Hayes Island Snack Bar

Do you know when you’re walking in the cold rain and you feel miserable and hungry? This was one of those days for me. It was cold, it was wet and I was hungry. My stomach was gurgling and I needed some sort of nourishment to shut my belly up. Then it happened, the smell of fried goodness. I look over to my right and saw the Haye’s Island and Snack Bar. I would have been a fool not to stop and buy something.
I would imagine that on a nice sunny day the Hayes Island Snack bar would be filled with people in the seating areas. It has a lot of tables outside by the snack bar looking at the giant LCD screen above St David’s Hall. It is often busy when there are some matches. I was craving any food and decided to get sausage baguette that only cost me £2.50. Once I took the bite I was happy, it tasted great and gave me the nourishment I wanted. If it wasn’t raining I would of sat down and watch the world go by, but the weather was atrocious and I didn’t want my bread to get soggy, so I sought out some shelter.
Haye’s Island Snack Bar is a great pit stop that sells great snack food to fill you up when your hungry. At a great price too, you can’t go wrong.

The Hayes Island Snack Bar is something of an institution in the city centre of Cardiff. Whilst surrounded by the new St. David’s 2, construction on The Hayes itself, and the new library at the other end, The Hayes Island Snack Bar remains in its Victorian guise to this day.
It’s fairly big as far as snack bars go, so it can certainly cope with a large amount of custom coming its way on a day when people can bear to sit outside. The only downside is that it only caters for seating outside so on a wet day it can suffer a bit custom-​wise. It’s a good place to grab something on the go or to sit with a coffee with the hubbub of Cardiff going on all around you. This isn’t your normal people watching position. We’re talking a 360° periphary of people watching. Worth every penny.

With so many other places to eat and drink these days the Hayes Island Snack Bar tends to get forgotten about. Although not by the loyal devotees who always mill about the café. So I’m glad it’s still going and it’s still the best place to eat if you’re on a budget. Now and then when it’s a bit quieter, I have to have a bacon sandwich and a teacake with a big mug of tea. Their coffee’s OK but a bit weak for me, and sit and ponder my place in the world, and wonder at who in the world is still shopping in Habitat???
I’d go there more often if i didn’t have to keep seeing the eyesore that is the St Davids Hall, so I make sure I face the other way. I’d also go more often if our weather was a bit more clement, it’s not much fun in the rain.

This place is right in the centre of the Hayes and therefore the name really could not be any more apt. Come rain or sun these people are open for business offering a range of hot food and drinks to all passers by. They provide a fair amount of seating for patrons to enjoy the surroundings as they devour they food or refreshments. If you visit you will notice the massive TV screen which has been erected on St David’s hall making this is a great place to relax and catch up on the news or weather if you don’t fancy people watching. I regularly go here to grab something for lunch as it is in such a central location and their prices are so reasonable, I’ll usually grab myself a bacon roll for £2.10 as it is absolutely jam packed full of bacon. They are certainly not stingy here and I like the mix of different people you will meet here.

I used to work early mornings which involved me hanging around the centre of town at 7.30am (no i wasn’t a street sweeper) and the only place that had the light of welcome on at that time was the Hayes Island Snack bar.
I often used to grab a cup of tea and a bacon bap and chat to the very chirpy staff who also seemed glad of a bit of company.
I remember this snack bar even from when I was a child and went here with my mother — its somewhat an iconic part of Cardiff topography.
Its an outside café that always seemed popular save for some adverse weather conditions. It’s also a cracking place to sit if there happens to be a big sports event on becasue they have a huge jumbo screen opposite that hangs off St Davids Hall.
One word of warning though — watch out for the pidgeons that also frequent this café — they are tame to the point of being almost predatory.

Hayes Island Snack Bar kind of does what it says on the tin.
This pedestrianised ‘square’ has long been a popular central spot for meeting up, and the snack bar at its heart seems to do very well out of this. It has a great location, but it’s not the classiest of joints — and certainly isn’t a place to go for a healthy bite to eat (think breakfast baguettes and carvery sandwiches rather than light salads). The smell of cooking meat never fails to attract passers-​by, though — and before you know it on a fine day the seating under the trees is packed out with people tucking into overloaded bacon sandwiches and cheap cups of tea.
Its popularity endures despite its proximity to the old Victorian underground toilets, which waft up a vague scent of cleaning products, and the resident pigeons, notorious for their accurate aim, perched in the trees above — you have been warned!

A well known landmark in the centre of Cardiff opposite St Davis Hall. A lovely place to sit outside and enjoy a cuppa in the sunshine. I love to meet up with friends here to watch the world go by.
Although lovely it’s been difficult to get a seat due to its popularity with the construction workforce on the St Davids 2 Development.
Aside from hot and cold drinks, crisps etc. the snack bar is noted for its fresh roast carvery sandwiches, beef, pork and turkey, as well as its burgers.
Avoid when it’s raining!

The setting is lovely. With trees shading you in summer and protecting you from wind and rain for the rest of the year. With the bustling shops all around, and the new St David’s hopping Centre breathing new life into this end of town, this really is a pleasant little square in the centre of it all.
Why, oh why, then, do we have such a dingy little snack bar situated right slap bang in the middle of it? Serving hot drinks and burgers and such, this is less a snack bar than a roadside burger van.
I always wander past wishing that there was some other food on offer there. Because the seats in The Hayes all belong to them, so going to get sushi and bringing it to enjoy out in the sun is a bit of a no-​no. They also don’t tend to keep their area all that clean and tidy, perhaps relying on the council to do their cleaning services for them. This means that quite often there can be a build up of rubbish and chips, attracting seagulls and pigeons galore.
I just get the overriding impression that this corner of Cardiff has seen better days.

Well I haven’t sampled the whole menu from here but what I’ve had has certainly been good grub and good value for money.
I would particularly recommend the fresh hot pork rolls with stuffing, crackling and all the trimmings. They also do a mean breakfast baguette. Yeah you won’t get it served up on a fancy plate but if you just want a sandwich and a cuppa to enjoy in the sun then its a great place. Its especially good in the summer when there are musicians playing on the corner too.

The thing is about Cafes outside is that it lives or dies by the weather. So if it’s snowing it looks beautiful and I’ll want a tea to warm up my dying fingers.
Or summer when the sun smiles down at you, when I’ll probably just have a tea again. So that’s about 14 days of the year that I’ll use this snack bar then. It really is lovely though when the weather is just right and the is fairly cheap for sandwiches/​drinks etc. I will warn you though that the snack bar is under a lot of trees and haas our feathered friends sitting upon them. Wear a hat is all I’m saying.