To the beach. (Wells Beach Cafe, Wells-Next-the-Sea)

Wells Beach Cafe,

Wells-Next-The-Sea,

Opening times Every day 9-5,

Recommended 

Friday was the sort of summers day when you just had to go for a cycle ride and your destination needed to be at the seaside. So thats what I did as I meet up with Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) at Hard to Please House where he would lead us on a trip to Wells Beach cafe, which, not surprisingly, could be found in Wells(-Next-The-Sea) by the beach.

It was 25 miles but we got there rather quickly which either meant we had suddenly got very fit or we would be cycling back into a strong headwind. I optimistically assumed the former on the theory that as we had both been watching most of the Giro D'Italia (Tour of Italy) on the TV we had got fit via osmosis.

Outside the Beach Cafe

The beach cafe is in a prime location so is efficiently set up to be able to deal with large numbers of beach goers. As it was not yet school holiday time this was not a problem today as we selected a picnic style bench in the outdoor seating area.

Our table in the picnic table style outside seating area

Inside there was a good selection of cakes although the majority were tray bakes so restricted the effective cake selection (ECS) score.

Cake selection which was rather tray back biased

There were also some good looking sausage rolls that I tried as part of Sausage roll of the year #SROTY testing. It was a very good one but as the standard of roll has been so high this year it just missed out on making into my current top 10 for the end of year sausage roll off.

Good quality sausage rolls

In all the #SROTY excitement I forgot to photograph are refreshments until we had consumed them. However to make up for it you will just have to imagine the paper cups had hot chocolate and cappuccino in them. 

Drinks post consumption

As flapjack and Rocky Road always looks pretty much the same I'm sure you could go through the blog archive to find other photos of what they look like, if you could be bothered.

For a beach cafe the drinks were very good and much better than you might of expected. The tray bakes were very good too. All in all the Wells Beach cafe goes down as one of the best seaside based cafes I have been to and I recommend a visit.

On the way back we discovered we hadn't suddenly got very fit after all as the strong headwind made it very hard work and we nearly missed the start of stage 19 on the telly
Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.5	7	5.75	7.5	8.25	7.0

route

Click here to download 49 mile Alysham Wells loop gpx file for your gps

Rant. (Wells Deli, Wells-Next-the-Sea)

Wells Deli,

Wells-Next-the-Sea,

Opening times every day 09:00-17:00,

Recommended 

It was time for my second cafe cycle ride in two days. After yesterdays ride with my newest cycling guest reviewer (see Trainee cycling guest) then today it was out with the new and in with the old as I was accompanied by my original cycling guest Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please), and very old.

We met up for the ride at hard to please house in Alysham for a planned trip out to Wells-Next-the-Sea which is a seaside town that by a lucky coincidence is situated next to the sea. When we go from his house I normally tell Andrew what the target cafe needs to be and allocate him a miles range within which he must try (and normally fails) to deliver the route. However today, unusually, Andrew had picked both the cafe and the route.

There was much catching up to be done as since we last rode together I had cycled with Mrs Crusader all the way to St Andrews (the one in Scotland) whilst he had found lots of things to rant about. So on the way out we took it in turns of me to telling him one of my many amusing cycle trip anecdotes and for him to have a rant on a topic of his choice (and there where many to get through).

We arrived in Wells-Next-the-Sea only to find it was packed with families as apparently it was something called half term. A bit of a miscalculation seeing that as we are a couple of retired old blokes we can go to the seaside at anytime of the year (as I often do) without the need to clash with hoards of holidaymakers. It was therefore a fight through the crowds to get to the Wells Deli situated on the seafront.

Outside Wells Deli after the battle with holiday makers

Sadly there was no outdoor seating area but inside there was a choice of breakfast bar style seating or a whole room full of an eclectic mix of sofas, tables and chairs. From both rooms you could see the harbour out the window.

As always the first thing was to check out the cake selection in order to award the effective cake selection (ECS) score and it was a good one with a nice tempting selection so a high ECS mark.I went for Apple and Sultana and Andrew Coffee and Walnut.

Good cake selection

After much discussion we eventually opted to sit in the eclectic indoor seating area and waited for our cakes, hot chocolate and cappuccino to arrive.

Drinks and cakes to try

They soon turned up and we tried our drinks first, although I didn't see the tin I was pretty sure it was Cadburys hot chocolate and we all know what I think of that, while Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) felt his cappuccino was also a little disappointing and needed to be a lot more coffee tasting.

However we had no problems with the cakes which we felt were both very good indeed. I was pleased to see they had not been over iced and as a result didn't over power the cake with sweetness allowing the other flavors to come through (you can tell who has watched too much bakeoff this week).

We also had some very nice posh sandwiches for lunch so overall the Wells Deli was excellent on the food and cake front but could up its game a bit when it came to hot drinks which would then make it a really good to destination although its still worth a visit.

Despite the ride being 50 miles we were unable to complete the full lists of Andrews ranting topics (note to self, don't ever get him started on not being allowed to take food and drink into the London velodrome again) so arranged for a follow up ride next week so that he can crack on with ranting topics part two.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
5.0	6.0	7.5	8.1	7.0	6.72

route

Click here to download 49 mile Alysham Wells loop gpx file for your gps