Frosts Garden Centre Recensioni 834

A lovely Few hours in Frosts on 14 th Feb. First the wonderful Estelle in restaurant found us a lovely couple of comfy chairs in a quiet area (we were about to leave) and she recommended some perfect food for me and my vegan Best Friend. Four different people in the restaurant were all great. Then Lovely Anna in garden furniture dept, was really helpful. Great experience thank you

Great food had lovely breakfast with friends last week, all served by a lovely waitress with a smile and cheery manor could not fault, quantity/quality and price, also visited in November and had a fantastic ploughmans lunch which could not be faulted, well woth a visit, also purchased some sale items in the fashion department, all eith great sale prices, cant wait for my next visit 👍👍

Went with a friend for lunch, which was good, but queuing and paying at the till was slow. It is a long and winding road to the restaurant, which brings me to my main complaint. Walking back to find tills and way out is a nightmare and kept coming up to dead ends. It is like a maze. If there was a fire there would be panic, as there is no clear way out and few fire exits. Please don't blame Christmas stock on the layout, as there hasn't been a clear path through for a long time.

I have recently removed a tree in my front garden and then sought advice from Frosts Nurseries as to what to replace it with. I found Anne Frost very knowledgeable and she offered some suggestions as to what would work best.

I am happy to report that ‘Paul’ arrived this morning and planted our new tree. He had a cheerful manor and took care when placing and planting. An excellent job done. Well done Paul and thank you for your attentiveness.

Frosts Willington. Visited the restaurant on Sunday. 20 minite wait in the queue then we were told a further 30 minute wait for a scone and a coffee or an hour wait for a hot meal. The restaurant wasnt even full. Terrible service. Avoid at weekends. This is the second visit where the wait has been unnaceptable.

Visited Woburn Sands branch on 8 November which has gone downhill since being taken over by Blue Diamond. Before they were taken over I loved spending hours there. The little cafe on a busy Saturday was closed at 3.15pm. The main restaurant we queued at to be told there were 50 drinks ahead of us waiting to be made! Ridiculous. We gave up
at that stage. The menu there is now very boring too. We purchased some goods in the food shop. The queue to pay was ridiculous. Over 35 people queuing that I could count and two people on the tills who were very slow. After visiting Frosts for many years I’m afraid that will be my last visit. They are concentrating too much on selling clothes and tacky gifts. Such a shame as it was a really good garden centre.

I would give it a zero if there was an option. Congrats to Blue Diamond for completely ruining what was a great garden centre. It’s like going into IKEA as you have to follow a certain route around it wether you like it or not. It’s now full of old peoples clothes and rubbish tat unlike what it used to be like with lovely items from independent providers. The cafe is diabolical. Waited 30 minutes for a coke, cappuccino, toasted tea cake and banana/walnut cake. We only got it in the end because I chased them up but the cappuccino was only luke warm at best, the toasted tea cake was cold and the banana/walnut cake was hard with no flavour!!! Been going there for 20 years but in less than 1 year of Blue Diamond taking over it is now absolute rubbish, I will not be going there again.

Blue Diamond really need to do something about the restaurant. Over 20 minutes queuing to get a seat. Half the restaurant was closed off. Then another long queue to order food - nearly half an hour. It used to be so good but definitely no longer worth it.

We look forward to visiting Frosts every year in the run up to Christmas - we live about 30 miles away so it's not just round the corner.

What a disappointment it was this year. The cafe is now 'order and pay at till' which was really slow.

The Christmas displays were far smaller than usual and for some reason there is now a massive section of clothing!

Trying to get round the place has changed and is very confusing and we left having bought absolutely nothing

Blue Diamond have a lot to answer for - turning a lovely, much anticipated day out into a total disappointment. At least they've saved us from wasting time going again in future!h

I was visiting Frost Willington yesterday.I was heeded some advice to bye indoor plant and I was surprised of good knowledge and advices from yang men Sab . Thank you very much Seb.

Went for the first time in while. Found it extremely hard to navigate and very frustrating even looking for the checkout. When we finally reached the very overly crowded and stuffed checkout area there was no room to navigate.we had a buggy and there was lady with a wheelchair.we couldn't make our way around anything.shelves everywhere. Poor lady wanted to get out of the shop without buying and she ended up getting stuck in the queue because THERE IS NO OTHER WAY THROUGH THE QUEUE TO EXIT UNLESS U NAVIGATE BACKWARDS AND ENTER A WHOLE DIFFERENT BUILDING.the different building had a supermarket but no you couldn't buy or pay for anything without again going all the way round. We ended up leaving everything and jst walking out barehanded.worst shop experience ever. It was like being in Tiger store but stleast there you could get around and exit if u decide not to buy anything.sadly won't be going back.al stick to BNQ

I've visited frosts regular for over 25 years. This year its gone down hill. Its now like IKEA and a Chinese puzzle to find your way around. Its also morphed into a clothing shop. As someone else pointed out, its more like a corridor to follow. The new company that's taken over have ruined the spirit of Frosts.

This shop used to be such a relaxing pleasant high quality experience! But as the years pass, you notice how probably greediness of their success turned it into a questionable quality items (from clothing to food) mixed amongst better ones just presented pretty and priced as premium. It’s also become dated, a twisted maze of a layout, Christmas displays tackier by the year, no organic food in sight or information of where everything is sourced from. Food is simply appalling! The veggies are sometimes wrapped in plastic very similar to the cheap infused with chemicals ones at MK market!
Clothes selection is far from any fashion trends of terrible quality of execution. Shapeless expensive dresses.
The staff!! Appalling! Came 5ish pm on a Saturday to check what fruit and veggies they have. As I was approaching, about 4 other groups of customers were as well. But at that point an employee was already covering the stalls with a black membrane and simply looked annoyed to see customers approaching. She was actually continuing covering the stalls until everyone started questioning her. Us: Is it closed? Her: Soon! Us: Can we not see what’s in here? Her: what do you want? We could not believe the rudeness. Went inside to buy a cake. All looked homemade and pretty. Read the ingredients on every single one of them! Full of preservatives and E codes and mass production ingredients lists charged as artisan produce. They don’t care what’s in it as long as the way it looks fits their “profile”. Bought once some chicken nuggets and they were way worse than McDonalds, made of paste. Meat there is really questionable and not properly labelled. The butcher area looks weird and the fridges have steamed doors, proof that something’s faulty. The bottom of the fridges have dust on. Half of everything there you can purchase at Home Sense or TK Maxx at lower prices.
If you work for them is the same story. They pay really bad and don’t provide training. Take total advantage of the young ones (the 16+) and pay them at half the rate M&S or Primark would. But these shops also provide paid time for after the closing hours so customers won’t feel as if they’re invited to leave before the closing time. Therefore the above mentioned incident might be a result of staff not being paid after the closing time to sort out the shop floor.
And if there’s a racist altercation on their premises, the don’t report it or intervene to protect the bullied person. Witnessed such incident once in disbelief!

Visited the Woburn Sands store today for the first time in a long time and was appalled by the layout. The fire risk evaluation could not have been conducted properly as the store is a complete maze to get around. There are no through lines of sight and you have to traverse your way around all sorts of displays to get anywhere. Just an awful customer experience. Definitely not going there again! The little mini shop outside is just a bad. A large display of fresh fruit outside the main door but then you have to walk miles around the store to get to the tills - where you're greeted by 15 people queueing to get out! Just dreadful

Willington branch of frosts - outstandingly poor customer service refused exchange as per their own exchange policy for a perennial plant which had died , absolutely no interest in helping a customer at all !!

Went for lunch and ordered the Coronation chicken jacket potato as I have over the years… oh dear…
It used to be real chicken mixed with the sauce that looked and tasted like actual chicken.... now it is small bits of ‘plastic’ chicken neon yellow in colour that looks like (trigger warning) vomit and is tasteless.
I didn’t complain at the time as my friend had bought it for me and didn’t want to offend her.
Please bring the real chicken back again!

Stupidly expensive, I bought a houseplant I’d been after for a while and reluctantly paid £8.99 from the frosts in Willington as I hadn’t seen it anywhere else, I then visited a nearby independent garden centre (not sure of name but it’s next to Jaws aquatics) they had the same plant same size pot and I think even the same supplier for £5.99. Frosts are part of Blue Diamond group who surely have greater buying power then a little independent and if that independent can make a profit at £5.99 then it’s just greed. Van Hague’s in Hertfordshire is the same, the prices are disgusting for not even very good plants. I’ll be making sure any garden centres I visit in the future are NOT part of blue diamonds rip off cartel before visiting in the future.
I would also like to point out that blue diamonds email unsubscribe button doesn’t work which I believe under current data protection regulation is against the law! Not that subscribing or having a blue diamond members card ever brought so much as a 5p saving, if you mention you have a card at the till the staff just look baffled so what exactly are the benefits it’s supposed to offer!? I would like an explanation from blue circle why their email cannot be unsubscribed before I request a full data release and report them to trading standards.
Update, tried to use live chat to process unsubscribe as it states available 9-4.30 and guess what?! It’s not available at 9.32 what a surprise.
Update, after sitting in posiotion 1 in their phone queue for over 20 minutes and no answer I’ve now reported them to ofcom
And ico.org as this faceless soulless company clearly have no interest in speaking to there customers they can explain to the ico why they have no functioning unsubscribe button.

Update 30/5/25

In response to your reply, Hudsons not 2 miles away from you have the same plants at much cheaper prices so are they not subject to the same fluctuations? Also you didnt give an excuse for why even sat in position 1 on your phone queue still doesnt get answered even sitting for 20 minutes, so your reply really doesnt hold any water. Nor do you even mention or address the fact your loyalty card does nothing. I wont be sending my details to you, I dont need teaching how to unsubscribe and I wont be using you again. I'll leave it for the ICO to address but thanks for your cut and paste excuses at least it shows someone is reading the many one star reviews you are accumulating

I have been a member (over 20 years)and regular visitor of Frosts Garden Centre at Willington for many years but sadly since being taken over by Blue Diamond it only deserves 1star. After buying 5 scones to take away and finding them undercooked I wrote and let them know but only got a cursory response.
After a few weeks I thought maybe things had improved. On ordering a latte, Blue diamond decided it now has only one shot of coffee but didn’t drop the price. So now I have to pay 75 pence more to get the same coffee. I will miss the staff that I made friends with but sadly my friends and I won’t be visiting again any time soon. Mrs F Perrett

I’ve been frequenting Frosts for 30 years now and it’s always been superior quality in terms of plants, food and beverage, Christmas and service.
No more!! It’s really gone downhill since Blue Diamond took over.
Absolutely ridiculous IKEA pathway system that takes you everything all the way through the store. Particularly irritating when all you wanted to do was visit Pets Corner which you pay and utilise separately!!
Secondly - the clothing, I mean seriously. There’s LOADS of it, again you have to walk all the way through it… but come on it’s a garden centre. It should be more Barbour, Muck Boots…
Finally today I went to pick up plants - in some cases the supplier is very obviously different. The quality was poor, some looked half dead.

And then when I went to the till the service from the server was awful. She was totally disinterested, took so little care over the plants she snapped off a shoot and a flower - to the extent that I had to ask her to take more care!! When I pointed out poor quality on a tray of plants she simply shrugged and said it wasn’t her job she couldn’t do anything about that or give discount. You have to talk to someone out there and pointed back out to the plant section.
It is frankly a long way short of how it used to be. Blue Diamond needs to get a grip and understand its customer base a bit better for this area.

I can only confirm the one star comments. I have been going to Frosts for over 30 years for its quality of goods and service. It is now nothing better than B&Q but with a ridiculous IKEA one way system. What a shame it has gone down market. No rush to go back. The Frosts founders must be turning in their graves.Blue Diamond please don’t bother responding with your corporate response because that just confirms the nature of the new owners.