When we first walked in, I thought what a lovely pub, and the menu looked great. We asked for a table for food and were told to pick any table and asked if we’d like to get a drink before ordering.
We went to order Sunday roast, and this is when the commotion started. The chef was refusing to cook and there appeared to be some sort of argument going on in the kitchen.
A young waitress came over to explain that she wasn’t sure whether we would be able to get food because there was an issue in the kitchen. She was incredibly polite and professional. We explained that we needed to be fairly quick as we had a journey home, and that if there was a problem we needed to know if food was on or off. She went to speak to the chef and came back to say we could have anything other than a roast. We said that was fine and ordered. She knew that, because of the problems in the kitchen, we had already been waiting for some time, so reassured us that they would get straight on with our food and that it wouldn’t be long.
Roll on nearly 1½ hours, and we still had no main meal.
I went to the bar and spoke to another woman, who was extremely rude. She looked it up and told me that she hadn’t pressed the “away” button, but had now done so, meaning they would start cooking our food. I explained that we had already been waiting a very long time. I asked whether she was seriously telling me that, after 1½ hours, our food still hadn’t even been started, and asked her to go and check.
She came back and said they were going to start cooking it shortly and it would be about another 20 minutes. At this point, I said that after waiting 1½ hours, if the food hadn’t even been started, we weren’t prepared to wait any longer and I wanted a full refund.
There was no apology whatsoever. Instead, she simply told me that they were busy, that I would have to wait, and then walked off. Her attitude and complete lack of customer service were incredibly disappointing. She seemed more interested in explaining how busy she was than actually addressing the fact that we had been left waiting for 1½ hours without our food even being started.
By the time we left, I actually felt very sorry for the young waitress. She had been running around constantly, trying her best and dealing with a very angry-sounding chef. At one point, another member of the kitchen staff came running out to get her, and they were all rushing around trying to deal with the situation.
The young waitress was polite, professional and clearly working incredibly hard. Unfortunately, she was completely let down by what appeared to be awful communication and behaviour from her colleagues.
To keep customers waiting for 1½ hours, only to discover that the food still hadn’t even been started because of the problems in the kitchen, and then to be met with rudeness when asking what was happening, was just awful. We ultimately left without dinner because the situation still hadn’t been sorted.
Such a shame, because my first impression of the pub was really positive, the menu looked lovely, and the young waitress genuinely couldn’t have tried harder. Unfortunately, the experience from the kitchen and the response from the other member of staff completely ruined it.
We left being told to get out from the very rude woman who was serving behind the bar because she didn’t like that I told her that I didn’t care that they were busy when she couldn’t be bothered to apologise for the situation or recognise that the wait was ridiculous.
I can tell you now that alot of customers were talking around us about the shenanigans that were going on.
I’d give the young waitress long dark brown hair and very polite and hardworking a promotion and pay rise and sack the lady whose first language was not English and I only say this to be clear who is who as she is just rude and whatever was going on in the kitchen needs sorting too
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