The Boathouse Cafe at Beeston Marina is a friendly and welcoming spot to head for if you are bimbling along the river or wandering your way along the paths from Attenborough.

The place is full of community spirit, the walls filled with pictures of local events past and present, and the people running the place are happy to regail you with stories all about them

Food wise it is your classic cafe serving up pretty much everything you would expect to find, from breakfasts, to burgers, to pies, chips and a multitude of sandwich options.

It’s all a bit on the no frills end of the dining experience, but I love the place just for that, as it’s a place to refuel during or after a day out, it’s not the ritz and it isn’t trying to be either 🙂

The last time I came here to eat at the Boathouse cafe they were only doing sandwiches and I had a BLT (read more here), so this time I already had it in my mind that I was going to get a breakfast. I picked out the All Day Breakfast for £7 which seemed a lot of money for a cafe, but it did come with a Free drink refill of tea or coffee.

OK so I know that I should have not been a greedy pig and just have the small breakfast for £5, but at least I had been restrained enough to resist the Big Breakfast for £9 🙂

The All Day Breakfast

The All Day Breakfast at the Boathouse included “2 Eggs, 2 Bacon, Sausage, Hash Brown, Beans, Tomatoes, Toast or Fried Bread & 1 Free Drink Refill“. I chose Toast instead of Fried Bread

As I alluded up top this is a no frills plateful, no real prizes for presentation, I felt that someone in the kitchen were perhaps channeling their inner Jackson Pollock 🙂 but hey that does not make it any less tasty or desirable.

When I stared down at the plate I knew that this really wasn’t going to be one of my healthier meals of the week, nope this was quite simply a lot of joyously plated up fried stuff all ready for me to scoff.

The highlights were the bacon and the eggs, I wasn’t keen on the sausage or the hash brown, and the beans and tomatoes filled the plate with lots of juice for everything to float about on.

It did the job that I asked it to do, and that was to fill me up and give me some energy for my stroll along the river bank and through Attenborough Nature Reserve

The have pretty much all the classics on the menu here at the Boat House cafe, more that you see at some pubs. If I had not ordered that breakfast then I would have been pretty tempted to have the Lasagne.

My dining and bimbling companion opted for the Cottage Pie and forgoed the opportunity to gets the OAP portion for £4, instead splashing out on a standard portion of £6

Cottage Pie

The Cottage pie with veg and gravy was pretty much as expected, a plateful of homely mince meat with peas in mash, stick to your ribs stuff. Vegetable wise it seemed to be your classic frozen selection, and a mix containing sweetcorn always amuses me for some reason.

All in all though this was a decent filling plateful and it arrived at the table piping hot and with a smile following a number of pings from the direction of the kitchen.

I was really pleased to see one of the Robins from the Hoodwinked Trail of 2018 in a new home here at the Marina. It’s new name was Lucky Robin and they have turned it into a money collecting box to rise money for charities supported by the Marina. It had started life as “Max Superhero at the weekends” sitting outside the Cornerhouse before being bought at auction and re-homed here. We took our photos and dropped our coins through the slot.

The Boathouse cafe is located at 1a Riverside Rd, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 1NA

Right next to the River Trent where the canal joins the river