Damascena Coffee House Edgbaston — Restaurant in Birmingham

Went to the edgbaston branch on a Saturday evening. Got told to wait for 10 minute outside in the cold as there is no waiting area inside, then upon being told that we would be called in I had to go in myself and ask them why I’ve been waiting for 35 minutes. After we were seated a waiter named yussra came over very very rudely and chucked 12 menus at the table (only 5 of us). When it was time to take the order we waved at her several times before she decided to come over with the most horrible face, not a single smile since we came, and very bluntly replied yes🙄. One of the children with us (a 6 year old) couldn’t decide which drink she wanted and instead of waiting for 10 seconds she huffed and said if you haven’t decided yet I’ll take another persons order (at this point she had taken our whole order and only 1 drink was left) and walked off without getting an answer from us and took another tables order. When our order was finally taken she messed up the drinks and accused us of being mistaken instead of checking the order then came around 15 minute later with the last drink that’s SHE forgot to bring over. After we had eaten we asked for takeaway boxes so she came with dirty lids for the containers, we asked for clean ones she came a whole 10 minutes later saying there are no clean ones that’s all she had, but we asked another waiter he went straight to the back got us clean lids without a problem (he was very friendly) then she took her time bringing a bag to put the takeaway food in leaving us the last table in the whole restaurant as we were still waiting after closing time. Asked to speak to the manager he was not in so the supervisor came out, when she did she was getting overly excited asking what’s wrong what’s the issue bombarding us with questions, we asked to leave the matter and just forget it but she was laughing giggling with the waiters making us feel very uncomfortable leaving the restaurant. If I ever went back I will not be having yussra serve us as she made us all feel as miserable as she was the entire time...

I'm pretty disappointed with my experience at this branch. I actually ordered a 'too good to go' bag from them and parked up to collect. It's pitch black in the car park and I couldn't see any signs and the staff didn't inform me of any requirements for parking on site. Few weeks later and I'm issued with a £60 fine. I'm a very loyal customer of damascena, the food is amazing, but this latest experience has really disappointed me. Make sure to give your registration number and check that you've covered the parking at Lyndon House!

EDIT: Thanks for responding below. Having looked at this and reconsidered I still maintain that this is an aspect of this particular location that is managed poorly. I'm not the first customer to get a fine. Your signs are clearly not effective.

In the article announcing opening of the venue it states 'Located right opposite the metro line and with free on-site parking for customers, our ‘local far-away coffee house’ is easily accessible from both inside and outside the city centre.' This was what I found more easily than the one line in the 'locations' section of your website. I would suggest that your staff ask 'did you park outside, do I need to input your registration?' with each customer otherwise this problem will persist. Even your own staff have been caught out by the sites poor parking rules and you say yourself that the company overseeing parking is difficult so I would suggest supporting your...

Having been to all the other branches of Damescena, this one was a disappointment. The food was lovely however the poor service let it down. When you enter there is a sign stating you have to wait to be seated but when a man came up to up to us he just said to sit anywhere and walked off. Not a good first impression. When we sat down it took a while for anyone to actually come and take our order despite it not being busy. We were not asked if we had any allergies when our order was taken. When the food came we asked for an extra plate which we never received. We also asked for some water which we were bought in a glass flask but we're not provided with any glasses. It took ages to get our servers attention and we eventually got glasses half an hour later. Why would you bring water to a table and not bring glasses to drink it out of?! The server we realised was coming to the end of her shift and clearly couldn't be bothered. The server who took over from her came and asked if we had any allergies however we had already eaten at this point. The actual restaurant was very cold, like it had air conditioning on in winter?! That was the first and last time I would visit that...