Ewe Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Bolton

Visited on 12 June 2023 to celebrate a birthday as a party of three. Basically our experience unfolded as follows.

On arrival we were shown to our table and handed menus which probably 100 hands had touched previously. The menus were somewhat grubby and had remnants of previous visitors food stains. Wine glasses on the table were unpolished and displayed visible finger prints.

The restaurant is air-conditioned but for some reason the main glass doors were open which just allowed flies and bluebottles to roam at will within the restaurant and up and down the inside of the windows close to where we were seated.

Immediately outside, and within our eye line, there was a single male guest upright asleep in a chair, clearly already inebriated, with the contents of his pockets including a mobile phone strewn across the floor. He was drooling from the mouth and the waiting staff simply ignored this customer despite walking close to his table on a number of occasions.

As our main courses arrived, the drunk gentlemen began to stir and started to stumble away from his table. To our absolute horror, he was making his way to the car park with his car keys to drive himself away. A number of other guests witnessed this, as did the waiting staff, but they wilfully ignored this when, we as customers, had to intervene and intercept the man in the car park to stop him driving away.

We took his keys and handed them to the front desk. To our amazement the restaurant handed the keys back to him 5 minutes later despite the fact he could barely stand upright.

Despite having only consumed about half our meals at this point, we remonstrated with the staff and it was at that point that two more senior male colleagues from Ewe emerged from a back office somewhere to help calm the situation down.

We went outside yet again with the drunk man to help him find his misplaced mobile phone and his car keys were surrendered for a second time.

We then had a conversation with Paul from the restaurant management and to be fair he was fully apologetic. We explained that our meals were now cold and half eaten and all we wanted to do now was get out of the restaurant as soon as possible. However, he did agree to scratch the bill for the partly consumed food and drink.

As we were departing, he did say that he would write to us with an apology and a goodwill gesture, although several days passed and this was never forthcoming. Disappointing.

We did email the restaurant a few days later and received a barely literate reply from someone claiming to be a 'general manager'. The reply was wholly unprofessional, contained several spelling and grammatical errors but went on to assure us that the staff concerned have been debriefed. It closed by saying 'I hope you and your family will return to dine with us in the future'. I think the chance of that happening is close to zero.

We did share a copy of this review with Ewe management ahead of posting for comment, but they chose to ignore our...

Disappointing experience…

Pre-ordered and paid for afternoon tea for 2 people, 6 days before visiting. Received an email 2 days before visiting to confirm the booking, the email also stated that a deposit was required, however I had already paid in full.

We arrived at our allocated time and was asked to wait in the bar area, 10 minutes later we were shown to our table. Once at the table (20 minutes after arriving), we were asked if our drinks order had been taken, we advised that it hasn’t and enquired about the tea selection; at the same time, another member of staff brought over teas, however we hadn’t ordered and therefore the teas weren’t the ones we wanted.

The teas were swapped to the ones we ordered and the afternoon tea stand was brought to the table. Whilst dining, and even when the stand was taken away from the table there were no check backs. We ate the afternoon tea, however expected it to be more generous. If we hadn’t been so hungry we would have left the cakes, they were too cold, and it seemed like they had only just been taken out the fridge / freezer, it also made them taste strange.

We stayed at the table for some time after the stand was taken, again no check backs, we then decided to move to the bar area for comfier seating with our teas. One member of staff asked if everything was ok as they passed by, we began to tell them about the cakes, however we didn’t really get chance to explain our experience fully, we didn’t feel we were given the time to explain as it felt more like a ‘passing by’ check as they walked to do something else and said ‘it’s good to get feedback’.

As no one had mentioned our pre-payment on entry nor at any other time whilst dining we felt obliged to tell the person on the front desk that we had already paid, they replied with ‘ok’ and said byes and thank yous, then we left.

Whilst driving off, I saw a member of staff pointing to the car, we turned around and went back into the restaurant to see why. Once in the restaurant, I enquired as to why they were pointing and we were told that we hadn’t paid. I explained that I had, and showed my emailed payment receipt and that I had also told the person at the desk when leaving (who didn’t ask to check anything). There was some back and forths between 4 members of staff, even after seeing the receipt to confirm the payment, then 1 member of staff asked to take a picture of the receipt / booking reference so that they could sort it on there side later on.

They apologised for the payment confusion and later emailed to explain that there was a lack of communication between the staff.

Overall, a disappointing experience from a highly anticipated visit. The communication, service and overall value of the afternoon tea was poor.

I was hesitant to write this review as I understand the value of reviews for businesses, however, we came away hungry, disappointed and slightly worked up about the...

Came today to celebrate mine and my husbands anniversary as we have come before and enjoyed the food and service, however today was a different story.

To begin with we had waited a while to be served. The waitress seemed more interested in the other tables and seemed to completely ignore us which we felt was incredibly rude, we had to call her over when we wanted drinks as we had been sat a while with empty glasses.

I ordered the fillet steak, when it came it was over cooked, so I sent it back, the waitress came back over to tell me how I was wrong and it was Medium (the steak was brown with the smallest dot of pink in the middle, Medium is alot more pink) I then showed her how a Medium steak should look. She continued on saying do I want it Medium rare to which I replied no I want it Medium. She continued on and was very condescending. My husband had to eat his meal before it got cold so we was eating at completely different times this was our anniversary we wanted to eat together.

There was no apology.

When the new steak came, She came to me and said is that better for you. I replied yes it is, thankyou to which she replied well its Medium rare, I thought to myself she is being extremely rude! It was not Medium rare, Medium rare has it slightly rare in the middle this steak was not.

I was going to order desert, my husband doesn't eat desert so he had ordered soup to come for when I was going to have desert. After this experience we cancelled his soup and decided to leave early as we both felt extremely uncomfortable.

I can understand getting the temperature of steak wrong it happens sometimes, I don't understand the rudness and condescending attitude from the waitress, she has completely ruined mine and my...