Vent: Toby Carvery

johnsons_baby

Saddens me to have to write this but I am seriously annoyed with the Mitchell & Butlers (Toby Carvery) way of dealing with complaints.

I love Toby Carvery, I really do and we usually use the 2 course, £5 vouchers to go.

Me, baby & husband visted at 4:30pm on 4th Jan, food was excellent but service was awful. We asked for a table with room to put the baby car seat on, so one of the bench seats would have been great (baby sleeping at this point hence why we asked), told there were none available in the area of the restaurant which was open, there were only 2 waitresses serving and the area they had open wasn't particularly full but we were put in a corner table for 2 where the lights were out, so it was dark, asked if it was possible to move but got told that wasn't possible, there were free tables but they hadn't been cleared.

Baby woke up at this point and hubs asked the waitress for a high chair. She huffed and puffed at us and then said 'oh whatever' before bringing the high chair and placing it about 4 foot from the tble, slamming in down and walking off.

Another waitress came, took our order for drinks and told us to go up to the carvery. I went first, hubs stayed with the baby. Whilst I was gone, the drinks waitress came back with the drinks, told hubs off and said he HAD to go up with me to the carvery, pointed out there was a baby to look after and she huffed and puffed and stormed off.

Anyhow, both got our meals, half way through drinkie waitress comes back and asks if we've finished 'no, not yet' we reply. A little whilst later, we finish, waitresses talking in the corner of the restaurant. Half an hour later, husband goes up and asks couldwe get dessert. She told 'Yeah', went to the kitchen, came back with the ice creams, slammed them down so hard people in the restuarant looked round and baby got frightend as well and began to cry, so we ate the ice cream and walked to the till to get the bill and pay.

Whilst there, the 2 waitresses were in conversation with two men and you could have turned the air blue with what was coming out of the waitresses mouths, swearing, being derogatory and using really offensive language.

Not happy, we said 'could you not swear, there's kids about' to which one waitress stuck her tongue out at us and carried on.

We left, promptly and made a compliant to M&B (Toby's parent co) online.

A week later, the assistant manager rang and was really confrontational saying 'give me your side of this story then?' and then saying well the service isn't part of the experience and the swearing was 'just banter' and he said he wouldn't take it any further.

Not really happy, I e-mailed M&B again and they said it would be passed to the regional manager.

Yesterday, I got a phone call from the manager, she again asked about the complaint, which we went through again and she said she didn't think it was as serious as I made out and yes, it probably was banter but it was also busy and hence why the service was poor. Stated she wasn't willing to go further into the complaint as no-one else had complained about the staff that night.

So, that was the resolution, no apology, which was all we wanted and for the waitresses to be asked to use appropriate language in the restaurant but no avail.

There you go, my experience, won't be going to this venue again but will drive further to another.

RichyRich

That's horrendous. There are three Tobys (Tobies?) near me in Bradford and all are excellent - the staff polite, pleasant and attentive. But your story has put me off. It's bad enough that your experience on the day went wrong but it is inexcusable that they haven't even investigated, resolved the underlying issues, or apologised.

I think that there must be arrogance in the pub industry as the woman and I went to a Chef & Brewer pub in Hertfordshire (parent company: Spirit Group). I ordered something like Chili and Chorizo Chicken and asked specifically if it had mushrooms in, they said no. It came with mushrooms in and no chorizo. It was Chicken Chasseur.

I made this known to the waitress and the upshot was that I got it free but they would not admit I was given the wrong dish. "The chef didn't know that the sauce had mushrooms in it and the chorizo is ground up and worked into the sauce!"

So they were telling me that Chilli and Chorizo Chicken has no noticeable bits of Chorizo but includes many bits of an ingredient not listed on the menu!

I wrote to their head office in Burton on Trent and their response was the same - the correct dish was served. How they could establish that when they didn't see the dish I ate is, frankly, beyond me. But no admission they were wrong.

The thing is, had they said to me in the pub: "I'm sorry, we gave you the wrong dish by accident" I would have been perfectly happy with that and would not have even have bothered about my money back.

williham

Shame when this happens..

Mischa

There's something really up with complaints procedures! Why are they in place if they have no effect? If I had been at the Toby Carvery I would have demanded to see the Manager immediately, no-one should be spoken to like that when its the customers that pay their hard-earned money and keep those people in a job! I hate bad service, it's one of my pet-hates, it always gets my goat everytime! I worked in customer service for several years and never left anything unresolved, and I was never too proud to apologise. These companies are too big for their boots and they'll be sorry when we've all had enough and no-one goes there anymore. First rule of good customer service - the customer is always right (even if they're wrong!!) ;-)

maninthestreet

johnsons_baby wrote: »

Saddens me to have to write this but I am seriously annoyed with the Mitchell & Butlers (Toby Carvery) way of dealing with complaints.

I love Toby Carvery, I really do and we usually use the 2 course, £5 vouchers to go.

Me, baby & husband visted at 4:30pm on 4th Jan, food was excellent but service was awful. We asked for a table with room to put the baby car seat on, so one of the bench seats would have been great (baby sleeping at this point hence why we asked), told there were none available in the area of the restaurant which was open, there were only 2 waitresses serving and the area they had open wasn't particularly full but we were put in a corner table for 2 where the lights were out, so it was dark, asked if it was possible to move but got told that wasn't possible, there were free tables but they hadn't been cleared.

Baby woke up at this point and hubs asked the waitress for a high chair. She huffed and puffed at us and then said 'oh whatever' before bringing the high chair and placing it about 4 foot from the tble, slamming in down and walking off.

Another waitress came, took our order for drinks and told us to go up to the carvery. I went first, hubs stayed with the baby. Whilst I was gone, the drinks waitress came back with the drinks, told hubs off and said he HAD to go up with me to the carvery, pointed out there was a baby to look after and she huffed and puffed and stormed off.

Anyhow, both got our meals, half way through drinkie waitress comes back and asks if we've finished 'no, not yet' we reply. A little whilst later, we finish, waitresses talking in the corner of the restaurant. Half an hour later, husband goes up and asks couldwe get dessert. She told 'Yeah', went to the kitchen, came back with the ice creams, slammed them down so hard people in the restuarant looked round and baby got frightend as well and began to cry, so we ate the ice cream and walked to the till to get the bill and pay.

Whilst there, the 2 waitresses were in conversation with two men and you could have turned the air blue with what was coming out of the waitresses mouths, swearing, being derogatory and using really offensive language.

Not happy, we said 'could you not swear, there's kids about' to which one waitress stuck her tongue out at us and carried on.

We left, promptly and made a compliant to M&B (Toby's parent co) online.

A week later, the assistant manager rang and was really confrontational saying 'give me your side of this story then?' and then saying well the service isn't part of the experience and the swearing was 'just banter' and he said he wouldn't take it any further.

Not really happy, I e-mailed M&B again and they said it would be passed to the regional manager.

Yesterday, I got a phone call from the manager, she again asked about the complaint, which we went through again and she said she didn't think it was as serious as I made out and yes, it probably was banter but it was also busy and hence why the service was poor. Stated she wasn't willing to go further into the complaint as no-one else had complained about the staff that night.

So, that was the resolution, no apology, which was all we wanted and for the waitresses to be asked to use appropriate language in the restaurant but no avail.

There you go, my experience, won't be going to this venue again but will drive further to another.

Tell the manager who won't take this complaint seriously that you will be reporting the offensive language used by the waitresses to the police as an offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act - that should get their attention.

Storck

I have worked for both Spirit Group and M&B in the past running pubs and one of my pet hates was the language used by some of the staff in pubs in our groups that I had to visit. My staff knew that under no circumstances were they to swear in front of house, and not even in a lot of the back room areas as their voices carried.

M&B complaints procedure can be rubbish, it totally depends on the area manager. If anything went to head office our area manager used to send us a copy to reply to, but he would also send out letters a couple of weeks later asking if the person was happy with the response given by the manager. We had to send him copies back to him of what we sent to the customer. In our reviews we were marked on how many complaints had gone to head office as we were meant to sort them all out in house, it then could reduce your bonus if you had too many. When I worked for them we were allowed a maximum of 2 a month but only 3 in total for a quarter.

As for Spirit knowing if it was the right dish, they chorizo may have been ground up in the sauce to give the flavour without the slices been in. If that is the case they may have just checked their ingredients. We used to have a lot of people ask if a product had specific things in so we always kept the packaging that the dishes are delivered in, they have the full ingredients list on. If asked for we would take it out to the customer for them to double check, especially if it was an allergy, as it made the customer happy and put some of the responsibility onto them as well.

jdturk

maninthestreet wrote: »

Tell the manager who won't take this complaint seriously that you will be reporting the offensive language used by the waitresses to the police as an offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act - that should get their attention.

Great and waste the polices time even more, not like they are stretched as it is at the moment!!!

maninthestreet

jdturk wrote: »

Great and waste the polices time even more, not like they are stretched as it is at the moment!!!

No it woudn't be a waste of their time. If the OP's complaint had been taken more seriously in the first place, there would be no need to take it further.

RichyRich

Storck, I don't want to hijack the OP's thread, but even if the chorizo was worked into the sauce it didn't taste like it and had huge chunks of shroom in it despite assurances that it didn't.

It was Chicken Chasseur. Not a bad Chicken Chasseur either, but it was NOT Chilli and Chorizo Chicken, which is what I ordered.

nomoneytoday

RichyRich wrote: »

I ordered something like Chili and Chorizo Chicken and asked specifically if it had mushrooms in, they said no. It came with mushrooms in and no chorizo. It was Chicken Chasseur.

I made this known to the waitress and the upshot was that I got it free but they would not admit I was given the wrong dish. "The chef didn't know that the sauce had mushrooms in it and the chorizo is ground up and worked into the sauce!"

IMHO if the employee can't tell the difference between a chilli chorizo chicken and a chasseur chicken then they're not a proper chef...

pelirocco

nomoneytoday wrote: »

IMHO if the employee can't tell the difference between a chilli chorizo chicken and a chasseur chicken then they're not a proper chef...

I suspect they dont actually cook anything , its all ready meal stuff