The Stables Tea Room

TL;DR — Nice building, great food, slightly slow service.
The stables is a gorgeous little place and ideal for stopping off during a trip around Heaton Park. We’ve been here for tea and coffee a few times but this was the first time we came here to eat.
To say it was busy would be an understatement! The queue for the counter was huge, but it just gave us more time to admire the wonderful looking cakes and sandwiches on display. We went for the «gourmet burgers» which were absolutely delicious, coming with fries, salad and homemade coleslaw. They also had a really nice salsa on them too. We had tea to drink which came in nice cups with a Heaton Park logo on them.
Unfortunately when we visited there was some construction taking place which meant we couldn’t sit outside, and there wasn’t really enough seating inside when it was really busy. Just a temporary problem though — I guess the place is a victim of its own success! Also, the service at the counter was quite slow for no obvious reason, but not enough to deter us from coming back!

I was really impressed with this place, but just for the purposes of this review I should say that I only popped in for coffee while out for the day in Heaton Park.
It’s run by the same guys as Eagle and child pub and offers people from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance to work in a coffee shop/​deli/​restaurant environment and hopefully give them the skills to further their careers in the industry.
All of the staff I came across were super friendly and efficient and the whole place had a great vibe about it. I have to say that if we didn’t already have plans to go out for lunch that day then I would have been quite happy staying here for lunch as the tea rooms seemed really cool, the menu quite varied and overall quite a nice place to take a load off for a while.
The espresso I had definitely packed a punch (double for £2) and my wife enjoyed her Cappuccino (£2.20). It’s great to know this place is here just in case we’re out for the day at the lovely Heaton Park and looking for a decent drink or food option.