LEON Strand

A friend offered last minute tickets to a west end show so needed to grab some food before the show. In an attempt to pick healthier but fast food, dropped into Leon on the Strand. It’s by no means my first time here but I haven’t been in this particular store since they started doing the self service screens and here started the problem: The screens are really close together, making it hard to communicate with anyone you might be with. It also doesn’t fill you full of confidence when it comes to paying. While the system is fairly simple to use & pretty it has major failures the biggest being dietary issues. There is no clear way or any way that I could find to declare dietary requirements or customise an item despite there being a customise option. It just lets you add things to your order. While I see that this reduces food waste as it’s made to order, the entire experience was painfully slow. Removing the whole reason I went in which was speed. I’ve grabbed whatever was available hundreds of times for ease and speed when I could just go to the counter and see what was already prepped to go. Companies do this all the time to reduce staffing costs, claiming it’s to speed up the customer experience and it’s the exact opposite. The staff there were lovely and very apologetic for wait times. I say the staff, there was 1 woman on the front and the rest in the kitchen. Food wise, the flat bread fell apart completely and the wraps get thinner and thinner. A regular go to sadly turned into a don’t bother.

Just ordered a chicken satay. £8. It’s a spoonful of chicken and a cup of dry rice. It covers half of the container. I showed it to the person serving me and the person that made the portion said “I’ve put the quantities we are instructed to”. I’m a member of Leon reward programme and the portions keep shrinking. The original ethic that gave birth to Leon is far gone. No value for money whatsoever. For the same price nearby you can have a naked burrito full of chicken and beans or even a burger. Would you pay £8 for the serving in the picture?

I love shashuka! this is really delicious. and the coffee is great

I’m in the office monthly and a visit to this Leon has become a part of my office days that I look forward to. I always order the Korean chicken wrap with halloumi … very yum! The manager Adu is always such a pleasure. Very polite, patient and helpful. Order always comes out quick too which is helpful when you have limited lunch time!

We eat here on a Saturday night around 7.30pm. We had two Brazilian Black Bean boxes which were delicious as always. Our baked fries though were cold, and we had to send these back (staff willingly swapped them for some hot ones). The restaurant wasn’t very busy and given there is now a digital ordering service there were two staff behind the counter not overly busy, yet the set of tables where we sat down weren’t clean and there was mayo on the chairs beside us. With the restaurant not busy staff should be ensuring tables/chairs are clean - we didn’t see the staff clean up at all during our visit. They were out of sparking water so we were offered tap water which was fine. It is a nice spacious space so just a shame cleanliness/temperature of food standards have slipped as normally I’m a real Leon fan.

Outstanding service from kimberly at this Leon. Two pretty ladies in the front with great welcome smile. I order for paprika wrap and its great.

I have had the Leon app for over a year and up until I came to this Leon had never been able to get it to work. I had ordered their veggie burger, salad and chicken nuggets. The counter staff did not know how to add the rewards from my meal to the app. and called for the supervisor to help. How amazing was this man. He reverse engineered the order to add the points to my app and showed me how to use the app in future. I feel really bad for not getting his name as he was so helpful and patient in dealing with me. A real credit to the Leon brand.

I used to like Leon when they opened up(not this particular one), but sadly, the quality of their food is just not up to standards anymore. The rice was undercooked and hard, and that's 80% of the meal. Of course, a lot depends on the branch as well. I won't be back to this one in the near future for sure.