Town Square

🎈 🎈 It’s our 3rd anniversary this Thursday! 🎈 🎈
We've employed the very best people and won countless awards. We have hosted talks, seminars, live bands, book clubs, weddings, DJs, TedX events, cinema screenings & drink & draws. We've tried our best to be 'the Town Square that Belfast didnt have'!
We’ve seen nearly HALF A MILLION customers walk through our doors since 2015, and to thank you all, we are giving away a free coffee with every purchase on Thursday (28th Nov)! #belfast #anniversary #thebestcustomers

Early morning, hot coffee and nowhere to be.

Service with a smile, no extra charge.

When you have a wedding at Town Square and the bride absolutely smashes it!
Tag someone who would do this at their own wedding!
#lightsout #smashedbulb #smashedavocado

Time to improve your sandwich game.

We've got your Sunday night, weekend wind-down covered. #smores #hotchocolate

Feeling hungry? This week's special has you all kinds of covered. #steaksandwich

Tag someone who was partying on Botanic Avenue in the 1970’s and 1980’s. ‘The Regency Hotel Bar’ and ‘The Pink Flamingo’ Night Club (Picture 1).
Come and see what we have done with the place and grab some lunch, dinner or a drink!

Tag 2 people who need to go on a first date at Town Square!

Tag a colleague who literally can't function without a coffee #businessfuel #yourtownsquare

Tag the friends who need to meet you this week for S’mores and hot chocolate at Town Square! #minicampfire #smores #belfast #yourtownsquare #lovebotanic

We've got your weekend lunch plans covered. #duckdog

We're delighted to introduce Chai to our hot chocolate lineup from @nearynogschocolate. Come on in and get warmed up.

Taking your Saturday nice and easy? We've got breakfast covered till 5pm.

We're on our final push to the weekend, feeling good and ready to see you! Whether it's coffee, dinner or anything in between, we've got you covered...

Start your morning right.

Taking your Friday night to the next level? Come on down and try our rotating Specials.

Whatever to try next...

As winter draws near again, the age old battle between White & Home Blend hot chocolate resumes.
Comment your favourite below!

Went for dinner on a Saturday night, main course and desert were amazing, as the white hot chocolate! Loved it so much that we came back for breakfast the following morning, pancakes, croissant and the Ulster Fry Up were all top quality! To top it all off the staff we encountered on the Saturday night and the Sunday morning were all extremely helpful and friendly!

Went for a bite to eat today. Absolutely amazing service from all the bar staff and the owner who came out and chatted to us for a bit. Food and cocktails were great. Cannot wait to go back

The place is simply top notch! I was there a few weeks ago for my christmas dinner I enjoyed it so much booked it again last night for a meal for my dads 60th!!



Boths times have been amazing! Food, beer and the service from the staff was excellent thanks guys will definately be back

The friendliest and most helpful bouncers I have ever met. One of them went out of his way to find me a comfortable place to sit as I have mobility problems.

Cracker food and nice coffee. And even though I go all the time I've always thought the service was severely lacking, the return visits are based on the quality of the food. I cant stay away. Anyway recently I've found two members of staff that are fantastic at what they do. A wee short haired petite girl who wears suspenders in the bar bit and my new favourite waiter Paul who is so on the ball. It's always a better experience when either of these people are on. Keep up the good work �

A night out with colleagues, we found this place by chance directly opposite botanic train station so called in before train. The setting is lovely, very relaxing ambient and friendly staff. Will be going back for longer next time for true feel of the place.

Went in for breakfast. Their Irish cooked breakfast was tasty although it said there was black pudding, I wouldn't find it anywhere. My partner had the veggie breakfast which had some nice spinach on the side and an extra fried egg on sourdough as suppose to one on my cooked breakfast.

I had a nice pot of tea while my partner had an Americano, but was too strong apparently, tasted like espresso.

The ambience was lovely though and the staff was friendly.

Nice place,good food, great service.

Have been here a couple of times to the coffee shop and always found it a nice relaxing place. The last two times I have been however, has been to the new bar next door, both times to watch The 6 Nations. Great atmosphere and brilliant wee bar

When we were first seated with our menus, we were not offered any drinks and had to wait until we ordered food to also order drinks.



When we were finished with our meal, the waitress collected our empty plates but did not offer any dessert menus and had to wait a further 15 mins before we got the waitress’s attention. Our hot drinks arrived well before our desserts.



All in all the food was delicious but we felt the service was inconsistent and were not supported throughout our experience.

Went for lunch on Saturday. Initial service was great and friendly, food was lovely but when finished waited for ages and plates were not cleared. This seemed to be the case for all tables. We ended up going few doors down to Clements for coffee which is a shame as the good reports of coffee was the main reason for going to town sq in 1st place.

Waited for 10mins for a member of staff to take our order, ended up giving up and going to the bar to place our order. Then had to wait a further 40mins for our starters with not even an apology for our wait. Weren't even asked if we wanted anything else.

Fair enough mains came out straight after the starter (as to be expected), my bf got a burger �, which was advertised , dressed with goats cheese & bacon. A burger came out garnished with 2 baby gem lettuce leaves and a slice of tomato. No goats cheese. No bacon. The burger wasn't sent back due to to length of time we had to wait to get our starters. Burger meat was very tough and unable to finish. Informed the waiter who said he would inform the chef, he personally apologised. Waited for him to hopefully approach us to inform as to why this wasn't presented as advertised on their menu. Gave up waiting AGAIN and went to the bar to pay. No mention of explanation to the mis-sold burger & again no apology from the member of staff or chef. Very shocked & disappointed when we got charged the full amount! This is an utter disgrace for a busy restaurant, you'd think they'd like to keep a good reputation to their name. Sadly this wasn't the case. I'll be sharing my experience with others as I would hate for them to waste their hard eared money!

Nice ambiance and excellent service. The coffee was of high quality. However after that my experience careened off a precipice, I ordered the carrot cake, however my to my disgust, said carrot cake came without any cream cheese frosting, what is this travesty! Avoid the carrot cake it tastes of pure disappointment.

Arrived today promptly seated and menus given . Restaurant was clean and waitress was lovely .

Waited approximately 20 mins on two fry’s and place wasn’t busy .

The issue today was the quality , although it wasn’t really bad it certainly isn’t up to the high standard it was which is a great tragedy as the place used to be packed out.

Our food order was x2 fry’s , scone , bun and three drinks £30.30 , ate in beautiful restaurant last night steak dinner , scampi dinner and three drinks only costed slightly more . Costing needs to be looked at again �

Honestly this place has gone really downhill lately.

No issues at all on the food or drinks, we used to regularly come here for meals and hot chocolate and it's always top notch, but the service has been so absolutely horrendous the past few times we've visited that we probably aren't going to bother coming again because it just isn't worth it.



On several visits, we have waited between 25-35 minutes to be served. Now, I would understand this if the restaurant was full, because I know what working in service industries is like and this place isn't exactly unpopular, but it is particularly frustrating when the place is less than half full and the staff are openly chatting and giggling to each other.

I'm not opposed to staff having a chat, they should feel comfortable at work too, but to leave customers unserved for half hour stretches for it is totally unacceptable.



On one such occasion, we were left for 20 minutes only to be ignored in favour of a group of lads who arrived after us who seemed familiar to the waitress based in the way they were speaking. The waitress then continued to talk to them for another 15 minutes before disappearing. Upon which YET ANOTHER waitress took up conversation with the boys and then began running a cloth over the same 3 or 4 tables adjacent to them that were already clean.

We were almost at the point of walking out by the time we were finally served by a gentleman who looked to be a manager or supervisor.



The final straw has been today, while the service was a little quicker than the last few times that positive was quickly negated by the quality of the service. The woman who served us was sour faced and abrupt.

When we asked a question about a change in the menu, we got a very sharp "No." in response. It was a minor interaction, but the tone she took with us left us with the impression that we weren't at all welcome.



I understand that the service industry can be a hard one, but it honestly can't be too difficult to show a little consideration or politeness, gods forbid, maybe even a smile.

It's such a pity, because we've had such lovely interactions with the staff in past, and the good experiences we've had have been extremely good. It was formerly one of our favourite spots in Belfast and that's why we gave it so many chances, thinking each time was just a bad exception, but it's clear this level of service seems to be the norm now.



In future I'd rather bring my service to places where I don't feel like the staff see me as below them, like it' such a bother for them to be expected to do their job.

Felt the Cooked breakfast was very overpriced for all you got.

Staff didn't seem to be very attentive. When we got up to pay we weren't asked how the food was.

Although I wouldn’t say we are regulars of the Town Square or its various predecessors, we do go there periodically and until last night always found it a pleasant casual experience but last night was a succession of small disappointments that all added up to a less than satisfactory experience that would make us think twice about going back again



To start with when we were seated we were given food menus but no drinks menu, nor were we offered a drink, which I thought was Restaurant 101. When the waitress came to take our order we asked for a drinks menu which came promptly but then meant we were ignored for another ten minutes



There was quite a long wait for our starter which was surprising given that the place wasn’t busy at that stage, though it did fill up later. The starters though were worth the wait, with my pork belly imaginatively wrapped around a soft black pudding. If I was to be hypercritical I’d have liked a bit more crispiness on the crackling but that’s just my preference. We thought that this bode well for the mains which came out some time later, though it wasn’t an excessive wait. Alas this wasn’t to be.



I had asked for the ribeye steak to be done very rare but it was medium at best when it came out. I pointed out to one of the waitresses who agreed to change it. The replacement was delivered shortly afterwards by someone more senior whom I assumed to be the manager or similar, along with an extra side of chips



Unfortunately this proved to be little better and was barely pink in the middle, as well as having an excess of black pepper on the crust and no charring. I’m no chef but I suspect that both cuts were just too thin to allow for the degree of rareness that I wanted. It wasn’t so awful though that I was going to send it back and waste another steak as it wasn’t inedible, just very disappointing



The manager came back and kindly offered us a free dessert or a discount so I said my wife would have the dessert.



When another waitress came to take our dessert order I asked for an Aeropress coffee to see what that was like, especially as the menu said they were ex NI Aeropress champions (sic). “Oh we don’t have any”, she said, without elaborating on why, which was strange as I thought it just involved coffee, hot water and a fancy gadget.



I therefore settled for a double espresso, which subsequently came in two shot glasses. Odd presentation aside though they were two excellent coffees and my wife enjoyed the ice cream she’d ordered



When we asked for the bill the manager pointed out that there was a discount for the coffee and pudding, which I gratefully acknowledged. She also suggested that I should order my steak blue in future if I wanted it more rare but I said I didn’t want it blue just very rare, as I’d requested



After she left we noticed that they hadn’t charged us for the wine but we assumed this was an omission rather than a further discount



We pointed out this oversight out to the cashier, who then went off to get someone else as presumably this meant changing the bill



“Hello, was something wrong?”

“yes, you’d forgotten to charge us for our wine”

“was it a glass?”

“no. a bottle”

“was it the merlot [£18]?”

“No, it was the Montepulciano [£20]”

“Okay, that’ll be £65”



“so was everything okay”



At this I’m afraid I let myself down by getting annoyed and pointing out that I was very disappointed in the fact that we’d just told them they’d undercharged us by £20 but she hadn’t thanked us or even acknowledged the fact. I did appreciate that she probably wasn’t the person who’d made up the bill but she was the front of house at that point and wasn’t making a good impression. I then strode off with my poor embarrassed wife in tow.



This probably summed up my overall impression that most of the staff whilst all very pleasant were just inexperienced in service



All in all then it wasn’t a terrible night but the succession of small fails and in particular the inability to cook a steak as ordered not once but twice made for a very disappointing experience and would take the Town Square off our go-to list

went to town square today and sat for 45 mins and wondered why 3 people in before us got served their food. turns out the waiter didn’t even tell the kitchen that we had ordered. absolute joke! imagine sitting really hungry, waiting for 45 mins and not one waiter asked did we need anything or that they would check on our food as we had to do it ourself. ridiculous is an understatement.

Having pictures of cock fighting on the walls. Which is both illegal and immoral. AVOID.

Went for dinner on a Saturday night, main course and desert were amazing, as the white hot chocolate! Loved it so much that we came back for breakfast the following morning, pancakes, croissant and the Ulster Fry Up were all top quality! To top it all off the staff we encountered on the Saturday night and the Sunday morning were all extremely helpful and friendly!

Went for a bite to eat today. Absolutely amazing service from all the bar staff and the owner who came out and chatted to us for a bit. Food and cocktails were great. Cannot wait to go back

The place is simply top notch! I was there a few weeks ago for my christmas dinner I enjoyed it so much booked it again last night for a meal for my dads 60th!!



Boths times have been amazing! Food, beer and the service from the staff was excellent thanks guys will definately be back

The friendliest and most helpful bouncers I have ever met. One of them went out of his way to find me a comfortable place to sit as I have mobility problems.

Cracker food and nice coffee. And even though I go all the time I've always thought the service was severely lacking, the return visits are based on the quality of the food. I cant stay away. Anyway recently I've found two members of staff that are fantastic at what they do. A wee short haired petite girl who wears suspenders in the bar bit and my new favourite waiter Paul who is so on the ball. It's always a better experience when either of these people are on. Keep up the good work �

A night out with colleagues, we found this place by chance directly opposite botanic train station so called in before train. The setting is lovely, very relaxing ambient and friendly staff. Will be going back for longer next time for true feel of the place.

Went in for breakfast. Their Irish cooked breakfast was tasty although it said there was black pudding, I wouldn't find it anywhere. My partner had the veggie breakfast which had some nice spinach on the side and an extra fried egg on sourdough as suppose to one on my cooked breakfast.

I had a nice pot of tea while my partner had an Americano, but was too strong apparently, tasted like espresso.

The ambience was lovely though and the staff was friendly.

Nice place,good food, great service.

Have been here a couple of times to the coffee shop and always found it a nice relaxing place. The last two times I have been however, has been to the new bar next door, both times to watch The 6 Nations. Great atmosphere and brilliant wee bar

When we were first seated with our menus, we were not offered any drinks and had to wait until we ordered food to also order drinks.



When we were finished with our meal, the waitress collected our empty plates but did not offer any dessert menus and had to wait a further 15 mins before we got the waitress’s attention. Our hot drinks arrived well before our desserts.



All in all the food was delicious but we felt the service was inconsistent and were not supported throughout our experience.

Went for lunch on Saturday. Initial service was great and friendly, food was lovely but when finished waited for ages and plates were not cleared. This seemed to be the case for all tables. We ended up going few doors down to Clements for coffee which is a shame as the good reports of coffee was the main reason for going to town sq in 1st place.

Waited for 10mins for a member of staff to take our order, ended up giving up and going to the bar to place our order. Then had to wait a further 40mins for our starters with not even an apology for our wait. Weren't even asked if we wanted anything else.

Fair enough mains came out straight after the starter (as to be expected), my bf got a burger �, which was advertised , dressed with goats cheese & bacon. A burger came out garnished with 2 baby gem lettuce leaves and a slice of tomato. No goats cheese. No bacon. The burger wasn't sent back due to to length of time we had to wait to get our starters. Burger meat was very tough and unable to finish. Informed the waiter who said he would inform the chef, he personally apologised. Waited for him to hopefully approach us to inform as to why this wasn't presented as advertised on their menu. Gave up waiting AGAIN and went to the bar to pay. No mention of explanation to the mis-sold burger & again no apology from the member of staff or chef. Very shocked & disappointed when we got charged the full amount! This is an utter disgrace for a busy restaurant, you'd think they'd like to keep a good reputation to their name. Sadly this wasn't the case. I'll be sharing my experience with others as I would hate for them to waste their hard eared money!

Nice ambiance and excellent service. The coffee was of high quality. However after that my experience careened off a precipice, I ordered the carrot cake, however my to my disgust, said carrot cake came without any cream cheese frosting, what is this travesty! Avoid the carrot cake it tastes of pure disappointment.

Arrived today promptly seated and menus given . Restaurant was clean and waitress was lovely .

Waited approximately 20 mins on two fry’s and place wasn’t busy .

The issue today was the quality , although it wasn’t really bad it certainly isn’t up to the high standard it was which is a great tragedy as the place used to be packed out.

Our food order was x2 fry’s , scone , bun and three drinks £30.30 , ate in beautiful restaurant last night steak dinner , scampi dinner and three drinks only costed slightly more . Costing needs to be looked at again �

Honestly this place has gone really downhill lately.

No issues at all on the food or drinks, we used to regularly come here for meals and hot chocolate and it's always top notch, but the service has been so absolutely horrendous the past few times we've visited that we probably aren't going to bother coming again because it just isn't worth it.



On several visits, we have waited between 25-35 minutes to be served. Now, I would understand this if the restaurant was full, because I know what working in service industries is like and this place isn't exactly unpopular, but it is particularly frustrating when the place is less than half full and the staff are openly chatting and giggling to each other.

I'm not opposed to staff having a chat, they should feel comfortable at work too, but to leave customers unserved for half hour stretches for it is totally unacceptable.



On one such occasion, we were left for 20 minutes only to be ignored in favour of a group of lads who arrived after us who seemed familiar to the waitress based in the way they were speaking. The waitress then continued to talk to them for another 15 minutes before disappearing. Upon which YET ANOTHER waitress took up conversation with the boys and then began running a cloth over the same 3 or 4 tables adjacent to them that were already clean.

We were almost at the point of walking out by the time we were finally served by a gentleman who looked to be a manager or supervisor.



The final straw has been today, while the service was a little quicker than the last few times that positive was quickly negated by the quality of the service. The woman who served us was sour faced and abrupt.

When we asked a question about a change in the menu, we got a very sharp "No." in response. It was a minor interaction, but the tone she took with us left us with the impression that we weren't at all welcome.



I understand that the service industry can be a hard one, but it honestly can't be too difficult to show a little consideration or politeness, gods forbid, maybe even a smile.

It's such a pity, because we've had such lovely interactions with the staff in past, and the good experiences we've had have been extremely good. It was formerly one of our favourite spots in Belfast and that's why we gave it so many chances, thinking each time was just a bad exception, but it's clear this level of service seems to be the norm now.



In future I'd rather bring my service to places where I don't feel like the staff see me as below them, like it' such a bother for them to be expected to do their job.

Felt the Cooked breakfast was very overpriced for all you got.

Staff didn't seem to be very attentive. When we got up to pay we weren't asked how the food was.

Although I wouldn’t say we are regulars of the Town Square or its various predecessors, we do go there periodically and until last night always found it a pleasant casual experience but last night was a succession of small disappointments that all added up to a less than satisfactory experience that would make us think twice about going back again



To start with when we were seated we were given food menus but no drinks menu, nor were we offered a drink, which I thought was Restaurant 101. When the waitress came to take our order we asked for a drinks menu which came promptly but then meant we were ignored for another ten minutes



There was quite a long wait for our starter which was surprising given that the place wasn’t busy at that stage, though it did fill up later. The starters though were worth the wait, with my pork belly imaginatively wrapped around a soft black pudding. If I was to be hypercritical I’d have liked a bit more crispiness on the crackling but that’s just my preference. We thought that this bode well for the mains which came out some time later, though it wasn’t an excessive wait. Alas this wasn’t to be.



I had asked for the ribeye steak to be done very rare but it was medium at best when it came out. I pointed out to one of the waitresses who agreed to change it. The replacement was delivered shortly afterwards by someone more senior whom I assumed to be the manager or similar, along with an extra side of chips



Unfortunately this proved to be little better and was barely pink in the middle, as well as having an excess of black pepper on the crust and no charring. I’m no chef but I suspect that both cuts were just too thin to allow for the degree of rareness that I wanted. It wasn’t so awful though that I was going to send it back and waste another steak as it wasn’t inedible, just very disappointing



The manager came back and kindly offered us a free dessert or a discount so I said my wife would have the dessert.



When another waitress came to take our dessert order I asked for an Aeropress coffee to see what that was like, especially as the menu said they were ex NI Aeropress champions (sic). “Oh we don’t have any”, she said, without elaborating on why, which was strange as I thought it just involved coffee, hot water and a fancy gadget.



I therefore settled for a double espresso, which subsequently came in two shot glasses. Odd presentation aside though they were two excellent coffees and my wife enjoyed the ice cream she’d ordered



When we asked for the bill the manager pointed out that there was a discount for the coffee and pudding, which I gratefully acknowledged. She also suggested that I should order my steak blue in future if I wanted it more rare but I said I didn’t want it blue just very rare, as I’d requested



After she left we noticed that they hadn’t charged us for the wine but we assumed this was an omission rather than a further discount



We pointed out this oversight out to the cashier, who then went off to get someone else as presumably this meant changing the bill



“Hello, was something wrong?”

“yes, you’d forgotten to charge us for our wine”

“was it a glass?”

“no. a bottle”

“was it the merlot [£18]?”

“No, it was the Montepulciano [£20]”

“Okay, that’ll be £65”



“so was everything okay”



At this I’m afraid I let myself down by getting annoyed and pointing out that I was very disappointed in the fact that we’d just told them they’d undercharged us by £20 but she hadn’t thanked us or even acknowledged the fact. I did appreciate that she probably wasn’t the person who’d made up the bill but she was the front of house at that point and wasn’t making a good impression. I then strode off with my poor embarrassed wife in tow.



This probably summed up my overall impression that most of the staff whilst all very pleasant were just inexperienced in service



All in all then it wasn’t a terrible night but the succession of small fails and in particular the inability to cook a steak as ordered not once but twice made for a very disappointing experience and would take the Town Square off our go-to list

went to town square today and sat for 45 mins and wondered why 3 people in before us got served their food. turns out the waiter didn’t even tell the kitchen that we had ordered. absolute joke! imagine sitting really hungry, waiting for 45 mins and not one waiter asked did we need anything or that they would check on our food as we had to do it ourself. ridiculous is an understatement.

Having pictures of cock fighting on the walls. Which is both illegal and immoral. AVOID.