When a restaurant located inside a prison and staffed entirely by inmates can nab the title of best in town, there should be no excuses for other eateries to step up their game. Almost 1,000 restaurants in Cardiff, Wales have their work cut out for them to catch up with the city’s top-ranked dining spot after patrons voted it the best food in town.

Diners voting on TripAdvisor ranked The Clink Restaurant at HMP Cardiff No. 1 out of 946 restaurants in the Welsh capital, reports the South Wales Evening Post.

Prison inmates work as the chefs, cooks, servers and every other job a restaurant has and are paid about $21 per 40-hour work week, and their hard work isn’t going unnoticed by diners.

“The standard set by everyone at this venue would be hard to match in any other restaurant we have been to in recent times,” read one review.

“The waiters were great with perfect service – better than we have had in some starred restaurants – and also attentive to your needs,” read another, with a five-star rating.

The restaurant serves breakfast and lunch to the public and employs 30 inmates, who are training to get catering qualifications that will allow them to have the job skills to seek employment in other restaurants once they leave prison.

“The whole team is delighted to have made it to the top spot on TripAdvisor, and to be ranked so highly against almost 1,000 restaurants in the city is a huge achievement for us,” the general manager told the Post.

“The recognition we have received from so many of our diners for the atmosphere we’ve created, the effort we put into sourcing our ingredients, the high standard of front of house service offered by the waiters and the skill our menus is incredible. A big thank you to everyone who has left such kind comments on our page, we’ll continue to impress our customers and hope we can stay at pole position for the foreseeable future.”

Prison restaurant run by criminals named the best in Cardiff [South Wales Evening Post]

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