Café of the Month

The Hop Pickers’ Rest is a recent discovery. I think there has been something on this site before but it has never looked open when I passed by.

This establishment comprises a mobile catering unit, another mobile unit affording some inside seating on comfortable looking booths and some outdoor tables and chairs, which it was mild enough to make use of. Oh! And importantly it has toilet facilities – a couple of ‘chemikarzis (Steptoe and Son Xmas Special 196?) which are clean and well maintained.

It’s on Hampstead Lane, as you come into Yalding from the west and is over the road from the Medway. There’s no car park but there’s normally room for bikes to squeeze between the parked cars.

I was just going to have a cuppa but was tempted by the cooking smells. Tea and a thick bacon sandwich was £5.50 which is not too bad these days. They do full meals – liver and bacon, chilli con carne etc. for £9.50 and the usual burgers and baguettes. They have sauce in bottles – even sriracha not those horrible sachets.

There were no other bikers there, or indeed hop-pickers but the place was popular with bobble-hatted walkers and seems to do a brisk trade.

Summary – basic scran at a reasonable price and not a bad place to ride out to if you don’t want to go too far whe the weather’s dodgy.

John McNally