Courtyard Cafe - Carta

£6 for a micro bacon butty, and the slowest service in Britain on a quiet midweek morning. The staff appear to be paid to stand around chatting to each other. At least the pot of Yorkshire tea was good, and it’s a nice cafe.

So impressed with staff, service and food today. Husband in wheelchair and staff were very attentive, friendly and helpful seating us and making us feel welcome. Food was prompt and delicious. Really recommend it as a place for wheelchair users.

Lovely staff, delicious for brunch or a carrot cake muffin and you can enjoy the courtyard cafe, gift farm shop without needing to pay an entry fee; Castle Howard is still one of our favourite travel stops (and well worth the entry fee if you have time to browse and enjoy the vista from the gardens too). Great coffee but can be very busy around 1pm (as expected). Ver carta

Met up with my son and daughter for a lunch get together. The food was lovely, though the customer service was appalling. Stood ten minutes waiting for a table without any acknowledgement. Kept trying to deliver a pot of (unordered) tea to our table. We wanted dessert but had to go and ask to order. Was asked what we wanted, without having seen the dessert menu. When the dessert came, was given a fork to eat pouring cream! A shame really, it spoiled a lovely meal.

Menu is not very enticing and food was extremely disappointing. The worst part of the experience though was the staff who were not very friendly and completely incompetent, kept forgetting things and serving the wrong orders to different tables. By the time our order arrived it was cold and congealed, perhaps it had been sitting on someone else’s table for a while. Will not be returning and would not recommend. There is a good cafe and pub in the nearby village, far superior.

Would like to comment on the food but could not get served, arrived and sat in the courtyard introduced ourselves and was told to sit down and somebody would take our order in a few minutes, 30 minutes later 14 other people had sat down by then, a waitress came out and started taking orders from the later people seated and when I informed her that we had been waiting over 30 minutes all we got was a disgruntled we are to busy no apology or we will come over next, at this point we left the venue, vert poor customer service Ver carta

Awful over priced food. As a family, of four we had lunch and a drink each, it came to over £77.. which on the face if it is expensive but you don't mind if the food is good...it was far below average. We had a full breakfast which was undercooked and tasteless, a beef baguette which was small with dry over cooked chips, and overly sweet gravy, a burger which was tasteless with dry over cooked chips and a smoked salmon and eggs which was ok.. all told we will definitely not return. The staff were friendly and helpful so thats why this is a 2 star review and not a one star

Absolutely awful service. I don’t know what else to say that hasn’t already been said by other reviewers. The staff are completely uninterested in guests, are unapologetic, and seem unwilling to do basic things like take an order or even give you a menu. And Castle Howard are clearly not bothered about their guests’ experiences or improving the service as this seems to have been going on for years. I’d go as far as saying that our experience in the cafe ruined our day out at Castle Howard. We won’t be returning, and we urge you to try somewhere else in the area for food instead or bring a packed lunch and save yourself the upset.

So in the unlikely event that anyone from Castle Howard actually reads these reviews... 4 years after my last terrible experience here, I ventured in again today for lunch, in the hope that there had been a staff turnover or a cultural overhaul at the very least. Sadly, no. We saw there were only a couple of tables occupied so asked the waitress if they were still serving food. She confirmed they were and we were shown to a table. And that was the end of any form of customer service whatsoever. 15 mins later, we gave up waiting for anyone to return to take our food or even drinks order. Unbelievably other customers started arriving and being shown to tables. We resisted the urge to warn them... Ver carta