schoolhouse

The staff are so welcoming and friendly here. The food is fantastic and the setting is great too! You can book online easily, which is always a bonus! Can't wait to go back!

Absolutely cracking restaurant perched on top of the hill overlooking Mothecombe bay. Great seafood, local beers and lovely team. Well worth dropping in.

First class food and atmosphere. Big log burners outside to stay warm in the winter. Great service from the staff.

After reading the reviews , my friends & I were a little dubious about booking , but we had a really enjoyable experience . The waitress was cheerful & friendly , the food good quality & delicious & the atmosphere was great in a unique quirky set up . We loved it !

Really impressed with this place. Everything we ordered was cooked perfectly and arrived promptly. The service was warm and professional, and the setting was relaxed and inviting. Highly recommend if you’re in the area.

What a fab find near the beach on Saturday afternoon. Coffee was delicious and lunch the same. The manager/owner kindly informed us he was 2 staff down and had an extremely busy afternoon with a wedding party later on. The staff were friendly, venue sophisticatedly rustic and the food and location definitely worth making the trip for. My only criticism was the price - pretty expensive for a lunch, however I’m assuming that the hospitality venues in Devon and Cornwall have to price relative to short bursts of seasonal trade and months of much quieter periods? Highly recommended.

The atmosphere was very pleasant, with a lovely beach nearby that adds to the charm. The restaurant itself is cosy and nicely decorated, which made for a comfortable dining experience. The food overall was good. The burrata with figs and prosciutto was a highlight – fresh and well balanced. The pizza with mushrooms, gianduja, mozzarella, and a touch of truffle oil was also very enjoyable. The mozzarella and San Marzano pizza had good potential, though the sauce felt a little undercooked and could have been richer in flavour. Customer service was generally fine, though at times a little on the grumpy side – a few more smiles would have made the experience warmer

Lovely time at the beach, great for a swim and some rock pooling, then after a walk back up the hill we sat outside for a coffee. I can’t rate anything other than the surroundings as we didn’t eat nor go indoors but it was a lovely outside area. There are toilets too so be sure to use them before heading to the beach or on the coastal walk. 1st May-1st September No Dogs allowed on beach (rules at time of visit).

Lovely place near the beach, food was mostly delicious but quite pricey for what it was.Only critique really is that we ordered ‘potatoes with chives and truffle mayo’ and when it arrived it was in-fact potato-less skins - with all potato scraped out - no doubt to make the croquettes that are on the menu… And you get the equivalent of one jacket potato amount for £5. I can appreciate the cleverness of doing that from a business perspective but was a bit put out by this as I thought I was getting some nice roasties! They did taste quite nice, though they were a bit tough and dry in places. Lovely staff and atmosphere.

Popped in for breakfast. Waffles and fruit so tasty and beautifully presented. My husband's dish was nice, a little small but still tasty. Coffees hot and good too.

Expect more of a restaurant than a cafe. We had the chicken burger and fries which were lovely. Expensive plus include the car park fee of £6.50 to the price of your coffee or food. This has to be paid if you just want to use the restaurant pan not the beach.

Lovely food, lovely location. Service was ok. No meal check by the waiter, waiter got order slightly wrong. I had sent a message to say it was friends birthday and asked them to mention but nothing was said. Food was way overpriced.

Came to walk our dog on the beach now the holiday makers have gone. It was a very pleasant setting with lots of interesting thoughtfully displayed decor. Food was delicious although the mains were not enough for a hungry adult male. For example, the fish of the day was £16 and no potato just a small bit of sourdough, so my man ordered chips to bulk it out. Another £4. A pale ale was £4.50 for a small can, not a pint. So better to order the pizza if you need filling up. But at £15 for a pizza although which was delicious. We tried to check prices and menu online but couldn't find any indication on their website before booking. Made it an expensive lunch stop, so as locals we won't make it a habit! I'm sure if you offered more affordable options, it woukd be busy through the winter, not just summer months. Once tried , curiosoty satisfied, we'll find better value elsewhere.

We often go after a swim/paddle board at Mothecombe and have always loved the food over the past 6 years, so thought we’d finally try their BBQ evening! The food was very delicious, however portions were really meagre/quite stingy for £18.50 (see picture). My mother in law counted, and she received 3 small squares of lettuce as part of the salad. My chicken was also delicious, but a small part looked raw - the chef argued it was double cooked and flesh near the bone is red due to blood vessels, but the raw flesh wasn’t one near the bone. All in all, since changes made, portions and service has sadly been really disappointing, now to the point where we would hesitate to visit when in the area.

A beautiful place and the menu is always good. The drinks are mega exspensive though, like blatantly taking the micky with it costing £3.00 for a 330ml can of coke! I appreciate inflated prices due to location and convenience but £9.00 for three cans really does leave a bitter taste. That said we had a lovely lunch. The crab linguine was really nice and the hand made pizzas where equally delicious. There isn't much on the menu for kids as it's all a bit fancy. Reading the menu it felt unnecessarily so but as stated, the food was good. There is now a marquee type construction that allows for the outside to used for dining in all weathers which makes sense but the al fresco dining was part of the charm but I see why they've looked to make it more weather proof. More dry setting more customers, more revenue. There is a discretionary service charge added that you're not told about and it's a fairly hefty 12.5% It's added in the receipt but if your like me you go to a place, see the menu prices and order up knowing it's going to cost. I don't disect the bill. Though I should have as I also dropped a few notes for a tip and only realised once I had done so. It is not really a situation where you go and ask for the tip back so be mindful of that. I felt the staff should have been clear that there was discretionary charge and it all felt it was done so a little sly. This rubbed more so because there was no offer of a discount after finding a long hair melted in with the cheese on the pizza.

A lovely setting. But it's a captive audience. Pay to park, long waits. And at the takeaway hatch? The only gluten free product available was a £6 child size portion of chips. Great coffee. Inflexible staff unwilling to let us use a high chair outside of the restaurant. We've been here a few times and always have conflicting feelings. It's tasty, the setting is great. The staff are hit and miss, the prices are bordering on outrageous and the waits can be long. More gluten free food would be welcome.

It's the 3rd year in a row we come to this place, but sadly, like many places that start to being well-known, the quality has dropped and it has become a rather overpriced restaurant. The food was ok, whereas it used to be really good! This year's crab linguini had barely any crab in it, the chicken burger was quite dry, the coffees arrived cold. The service was sort of clumsy. They forgot the 6 starters that we ordered. Finally, 5 made it to the table, along with the main dishes, that we decided to have at the same time otherwise they would've sat under a lamp. It is a really nice location, and I get you pay for that and I won't say that everyjing on the menu is bad, but for what you are paying + the service + the 6.5£ of parking you do start wondering if it's really worth it and our feeling is, it is not.

The food was really good, when it arrived, the issue is around how and when it arrived. Mis timed and mis delivered. Intentions good, but lots of the team a little clueless as to service and how to deliver it. Seemed there was no one in charge. The seating inside is super cramped to the point that exiting and entering the seat if sitting in the row is impossible without evicting the whole side if the table as you are lithely sitting back to back, this is uncomfortable at best. Location is lovely but with a sharpened service offer and a better less "greedy" pack them in seating arrangement it would have been far better.

In a beautiful setting and beside a stunning beach. However, while the food was good, the service was friendly but below average in terms of attentiveness (we ate at 6pm and were one of the only customers but had to go in and ask for the bill, table not cleared for about 15 mins after we finished eating). Music far too loud which is jarring in such a peaceful and beautiful place. My real issue is with the price. Ok I should have scrutinised the menu and prices better before we went but £120 for dinner for 2 adults and a 3 YO when only 1 of us had any alcohol is simply too expensive. We had pizza, pasta, whitebait and Caesar salad. Could be great but tweaks certainly required.

Clearly you have to be as awkwardly rude as possible to work here. Pizza was good and it could be a really nice place if the staff wasn’t so awful.

We arrived for lunch on a quiet Tues. We requested an indoor table as it was raining but we were seated outside, under cover so okay. The three of us were squeezed on to a small table directly under the main speaker. We couldn't hear ourselves talk and tried twice to attract the waiters attention who couldn't hear us either! When we finally got his attention he said "people complain all the time, we're not allowed to turn it up or down it's strictly forbidden to change it!" He didn't offer to move us to any of the other empty tables?! The lunch was tasty but expensive at £40 a head for the ambience and mediocre service.

This used to be a really special experience - big portions and a lot of thought put into the dishes. We always came here for birthdays. Not sure what has changed recently but the food is a more basic, smaller portions and lower quality.

Very average food and service for outrageous prices. £28 for a mediocre chicken burger and (delicious, to be fair) fries is just insane. While the setting is lovely we definitely left feeling like we’d been taken for a ride spending this much money for what we got. Coffees arrived cold after a 10 minute wait, despite being practically the only people there, and they forgot our starters.

Seems like a lovely area, but it felt a bit odd to be asked to stand in the rain for 10 minutes to order two coffees when there were so many free seats inside and we were in no hurry to go. Two coffees came to £8.60, which is quite expensive, and they were the least delicious we've had on our three day trip - quite disappointingly bland if not outright offensive. Overall, disappointing, though the £6.50 parking charge was at least tempered by the beautiful scenery nearby.

This place was a complete rip-off, £6 for a 3inch square sausage roll in the day time and then almost £20 for a mediocre pizza later. On arrival at 10am I informed them that there was no hand soap in the toilets, when we returned at 4.30pm it was still the same situation!! Young staff seems to be the order of the day. Its a real shame because this place has an almost captive audience and appears to be profiting from that. I seriously doubt many people eat there twice.... .

Wow! We used to love this place! But £26 for a starter size of pasta (with a very small bit of grated cheese), probably £2 or less of raw materials is crazy. We also ordered the tomato and anchovy salad starter. It had one anchovy! If you are serving fish on the bone then please ensure it’s cooked correctly to accurately reflect the price charged. Fish served on the bone should actually come off the bone when properly cooked. At least the guy said he would take off the service charge (12.5%) !! It’s a lovely location and clearly money has been spent to upgrade. I am hopeful they will realise what is value for money for their customers in the near future to ensure the business remains a destination. We are going to give this venue a miss for few months and hopefully they will take note of negative feedback and make appropriate and necessary improvements. We would like to come back in the future once changes have been made.

Good coffee and cake but unfortunately the other comments on service are true. Did not feel very welcome. Also said that I wanted to eat there, but they still wanted to place the cake in a take away box - for a place near the beach, that shows little care for the environment. Got the sense that maybe it was because I was hiking the coastal path and not in restaurant attire? Younger staff was kind though.

It’s such a shame somewhere that served such great food a year ago has got so bad. I booked for Valentine’s as it was one of the first places we ate. As a result we went back with the kids in the summer where it was still good. Whilst the atmosphere is quite nice, to food we were served was appalling. Not just that, but to charge £28 for a bowl of ravioli that is that poor is just unacceptable - swimming in a bland watery oil. The pizzas, which used to be great are now terrible. I had a mushroom pizza that didn’t have a sauce of any sort, just blended, unseasoned mushrooms with more unseasoned mushrooms on top. The chips were the only highlight and arancini were ok too. The staff were friendly, but the point here is that there is more to the job than that. I made a point of not having the discussion with the staff where other diners could hear but when both mains are pushed to one side, I feel it’s your job to then do what you can to make it right. It took 70mins to get there from where we live and the best they did was to charge us full price for the starters and the can of coke… and then after printing the receipt, took the service charge off. Another thing that disgusts me is putting service charge on automatically when serving food that bad - tips are earned, perhaps if that was remembered here the food wouldn’t have deteriorated to such a staggering degree. So after paying about £35 for 2 starters and a 2hr+ round trip they did NOTHING to rectify or compensate and that’s one of the main reasons for the review. This is grossly overpriced and I’d urge anyone to think long and hard before wasting the time and money. Thankfully Rumour in Totnes went out of their way to squeeze us in and rescued our night where we were treated to incredible staff, amazing atmosphere and fantastic food. It’s a real shame that School House has lost its magic of last year

My family and two house guests visited last evening. It was disastrous. On arrival, we were told that there were NO PIZZAs - the menu had half a dozen on offer. How can you run out of pizza? The waitress said that they'd been busy. I said to her that with this not being available on what was already a very limited menu meant that the restaurant wasn't viable. I added that we'd come out to celebrate my daughter's birthday. She just looked at me. One of our guests doesn't eat fish and, in the absence of pizza, there was just one non-fish option, the chicken burger. When he ordered that, he was told they'd run out. He elected for a lacklustre crab linguine, leaving most of the crab on his plate.... The absence of pizza meant that there were no vegetarian options at all. My wife, who is vegetarian, said that she'd make an exception and have a fritto misto. But this became a fritto mix-and-match as we swapped the white fish off my fritto misto (which she could just about tolerate) for the prawns and sardines in her dish. The bottle of sparkling mineral water wasn't cold. The staff really do need some training in guest relations. At no point was there any real expression of regret and no offer of something like a free ice cream to make amends on what should have been a celebratory evening. When it came to paying (and the restaurant is VERY expensive to the point of being exorbitant) the 12.5% service charge of £27 was included. I asked that this be deducted, which it was, without any comment or enquiry. I won't be back. Management needs to be aware that branding extends beyond having a very nice logo.

So over priced . Staff are very unfriendly. Food portions small. Should be free carpark if use the restaurant. Such a shame I miss the old beach cafe. Not suitable for locals is aimed at wealthy holiday makers. Won't be returning.

How not to run a cafe... This is my local beach and I'd love to support the cafe. But the rudeness!!! Good job I've got a thick skin. Top tip: don't ignore customers. Try saying hello or thank you. Maybe even a spot of eye contact. I don't mind paying over the odds, it's a beach cafe after all. But I do mind being treated with complete disdain... and it wasn't even busy when I visited mid morning. Other customers were pulling faces as they observed his spectacular rudeness. The young people who work here are generally brilliant. But the man in charge - eek.

Went for a coffee and didn't have a great experience. Asked for a table but apparently that's not an option for just coffees and you need a reservation, so was directed to the takeaway hatch. It was 10:15 on a Sunday so busy with breakfast in the restaurant. We waited 30 minutes to order coffee. The problem with the system they have is that there was only 1 person making coffees, and they clearly are told to prioritise coffee orders from in the restaurant. So the takeaway hatch just shuts for long periods. They need 2 people making coffees, and should treat restaurant/takeaway orders equally. Additionally the staff come across as overworked and undertrained which impacts customer service.

Turned up thismorning having booked breakfast for my birthday which I had booked on the phone. Having explained during booking that we have a 1 year old who would be in a pram (likely asleep due to the time) we were suprised to arrive and be shown to me table to then be told by the man working that "no prams are allowed in the outside seating area" to add there was 1 other table seated in that area so not busy. We offered to sit in the other undercover area but we're told only takeaway could sit in there (again empty). The waitress left to speak to the gatekeeper to see if there was a soloution to a rather simple situation, aparently not. We chose to leave and spend our money elsewheere. How would they of managed a disabled customer who required a wheelchair or walking aid? Like others have said Mr arrogant has 0 customer skills.

£75 pounds for (2) 15inch pizzas one meaty and one mushroom and chicken burger with chips and two bottles of cider. The cider was beautiful the chips were fresh but the pizza lackeing toppings for Italian style pizzas it wasn't anything close. Pricey and no prices on the menus. Food was perfectly cooked but my only squabbles is that the pizza was far from satisfactory and lacking.

Like so many other people have said, the customer service is really bad, you are not made to feel very welcome here, which is a shame considering the stunning area. The food and coffee is nothing special, the latte I preferred was minuscule, and didn’t even taste nice. But I suppose there’s no point leaving a review at all even if it’s positive or negative, the owner doesn’t care and would never spend their precious time reading reviews anyway. 😀😀

On way back from Cornish holiday with our 3 month old, really hungry and detoured for a bite here. Obviously happy for music to be on for the “vibes” but it was so loud to a point that it was intrusive and unenjoyable. We were literally the only ones there so asked for it to be turned down a touch but the waiter said it was at the lowest setting, which I’ll be honest, is hard to believe. Surely there was a volume knob? It felt unaccommodating and cold. If I were the owners I’d be mortified if I knew that the staff were effectively turning away custom for the sake of a few decibels on the sound system. Bonkers. We actually ended up in Totnes at Seeds 2 Totnes which was excellent. The complete opposite in terms of service. Friendly, accommodating + food was great value. It turned our day around after this hiccup which left us very hungry and surprised they didn’t want our cash. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Go there instead or The Bull Inn.

Possibly the worst and rudest customer service experience ive ever had at a restaurant Ordered at the overpriced 'hatch' (fish finger sandiwch / chips / sausage roll for £50!!!). First half the order was forgotten and we had to remind them of this on the day I was overcharged for an extra sandwich (£15) by accident - the team member said will be refunded the next day and nothing, after weeks of emailing, calling and being asked to call back later every time I gave up and let them keep the £15 as it was tiring time consuming and not a single apology from any of the many staff members I'd spoken too.

Appalling standard of food. So disappointed by my latest experience here. Buratta stater didn't contain any mint or basil, rosemary chips didn't have rosemary, and the tomato salad had one anchovy, no basil and no olive oil. Very limited menu. Prices way off the scale for standard delivered, and there's a 12.5% service charge added (which incidentally, was not stated on the menu at the time). The £6.50 car park charge is not even discounted off the food. Staff indifferent to customers. I would have complained more at the time, however I was with friends and did not want our beautiful day to end on a bad note. I won't be going back. Such a shame.

Sat in the restaurant shack area out side by mistake , to eat my chips and drink my coffee . Thought it would be nice to warm my hands by the log fire after a surf . Also the other seating area wasn't very warm and a bit exposed . A member of staff told me to leave the area as it was for restaurant customers only . A bit annoying considering id just spent £15 on a coffee and some chips . Also there were only two other people sat in there, and even though i mentioned it was warmer here, I still has to leave the area . I would understand if it was a posh restaurant, but it wasn't just an area outside with a scafolding roof on and a gravel floor, lovely place to go after a surf , just felt bad negative vibes from the staff . ✌️

Booked a table for 3 people to celebrate a birthday at lunch time. Turned up and the place was closed despite all advertising stating that they’re open 7 days a week. Highly disappointed.