The Place Restaurant, Surulere — Restaurant in Lagos State

This new "The Place" has a certain appeal to it. But I'll start this review by stating the things that are not so nice. Parking🚘 is going to be an issue during peak periods, as there is very limited space in the 'underground parking lot'. Your better bet would be to take a taxi to the the place (no pun intended🤣) or some form of transportation where you are not driving. Besides the limited space, the angling of the parking lots would be tricky for those just learning to drive. In addition to parking space matters, visitors will have to climb through 2/3 flight of stairs to get to the restaurant itself. Which in itself isn't a bad thing, as you can see that as a rare opportunity to get your workout done, lazily I might add 😜.

Main floor space in the restaurant is decent, as it would accommodate large crowds. They have a number of check out tills to process many people at the same time. The variety of food 🍲on the menu (at the time of this visit) was/is wide. So, that should attract many people with different appetites. View from the restaurant is nice, as you eat from the 2/3 floor of the building. Besides, the restaurant, I think the building might have other uses/functions.

I have tasted the food from this particular The Place, but if one is to go by their Isaac John street outlet, I imagine the quality will be the same. But presentation of food at the time of first visit seemed interesting.

If I am not mistaking, at the time of my first visit here, the owners seemed to be working on the installation of an elevator, considering the restaurant is on the 2/3 floor. We'll see what the works turn out to be soon.

More reviews to come when the next...

Saddens me to give this review cause I've come to love the place. But the rooftop the The Place Surulere left soooooooo much to be desired. First of all, our waitress. She didn't smile once and it made me uncomfortable...I took it as an indication that my stay would be less than expected. I ordered the roasted catfish with plantains and a frozen strawberry daiquiri. The fish made me want to throw up. No single hot pepper in it but so much bell peppers. Cat fish without hot pepper is just sickening. They could have put some pepper on the side. The only thing I tasted was salt. Then I asked for plantain and got fried chips instead but because of our un-smiling waitress I was reluctant to ask for what I ordered. Then my daiquiri tasted like Chapman. There was no alcohol in it. Now this one I had to speak up! I called her attention to it and she said the drink comes that way and if I wanted alcohol I should have asked to have an extra shot in it -_- I was shocked! A strawberry daiquiri is pretty standard. Didn't know I had to tell the bartender how much alcohol to put in it. I wasn't happy. These major flaws were made more irritating with the fact that I had to keep asking for saviette (they could have left it on the table), kept asking for coaster that our waitress didn't bother to bring (had to get it from a different waitress) and the broken TV. A sports bar with a broken TV. Sigh. I was generally disappointed 😞 the one star is for the fact that my drink was actually pretty and the breeze on the rooftop wasn't bad (even though the AC outdoor units was occasionally causing the air to be very warm). I won't be returning...

The service started with smiles from both the server and myself but the experience soon turned sour leaving a bad taste in my mouth when I was denied my choice of payment through one of the payment methods permitted by The Central Bank of Nigeria. It left me wondering “am I not in Nigeria again” Did CBN not approve Bank transfer as one of their key regulations when it comes to payment? I was blown away so I asked to speak with the Manager but the supervisor made several excuses like the Manager isn’t around, the Manager can’t take calls, the Manager is on assignment 😳 wow these 3 excuses already made it clear that they didn’t want to involve their Manager. That approach is so wrong on their part. I simply needed them to call the Manager and if the Manager insists I can’t do a bank transfer as my preferred payment method then I’d leave the restaurant with no questions asked. They all stood there non verbal staring at me and waiting for me to leave. No reasonable explanation was provided as to why they don’t accept CBN’s regulations and no effort was made to even call the Manager on phone. A customer who happened to be a Banker had to step in to handle the situation. Other than that they had zero training on conflict resolution. The food on the other hand was cold but I didn’t mind because I won’t have even accepted to have it microwaved if they had offered. Now I need to make further inquiries regarding payment methods in Nigeria. Why do some establishments blatantly go against government...