Grindleford Station Cafe, Grindleford, Derbyshire

A fantastic place in the middle of great Peak District walking country, the former Grindleford Station has become a haven for hikers and bikers - the twin bastions of the Peak District economy. With a common interest in large plates of fried food and specially designed waterproof clothing.

Great little chips, small, so there's greater proportion of surface area and therefore more friedness. Big, thick bacon and a pale egg. Sauce comes from huge communal/industrial dispensers.

They also sell magazines and maps. And everywhere is covered with handwritten signs dealing with some issue or another. Toilets, kids, coach parties, where to take your pots when you're done. The kind of non-friendly friendliness that works around here. Friendliness that depends upon a clear understanding of the rules.

Comments

[adam cooper]

Nice to see your review of the station cafe.
just to add it makes steaming hot pint mugs of tea to wash your meal down with.It doesn't open at the crack of dawn and get your order in before midday when it becomes very busy.For rail buffs the verandah outside overlooks the portal to the Dore and Totley tunnel.If you want to walk off your meal great walks nearby through Padley Gorge onto extensive moorland.All in all a great cafe.P.S.Portions are generous.

[Walker]

Unwelcoming atmosphere with the rudest staff in the history of customer service politely describes the cafe at Grindleford Station! Sarcastic scruffy handwritten signs insulting most of the population of planet Earth adorn most walls. Maybe they'd like pre-programmed robots as customers who wouldn't even breathe their air space! As a warning to anyone with a nut allergy, the cafe takes great pride in stating that they don't care if there are nuts in their foods as the staff are nutty as well! Get your adrenaline needles at the ready! Not impressed at all. Packed lunch and flask next time for me!

[steve]

Nice cup of tea.Unpleasing atmosphere where your expected to pay for the toilets.the boss seemed to be a nasty piece of work.why so many instructions.

[clive]

Have to laugh at Walker and Steve. If they can't take a charmingly grumpy café, they can go and pay through the nose at some fancy stuck-up expensive place. The rest of us really don't mind if they do, the place is quite busy enough without them.

Good grub, plenty of it, very cheap, people very friendly once you get more than skin deep. There used to be lots of cafés like this, and I mourn their passing. Top marks.

[Jack]

Totally agree with Walker and Steve. Clive, either you work there or your a spinless turkey who bows down to those inbred idiots who own that place. I used to be a regular visitor to this cafe over the years, but regretably no longer. The food is nothing special and even when you get past the 'skin deep phase', the owners are still jerks! We can only hope that the neanderthals who curretly run the place leave soon and allow some decent people to take over. So if you want some bog standard, artery clogging food served by condisending half wits, then this is the place for you.

[hester]

GOOD DAY TO YOU FINE FOLKS UNDER THE UNION FLAG.I HAPPEN TO BE A YANK WHO STOPED IN AT GRINDLEFORD STATION CAFE WHILE ON MY USUAL HOLIDAY IN DERBYSHIRE. I FOUND THE STAFF TO BE CURT,BUT HELPFUL, AND I RATHER ENJOYED THE CHARACTER OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT.ITS SAD THAT BIG INDUSTRY HAS ALL BUT FORCED THIS SORT OF UNIQUE PLACE INTO HISTORY HERE IN AMERICA..

[Wendy]

We go as a family to the cafe ( 2 adults 2 children) as and when we are walking or cycling around this area. Always found that the staff are friendly and helpful if we (including the children) are friendly and helpful towards them. Yes the notices are curt and to the point but there is no uncertaintity as to what behaviour is expected and as to what the notes mean!!
At the time of writing my Children aged 8 years and 10 years are currently pestering me to take them walking and to go to the cafe. Food although fattening is excellent and just like the food I was able to have before I was told it was bad for me!! By the food correctness Police!

[pete bibby]

The joy of the Grindleford cafe is that the people who dislike it are exactly the kind of pains-in-the-arse you wouldn't want to share space with.
The owner is a really nice guy; the staff are lovely. the food is great.
Which is more than you can say for some of the rude idiots who visit it and try the patience of both staff and regular customers.

[Julie Carlisle]

The Grindleford Station Caff is my nirvana, my spiritual home, repository of many fond memories and place of annual pilgrimage now that I have been forced to move away from the Peaks. No - I don't work there, nor have I ever slept with the owner. If some of you out there want "Have a nice day now" service then stick to Starbucks.

[Jon]

People vote with their feet and many a boot has stepped over the threshold of Grindleford cafe and come out again with full satisfied stomaches. S'why they come back year in year out.
Personally I find the notices amusing and every time I visit I always check out the walls for new ones.
Grindleford offers one of the best breakfasts around and I wish more cafs would serve pints of tea!
I hope Grindleford will continue to run for many years to come because it will be very sorely missed by many when its days come to an end.

[Tara]

I love Grindleford Cafe - there's nothing better at the end of a long walk or to just stop for a breather and an ice-cream on a hot day than to feel free to enter a cafe with muddy clothes and muddy boots and not worry. Plus I was once stuck at Grindleford Station having missed the early train, was on my way to an interview and didn't have a mobile and the owner invited me in gave me tea & toast ON THE HOUSE and change for the pay phone so I could call the company I was on my way to see. They may be rough around the edges but they're extremely decent people - they just don't see it necessary to pander to people and as someone said earlier if you'd prefer the insincere hospitality you receive in the usual Have A Nice Day type establishments then why not stick to Starbucks and the like.

[julian bovis]

Now that George's Diner in Canning Town has disappeared (R.I.P) - the Grindleford Cafe is now my favourite Cafe in England.
Rude signs + builders tea + the thickest slices of toast + mountains of beans + plastic chairs + a bun fight for the seat by the fire + 1 walk in the rain afterwards = perfection.... Nirvana indeed!
Now that I'm a Londoner through and through, my pilgrimages are sadly rarely more than bi-annually - but I just can't shake that Grindleford feeling!!!

Long live the Grindleford Cafe!!!

[Georgie Girl]

Well, been going to Grindleford caff for about twenty years, and I still haven't met one I like as much. Partly the fabulous scenery, admittedly, wherein you really earn your slap up, bad for you, and definitely artery clogging food (but isn't that the point of caffs??!).

One of the things that made me love it, apart from the fab location and fab food, was the scruffy bits of card with fairly barmy exhortations dotted around the place. "Don't even think of asking for mushrooms" was my absolute favourite, and "unaccompanied children will be sold into slavery" a close second, which failed lamentably to intimidate mine. The "keep your mobile switched off, we come here to get away from them" seems entirely justified, and if the guy who (used to?) own it seemed a bit off the wall, looked a bit scowly, I only once ever saw him speak, in probably hundreds of visits. Every one else working there was/ is lovely.
To the people who were so rude about it above who won't be going there again... jolly good! More room for the hundreds of us who go there as often as we can get there :-p~

[Vikki]

The rudest and most child hating man in the world runs this place. If you've got kids I would recommend you don't go there - if they so much as breathe he is likely to shout at them. The food, although tasty is dreadfully overpriced (£2.20 for a sausage butty, average around here is about £1.10 [Sheffield]) and then he expects you to pay for the toilets - the cheeky old miser.This cafe has potential - as long as the old git dies.

[Steve Jones]

I live and work in North Derbyshire and often take colleagues from other areas for lunch to the Grindleford Cafe. i usually refrain from descibing the cafe before going there I just think its hilarious to watch their jaw dropping expressions when they see such an establishment....long let it live on i love the uniqueness and unfriendly charm.

[dave cross]

This is a peak district haven despite the antics of the staff. I once spent a Saturday night Xmas meal special there with a group of walkers/climbers from Sheffield. The message was don't bring any wine as the owner had stocked up to sell on at cost. Imagine our delight as we discovered he had got a fantastic deal on some sweet white. Arrrggggh!!!!!!!

[Dick Typin]

The owner cuffed me around the head when I asked if he had any worcester sauce, I'm from Canada and I've never been treated like that where I come from. I will never return to Europe because of this man.

[Paul Gregory]

I've been going to Grindleford cafe and the handwritten signs (which dare to say what the owner thinks) and 'tell as it is attitude' of the staff makes the place. Call me grumpy but some of us enjoy to dine in a place which bans mobiles and kids that cannot keep their backsides on a chair for thirty seconds !

The place is a popular and legendary institution in the Peak for the reasons above. (and they only charge you for the loo if you are not eating there !)

[Thomas]

The café is one of the more unique food places in the Peak District and has always been a place where our family has enjoyed a hot pint of tea before a walk and a huge meal at the end. A great atmosphere and a true hiker’s stopping point, plenty of time can be spent reading the numerous posters and messages surrounding the walls of the café. It is positioned at the start (or end) of some great walks, and is well worth a visit.

[Fi]

As the latest in a string of women my partner has taken to this derbyshire institution, there was naturally considerable pressure for it to live down to its reputation. The food, prices and thoroughly unpleasant signs posted from door post to cosmopolitan alfresco dining area were exactly as described - so awful it was wonderful, though I confess to waiting outside where I felt safer from...well not sure what really! The Slaughtered Lamb meets the original Eastenders cafe of 20years ago. I'm not sure I'd go again, but I feel like a memeber of a select club who can say they've been...

[Rob]

I must agree with the comment by Pete Bibby "The joy of the Grindleford cafe is that the people who dislike it are exactly the kind of pains-in-the-arse you wouldn't want to share space with."
The Grindleford cafe is, for me, a place of very fond memories. Trudging through the wind, snow and rain for hours and then sitting down near the coal fire with a pint of tea, or scaring myself to death climbing up some edgy route on the local crags then sitting outside the cafe with a beer, watching some hopeless fashion victim in that season's "outdoor colours" having their witless whinging curtly curtailed. Can't be beaten.
As for the owner, he's a diamond.
Been living abroad for a few years now, and the Peak District (including the Grindleford Cafe) is the place I miss the most.

[Rob Palmer]

I have worked at Grindleford Station Cafe for the past 4 years and have known the owner since I was 3 years old. I have never known a nicer (but nutty) man. (to the person who hopes "the old git dies", you're not really worth arguing with) Sure, we don't alter full breakfasts or serve chips until 11:30, but these are things you have to accept at a busy country cafe where the staff only have 2 pairs of hands each. We charge 20p for toilets to people who are not using the cafe to buy food. It is a cafe not a public toilet. We are never rude to customers unless they are rude to us and always try to greet everyone with a friendly welcome. Less of the childish name calling please (half wits, neanderthals etc)
Long live Grindleford Station Cafe and all our happy customers

[julian bovis]

Dear Ron Palmer...

Too right - I agree entirely! I was up at the Grindleford again last week - driven up especially from London for a full english + chips. Never like to make a fuss, so sit in the corner smiling at my secret heaven! Thanks for all your hard work - all us Grindleford fans appreciate all of it!

[tina]

As a yank who has considered marrying a Yorkshireman, I even imagined having the English part of the wedding festivities at the Grindleford. I had to laugh when the "instructions" included the number of serviettes allowed per patron, but then one thing I have in common with the people of Yorskshire is sense of thriftiness, and I don't much care for unnecessary waste and rubbish.

If I do end up marrying someone from Yorkshire, I would still love to serve cheesy chip butties to my wedding guests. I wasn't planning on inviting children, anyway.

Please don't ever change the Grindleford, it rocks.

[Glyn]

Been there many times on photo shoots, Food can be very good if they get the order right,(often don't).Met grumpy and the other six, most quite pleasant, some miserable, some don't give a toss,
If you can't stand this as a break on the walk, Take butties or go somewhere eslse, walk up the gorge and Listen to the silence