Simon’s Cafe

After 2 relatively good experiences, it is quite upsetting to have to demote a business and its’ star rating, but I feel Simon’s Café does not warrant a 4 star rating based on my recent «breakfast» visit, and deserves closer to 2 stars instead. Demoting businesses is something I hate doing, especially after pleasant experiences there but it is something I will do if a certain standard is not maintained.
The staff here do seem okay, quite nice, but since I have been visiting more, I have found the staff to relax a little and stand out less, and they do seem short-​staffed especially on Sunday’s, when on my past 2 visits, it just seemed there to be one server, and the Simon (the chef working), with another server bobbing in and out of the kitchen, as she was eating there with her family (I do feel she is trying to do too much, and her role today was more confusing rather than adding balance to the staff role), normally a few members of staff come over to ask me about how everything was, but today I didn’t notice that, even when staff were passing and they could have said something, and even when it was simply quiet.
The pricing here is on the pricier side, especially for certain amounts of breakfast, they don’t seem to reveal what costs what, if you order an «off the menu» item, such as selecting certain breakfast items. My friend ordered egg, with sausage and bacon, and I ordered an omelette with baked beans, and all that came to (with a coffee and a tea) — £11.20, people may argue this is reasonable, but honestly considering the quality and the prices of rival places in Middleton, it is not, and you can expect to pay around £2−3 elsewhere (at least)
The beans used here, are simply cheap beans, I noticed of the tin that they were your average «35p» corner shop beans, I do feel although their speciality is chinese food, they do have a breakfast menu so they should look to perfect that as well, opting for a branded alternative such as Heinz is only around 15p-​20p later, and for the price charged, I would expect the best, and not for them to skimp. In my opinion, they are trying to do too much at once, chinese food, english, breakfast, all at the same time, I would definitely say they would do better, with a smaller menu, focusing on one cuisine, hence they can use better ingredients.
Simon’s never seems to get too busy, however visiting here can still be a struggle, mainly because they is so little seating, which means when it does get even just a few parties in, you could get turned away, hence the building it is in, doesn’t seem to me to have ample room especially when you compare it to other nearby cafes such as The Loft, Munchies and The Middleton Café. They have made the place nice, adding some chinese artifacts, but still the red and white tiled design could be a lot better, I do feel they could have changed the theme dramatically, and it is a little lazy to see they have barely changed the old Teapots building.
My cheese and tomato omelette also wasn’t very nice, I found it to be overloaded with cheese, and it was very stringy as well, which meant parts were inedible, I just found it to be over-​filled with cheese and tomato, making what would have been a relatively nice omelette, a disaster.
I do admit my vanilla latte was a reasonable price, but still I didn’t find it to be too great either, the vanilla flavouring was poor, and the coffee its-​self wasn’t too great, they seem to be proud they serve Rijo coffee, with staff wearing aprons to advertise it, as well as having many posters, but I do feel it is just simply below average coffee, and flavourings (also from Rijo), and certainly nothing to shout about.
Simon’s is simply an average café, which uses cheap ingredients in some cases, it just seems they are trying to do too much, which can mean the food not being as good as it could be and they are minor flaws as well. The only reason for 2 stars, is probably this is one of the safer places for gluten free eating in Middleton, and past experiences still have a small part in this rating.