In August 2026 we read every reply we could find published by 8 cafés in The Lanes — 105 of them. This page is what we counted. Nothing on it is estimated, and no business is named.
Replies here run at or below the Brighton median of 26 words. Short is fine — short and specific is what works. Short and generic is what most of these are. 54% of them touch nothing the reviewer actually wrote.
Counted across the 105 reviews we read here. Each one has its own page, with real examples and how the published replies handled them.
Such a shame because lovely food but very rude staff who say negative comments about you to other customers. ——— was unbelievably rude, made a mistake, fair enough but she didn’t apologise and chose to slate us (to other customers) and staff members, when we just wanted a new coffee because the previous customer had touched the rim and stirred it via the straw. ——— did not handle it well. I equally used to work in hospitality and was not impressed.
Hello ———, thank you for taking the time to share this and I’m sorry to hear your visit didn’t go the way it should have. This isn’t the experience we want anyone to have at ———, and we’re looking into what happened with the team directly. If you’re able to email us at ——— with any further details, that would help us address it properly. Thanks again for letting us know.
——— is mentioned by name, so we'll look into what happened at that service. Asking for a replacement when another customer has touched a drink is entirely reasonable — that is straightforward food hygiene, not a difficult request. ——— went wrong in the exchange afterwards, that kind of thing should be handled simply and without fuss.
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