Date visited: Tuesday 15th October 2019
Sweet Success is primarily a catering business, specialising in celebratory events such as weddings. However they also have a tea room at the front of their premises in John Street, Gloucester, very close to the cathedral. Being slightly removed from the main thoroughfares of central Gloucester, Sweet Success Tea Room seems to rely mainly on regular customers who the staff knew well.
There is a single room for those wishing to take tea, with a selection of half a dozen or so fine looking cakes on display at the counter. The menu is relatively short, offering breakfasts, light lunches and afternoon teas. For lunches, the main offerings were on their ‘specials’ board, with six main courses and a choice of crumble or apple pie to follow. The choice of beverages on the menu was also small, though a wider range seemed to be available in practice.
Chicken and bacon pie with peas and chips, homemade fruit crumble with custard (both from the specials board), and a pot of tea, came to £13.75. The bacon in the pie was barely discernible, with leek more apparent and of the type where there’s a pastry lid but no sides to the pie. Tea was served in quite a small pot, but with a pot of extra water. Alas the teapot was so small that the tea cooled quite quickly. However the fruit crumble, containing apple, raspberries and blackberries, was exquisite! The waitress waited until I had finished my main course before passing my order for crumble through to the kitchen. This was a sensible precaution, as the main courses are quite substantial, with no space left spare on the plate.
Sweet Success closes quite early for a tea room, at 3pm except on Saturdays when it remains open until 4pm. Combined with an early start of 9am, the impression is more of a local cafe than a tea room, but well worth a visit nonetheless.
