A Giraffe?
In Tesco?
Well sort of.
I was first introduced to Giraffe restaurants on twitter a couple of years ago, seeing lots of tweets about how wonderful and family friendly they are. At the time I checked to see if there were any locally and was disappointed to discover that our nearest one was in Guildford!
Having worked at Tesco for too many years to count, I still follow what they are up to and was very interested to discover that they bought out Giraffe in March 2013 where they planned to implant Giraffe restaurants in some of their larger stores and two of those stores are local!!
Giraffe have just revamped the old coffee shops in Tesco Tower Park and Tesco Castle Lane and we were lucky enough to be invited to a preview event in the latter and we were immediately impressed.
The entrance to the restaurant is separate to the entrance to Tesco and the restaurant is warm and inviting with a relaxed atmosphere. We were welcomed and shown to our table, impressed that the unit is appears to be completely sealed off from the supermarket with the sound music in the background rather than checkout beeps.
Eliza and Sebastian were given colouring to do whilst we chose what we wanted to eat and drink, with their own homemade lemonade being particularly recommended.
Hubby chose Piri Piri Chicken, I chose Penang Bang Chicken Salad, Sebastian had a Cheese and Tomato Pasta dish and Eliza went for Pizza fingers which all arrived freshly cooked within about 15 minutes.
I was impressed with the food and it tasted as good as it looked! With the exception of Sebastian, who made a good stab at his pasta, we all cleared our plates looking forward to what dessert had to offer – it didn’t disappoint either and despite not finishing his dinner Sebby managed to steal all the marshmallows from Daddy’s sundae!
It is more expensive than the old cafe in Tesco but it is still reasonably priced for great quality family food and really does feel like a stand alone restaurant. My only grumble is that it shares its toilet facilities with the store, which does spoil it slightly but we will definitely be back soon!
Giraffe Restaurants website quotes “It’s about exploring the wonderful foods from around the globe and opening our ears to music from around the world. Giraffes are so tall they see a different view of the world. we LOVE fresh ideas”
Have heard good things about the new giraffe at Tower Park, we will have to check it out next time we are over that way!
Oooh so you mean I might have a local Giraffe in one of our Tescos then?
they’ve just put a new restaurant in our Tesco – yet to try it out though
I do like Giraffe, although you have to battle your way into the one on the South Bank, our closest! My children love getting the orange balloons – I hope they keep those in the Tesco branches.
I am yet to try a Giraffe, so to speak, but everyone I know who has been has had a great experience x
Don’t think I’d mind too much about where the toilets are – could always grab a pint of milk or bottle of wine on the way out 😉
I’m sure they have a Giraffe at Gatwick airport – have heard good things about the place on a holiday forum I’m on. Maybe next holiday we’ll check it out!
I’ve never heard of this restaurant but it looks like a place we’d enjoy 🙂