The Old Customs House Tearooms
★ In our guides ↓

On Our List

The Old Customs House Tearooms

A charming tearoom near the beach with an extensive menu, reasonable prices and a lovely, individual atmosphere - a real local favourite.

Address:

37 Harbour Road, Amble, NE65 0AP
Call:
01665 798557

Hours:

Mon - Tue: Closed

Wed - Sat: 10am - 4pm

Sunday: 11am - 4pm

Map

Good to Know

The Old Customs House Tearooms is on Harbour Road in Amble, right by Little Shore — the small sheltered beach with the row of painted beach huts. Closed Monday and Tuesday; open Wednesday to Sunday daytimes.

Tom's Notebook

Best for: Afternoon tea, homemade quiche and cake, and warming up after a cold walk on the harbour.

Dog friendly: Yes — visitors describe it as dog friendly, and it's wheelchair friendly too.

Food: Sandwiches, quiches, fruit and cheese scones, and a big cake selection — the carrot cake has a following.

Price: Visitors call it fair value, with generous portions.

H&S tip: An easy stop on the way back from Little Shore with a dog in tow.

On Our List

The Old Customs House kept turning up in searches around Heather & Sand, so we did some digging.

Why people seem to like it

Everything is homemade, and the menu is longer than you'd expect from a traditional tearoom. Reviewers single out the quiches again and again, and the afternoon tea is what many visitors come back for.

It also has a reputation as exactly the right place to thaw out on a cold day on the coast.

Not every visit is perfect

We haven't found much to grumble about. The main thing to know is that it's popular, so expect a short wait for a table at busy times.

So, would we go?

Yes. A homely tearoom by the beach huts, with proper homemade cake and room for the dog, is very much our sort of place.

But this isn't our review — not yet. When we've been, we'll replace it with what we found ourselves.

Heather & Sand verdict: On Our List. A traditional, homely tearoom by Little Shore with a strong reputation for homemade food and afternoon tea. Promising enough that we'll be calling in soon to find out for ourselves.

A Little Note From Heather & Sand

We haven't quite made it here ourselves yet, but it's on our list!

We're working our way around Northumberland, personally visiting and reviewing as many of the places featured in our Listed section as we can. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

In the meantime, we do our homework. Before adding somewhere to Heather & Sand, we research it, look at what other visitors have to say and check that it has a good reputation. If the feedback isn't encouraging, it generally doesn't make our list.

Of course, a little online research is no substitute for muddy boots, a decent coffee and seeing somewhere for ourselves. So until we've visited, we'll leave the personal review to one side.

A little about us...

Heather & Sand is our little corner of Northumberland — a collection of places, stories, walks and discoveries from a county we love.

Through our Journal, Guide and Listed pages, we hope to help you discover somewhere new, revisit an old favourite or simply enjoy a little Northumberland from wherever you happen to be.

Tom, Lucy & the Heather & Sand crew.

Featured in our guides