Toby carvery - Worst visit to a restaurant i have ever experienced.

noangel666

My auntie booked a table for her 50th birthday with the manager for 9 people on 21/2/11 for 25/2/11, she then rang back 10 minutes later and spoke with a different member of staff who said she would amend the booking. So we arrived and no table was booked. Spoke with the manager who said it was him working on 21/2/11 and no such booking was made as he would never have not noted it down. (1st time we were accused of lying) Luckily my Auntie hadn't cleared her call list and the evidence was there. He then finally apologised.

Next thing he came over and said that there was no meat ready and we would have to wait a further 2 hours to eat. Plus there was no turkey at all as they had run out.

At this point my patience was wearing thin and i told him it was unacceptable but being a Friday night and so many of us we didn't really have any other option to wait.

So we finally get to eat and i was utterly astonished at what was on offer, I frequent the toby carvery a lot in the days but this was the first night time visit. The menu states Friday nights are steak night, with tomatoes and mushrooms, plus they boast that the evening carvery has much more stuff available........I couldn't believe my eyes when i seen the carvery it was BARE!!!

No tomatoes & mushrooms, No stuffing, No turkey, No country grave, No vegetarian gravy.

The only veg on offer was peas, carrots, parsnips, swede and cabbage.

Usually in the days theres onions, cauliflower cheese, broccoli etc.

When i again pulled the manager up on this he said that was up to toby carvery standards as far as he was concerned!!!

I said how on earth can you charge MORE and serve LESS.......His reply was you don't get parsnips in the day :mad: as far as i am concerned it is false advertising big time.

My Auntie asked a waitress if there was any garlic in the tomato soup as shes allergic. She said no, then as she was half way through it the waitress came back over and apologised saying that infact there WAS garlic in it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He did on the other hand bring me a pot of country gravy in a small jug which smelt like what can only be described as burnt coffee (the whole table agreed).

I again asked him to come over and smell it, he said it smells fine to him, i asked a waitress who said the same......Now i am getting really irate at this point, i felt they were trying to ridicule us and make us look like liars. I then proceeded to take "said" pot of filth/gravy around the entire restaurant and pub asking people to smell it and EVERY SINGLE person said it was disgusting and smelled like coffee and burnt. They also offered their details as i told them i was being called a liar, they said if you need they can confirm all this.

The manager completely brushed this off repeating his earlier story that he could not smell it as he was a smoker.....Isn't it funny how the staff thought it smelt fine but 50 customers thought different.

Anyway it gets worse........

My cousin then starts gagging, only to pull a massive long blonde hair out of her mashed potato. So i went up to the bar and gave the hair to the manager and asked him if he wanted it back, he took it and i just stormed off because at this point i just knew there was no point in saying anymore to him, i was going to take it further.

He came over then after talking to his staff and said he had 3 chefs all with short hair so couldn't have possibly come from their kitchen........Now this is the THIRD time he has called us liars. Not one member of our group had blonde hair thankfully, so he must have thought i had it in my bag or something.

Little did the manager know that when he was discussing the hair matter with his staff (in the restaurant) it was overheard by one of the group. He had the audacity to tell his kitchen staff not to worry as it was clear we were only trying to get out of a £100+ bill.

He actually said that on the shop floor in front of customers........I mean do you even train your staff in customer service skills????

So i pulled him up on that which he again denied (forth time being called a liar) as we were discussing it my Auntie came back and she had overheard the chefs discussing it saying to another customer that we were trying to get out of the bill.

So i just exploded then, i told him how disgusted i was and have never in my entire life been in such a shambles of a restaurant. How dare his staff accuse us publicly of trying to get out of a bill, how dare you falsely advertise, how dare you accuse us of lying, how dare you serve us hair in food and then not even offer an apology.

Then a chef starts heckling us from over in the corner where they were all stood gawping, shouting that they were not discussing it. I said you were overheard doing it on two different occasions by two different customers. I said it's no wonder it was dead in there with a place being run like that. It was only after all this that he told my cousin she did not have to pay for her food, otherwise he would not have even offered that.

Now the managers stood there letting this chef shout at us, i simply turned to the manager and said are you really going to stand there well your chef is screaming through the restaurant.......he quickly got rid of him.

I told him i was going to email a complaint to head office and he said, it will only get routed back through to him to deal with anyway.

The worst thing was the mashed potato was a carvery item and they didn't even remove it from the stand. So they knew it had contaminants in it and still let other unsuspecting customers eat from it.....now that's not only totally disgusting but highly illegal.

So I'd like to thank the toby carvery for completely ruining my Aunties 50th birthday

TheSaint_2

I sense a troll...

Seriously - you are angry at Toby Carvery? It has to be the cheapest of the cheap (Carvery for £5).

If you want good service etc go somewhere where they can afford to give you good service.

I visit Toby Carverys occasionaly, and my expectations are low because of what it is.

noangel666

TheSaint wrote: »

I sense a troll...

Seriously - you are angry at Toby Carvery? It has to be the cheapest of the cheap (Carvery for £5).

If you want good service etc go somewhere where they can afford to give you good service.

I visit Toby Carverys occasionaly, and my expectations are low because of what it is.

I have put a relative topic in a relative forum........how is that a troll?

It's not £5 in the evenings is £7.75 and even if it was £5 i don't expect to have to comb my mash before i eat it.

Good service is given in mcdonalds and should be given AS STANDARD anywhere!!!

skiddlydiddly

Did you really ask 50 people to sniff your gravy boat?

SHIPSHAPE

noangel666 wrote: »

I have put a relative topic in a relative forum........how is that a troll?

Agreed. For some reason when forum users don't like a post they run out the very old, boorish notion that one is a troll for some bizarre reason.

Strange behaviour.

Anyway OP, I think Toby's are fine. I take my parents regularly during the week and one can have an acceptable roast dinner and a pudding for less than £6 quid.

Fine by me.

I'd say you just had a bad experience.

Freddie_Snowbits

I have never had a problem with my local Toby, excellent service and excellent food.

Toby OVER, Gloucester. Thinks I may give the DnD a miss tonight and go get some real stuffing.

GEEGEE8

Maybe as it was your Aunties 50th birthday you should have tried to enjoy the night as best you could and made a complaint later? I would have made light hearted comments about the food as long as the birthday girl was happy.

The hair isn't nice, but I'm sure we have all been there and just thought 'eww' but not stormed up to the manager and started ranting.

I hope your aunty had a nice 50th, but it doesn't sound like it really. Was that down to the lack of food choice or your constant unhappiness at the food in a fairly budget pub chain?

I understand you were probably disappointed, but at a birthday party I think you should just try and make it a special occasion and just vow never to bother with that place again.

hoyles10

noangel666 wrote: »

I then proceeded to take "said" pot of filth/gravy around the entire restaurant and pub asking people to smell it and EVERY SINGLE person said it was disgusting and smelled like coffee and burnt. They also offered their details as i told them i was being called a liar, they said if you need they can confirm all this.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

If someone I didn't know came up to me in any restaurant asking me to sniff their gravy I don't think i'd be able to keep a straight face. As for the hair in the mash then I would imagine it would be from a customer not a member of staff if the mash was part of the carvery stand that 95% of customers touch.

To be honest from what you've put in your post about what happened you did receive a very poor standard of service but it seems like you ranted at the manager at everything. They offered 5 different choices of veg which is more than most menus in other restaurants and it's just one of those things that they ran out of something. You may have got a better response from the manager had you spoken to him in a proper way rather than kicking off with him 3 or 4 times.

ojc77

You don't think that the hair could have fallen from the head of one of the 50 people you made sniff the gravy do you?!

Perhaps your cousin then poured the gravy over her mash and hey presto that's where the hair came from!

skiddlydiddly

Long hairs I can deal with, its the short curly ones you have to watch out for.

WhiteHorse

Put a review on TripAdvisor.