomfortable eating the salmon due to it dull and lifeless colour, not to mention the brown coating on it! We, as a family, enjoy salmon and have NEVER seen salmon look this disgusting. My sister took the meal to the manager and politely explained that she did not want to eat the salmon and had lost her appetite so didn’t want to order another meal. The manager, again, dismissively returned the plate to the kitchen where the chef loudly expressed her frustration with the plate being returned. This was HIGHLY unprofessional and created a, what seemed like it couldn’t get any worse, terrible atmosphere. When paying the bill, the manager rudely interrupted me to say the salmon was taken from the bill which was the least the café could do after an awful experience. The chef then marched out for the kitchen to, again, defend the nauseating salmon. A note to the chef, please simply google how salmon should look, no article online will confirm that salmon should have brown lining/spots. I calmly explained that the price the café pay per kilo for that specific salmon was irrelevant to me, what was important is that my sister was served a meal she did not feel comfortable to eat and that the café had no interest in providing any sort of service to make her feel more comfortable or improve our customer experience. Needless to say, unless the management staff in Café Rhubarb can swallow their unwarranted pride, listen to their customers, we will not be back."
