Awful customer service
We visited earlier today (my wife, 4 y.o. daughter and myself) for lunch. Boswells Cafe is a participant in the American Express Shop Small campaign... however they do not actually accept American Express. Well, at least not at the moment. The apologetic store manager got on the phone to management to investigate after the payment processing failed. I didn't mind waiting 15 to 20 minutes for this to be resolved, despite a hungry 4 y.o. at the table, but I really didn't expect the "sorry, can't help you, mate" response thereafter. Now, I completely get that things will sometimes go awry in the hospitality business. However, it isn't difficult to proactively address a problem and offer a reasonable solution to avoid a poor service encounter. We'd hoped that common sense would prevail e.g. accepting a different form of payment whilst still maintaining the same promotional benefit. But no! We'd taken a 50 mile, 1 hour round trip, only for the manager to send us away with a personal apology. To be fair, the staff seem lovely and really hard working. In fact, I feel sorry for them having to contend with an arrogant and uncaring management. If customer service is this poor by design, one wonders about management's approach to food hygiene and COVID cleanliness. On the other hand, American Express were nothing short of excellent in resolving the matter. Bottom line: we won't be visiting Boswells Cafe in Andover again. I'd recommend you don't either.