Merchant Adventurers' Hall — Attraction in England

On our last day of our holiday in York, we bought some of the food in the area and walked for about 10-15 minutes to look for a place to eat as everything was packed. We have also been looking to explore what we thought was a gorgeous hall, and we just spotted it and thought we would eat there. We saw a table that said 'No service available for this table'. We sat there as it looked as though the table was not part of the café or, at least, not part of the services offered by your café. We were enjoying our food and were just thinking about possibly seeing what drinks your café offers. However, before we even had a chance to discuss it, a member of staff approached us. The most impolite member of staff I have ever encountered. He proceeded to raise his voice at us and tell us how inappropriate it was that we bought our own food at a table that said 'No service available for this table' when clearly we had got the worst service of them all, your staff's infantile and impertinent attitude which represents your café and Hall directly. Unfortunately, I was feeling kind at the time, which was not the case for your staff. While we calmly explained what happened, he continued to give us more unsolicited opinion about our behaviour, as if there were signs everywhere telling people not to bring their own food in a public place. So next time, instead of letting your staff throw uncalled attitude at potential customers, you should consider teaching them to politely educate people about your café's terms and conditions before they even enter your premises, as this is humiliation and harassment at its finest. You should be ashamed of ruining a perfectly good holiday with disgustingly poor customer service. All your staff needed to say was 'Although it says 'No service available for this table', this is still part of our café and, unfortunately, we cannot allow you to eat food from somewhere else at our table' and that would have been a chance to show off what your café actually offers, or give us alternative places we could eat this food. Manners don't cost anything, and that should be a standard in such a distinguished place like yours, but no professionalism was shown towards us. I do hope that your staff member has a good day and only consumes food from your premises during his lunch break, otherwise that would be very...

We were incredibly pleased with our decision to use the Merchant Adventurers' Hall for our (gay) wedding reception a couple of weeks ago, after also knowing another gay couple that held their reception there a while back. Rob and his team made the event truly special and memorable for us and all our guests. From day one when we called by on speck to make an appointment to discuss potentially using the Hall, Rob took time to show us around and explain possibilities, and we felt as though he understood what we wanted - both from what we said and what he suggested to us from vast experience. Rob and team were really generous with their time, incredibly welcoming and organise. They were happy for us to call in during the run-up to the reception to refresh our memory of the venue or to check ideas.

We've really appreciated how responsive Rob was to messages, and the incredible flexiblity he and all the MAH Board were prepared to show with our changing times and set-up/ take-down requests. It also gave us a lot of confidence knowing that the team knew our caterers (Homegrown Hospitality) and disco (Night Owls) well, so that between them all they could organise us and take the pressure off us regarding how things would be set up and flow.

Guests commented on how amazing the Hall is as a venue and how much they enjoyed being part of our reception in the unique surroundings. Definitely a special place to celebrate...

quite awful experience with this place, a man had fallen in the river from being easily able to walk into the back seating area of the hall after hours (we know this as we literally just walked in after getting him out the river and going to give him blankets. the staff were reluctant to help us, and after continually asking they finally let us bring the man inside out of the cold. a direct quote from someone i’m guessing who runs the place was “don’t be calling anyone here i need to compose up on 15 minutes”, while we waited for police and an ambulance to come and make sure he was okay. very inconsiderate and very far from compassionate of a hyperthermic man who had fallen in a river because he was so easily able to just walk in and access the river, need to do better at keeping the area safe at night when the main gates are locked up - as people can still easily get in, and very inconsiderate staff members to treating it as an inconvenience to help this man. thank you to the 3/4 staff members who were actually helping, and to the blonde girl who was helping to contact...