IKEA Lakeside - Grays

Jack Coughlan

IKEA in Lakeside is a convenient and popular choice for anyone looking to furnish or decorate their home on a budget. The store is large, well-organized, and has a wide range of stylish, affordable furniture and home decor options that cater to various tastes. Walking through the showrooms provides plenty of inspiration, and the layout makes it easy to visualize how pieces might look at home.

However, navigating the store can be overwhelming, especially on weekends when it’s typically busy. The layout, while designed to show products, can feel like a maze, and it’s easy to lose track of time or miss certain sections. The self-service model is convenient for some, but it means that finding assistance can be a bit challenging at times. The restaurant is a nice bonus.

All in all, IKEA Lakeside is a great spot for affordable home goods, but be prepared for a bustling atmosphere and a bit of a journey through the maze-like layout. If you’re patient, though, you’re likely to leave with some great finds at reasonable prices.

Nicholas Cooper

They sell lots of great stuff, but seriously I'm only there to find out what the animals are up to!
Someone really loves there job, keep up the good work!
So car park is big, food is good, food queue is too big at weekends, good range of products, plenty of trolleys.

paul

Nice place for shopping although the clever marketing placement of items makes one do a lot of walking! Lots of good idea “nick knacks” and some very nice furniture. Well worth a visit.

shabs

A lovely store and the price for this lunch was unbelievable, £3 for salmon, veg, and couscous with free tea for members. Staff could be more helpful and make themselves available.

Natalia Barbosa

Such a huge ikea, the free parking was the size of a shopping center. Everything that you expected from an ikea you find there. There’s the iconic cheap restaurant (20 minutes queue though on Saturday) and free playground for the children.

Mark Evans

Bad visit to the Ikea Lakeside store.

Extremely disappointed as it wasn’t reflective of the wider IKEA brand or other stores, but the visit was very disappointing at this location.

When arriving to the store, the car park was jam packed and there was traffic everywhere, it was hard to navigate as a pedestrian and the crossings were not respected by vehicles. Take care when using the car park on foot!

The front door of the store wasn’t working properly so there was a spare door open and we went in, but couldn’t move as it was so crowded.

Upon getting upstairs, the signage was limited and it was so crowded we couldn’t find where to go. The cafe was too busy to sit down, so we skipped this bit.

During our adventure around the store we could hardly navigate it due to how busy it was, products were scattered everywhere and there were very few signs to show you which departments are where.

Eventually we’d found what we needed and then went to the checkouts, which were very unorganised. There were people with huge trollies and many items using the express lane too, and the queue was huge. The queue was moving very slowly but eventually we were guided to a self checkout.

Once I’d efficiently scanned my items, it selected me again for a ‘random’ security check that seems to happen every visit I make to an IKEA store. This wasn’t the issue though, it was the fact that we had to wait around 7 minutes for someone to show up as there were very few staff anywhere to be seen! The member of staff came over, didn’t say a word, scanned all our shopping then walked off.

Upon departure we went to go to the Bistro to get a snack but didn’t even bother due to more than 50 people being in the queue for it. Such a shame as it would have been a treat but we were already frustrated enough from the rest of the experience!

We left and that was the end of the visit! I wouldn’t recommend this location to friends and family, we did visit on a Sunday so perhaps it is expected to be busy? On the contrary it was excessively busy and ruined the visit, so I’d suggest visiting in the evenings on a weekday if you do go. I would think long and hard about returning to this store again!

If you are going, I’d recommend using public transport as the bus stop is only a short walk away near Lakeside Shopping Centre and is much easier and efficient to get to this store and avoid the traffic queues! Thank you.

Edward O'Dowd James

They were out of chips and mashed potatoes, they substituted those for hash browns. Bit of a let down, don't come here often and when I do, I like to tuck into their Swedish meatballs.

Perhaps next visit will be better?

Kirsten Buniak

Great IKEA location, always well-stocked. The re-use section always has good items, both returns and discounted items. One time I think there was the giant skoggy bears in the discount section, and I was very tempted to bring one home with me.
The staff are super helpful, and the click & collect was very convenient. We were able to get in and out for our order within 15 minutes, which was great!
Meatballs are also always a great choice for a meal here and the food is always tasty and hot.