Gunpowder Mill — Restaurant in Borough of Swale

Firstly we arrived with three young children. We ordered drinks at the bar, the male behind the bar was very polite and managed to squeeze us in for a table for 7 with no notice. The drinks were made for 4 of us and was great. The rest of our party arrived. We sat down and the waiter come over to take our order. Tap water, lemonade, bottle of rose Prosecco and a j20 we were ready to order our food. Prawn cocktail, bacon cheeseburger, topside beef roast, kids mac and cheese, kids cheeseburger, two lots of onion rings, three lots of garlic bread, another bacon cheese burger, signature burger, kids chicken strips and chips and deserts.

To start the prawns (starter) and garlic bread (for the main) were out before the drinks, had arrived, we asked the waiter where the drinks were and he said they were coming so firstly we were a little annoyed that the drinks come out after food which isn’t great in hospitality as the aim should always be to have the drinks out first. Then when the drinks did come some were missing. One of our party smelt her prawns and they smelt like ammonia. Which is a clear sign they weren’t fresh, she asked the brunette lady if they were fresh or frozen as they had freezer burn on them and the sauce was like water in the dish. The waitress said they were frozen and defrosted that day. But there were still frozen prawns in the dish so we sent them back and didn’t want a replacement as we were happy to wait for the mains.

The female waitress proceeded to stand behind the bar and talk about the table and the prawns with her shrugging her shoulders and pulling faces to the male colleague.

I myself am a OPS area manger in hospitality and I found this behaviour disrespectful and quite astonishing. One of the males in our party approached the bar to complain about her behaviour and returned to the table. Followed the brunette waitress who come over with such an attitude which instantly started off on the wrong foot, instead of apologising she was rude, I asked her to go away from the table as I didn’t want to have that conversation with her infront of the children, instead the female got defensive and said if you carry on being rude I won’t serve you. So I asked for the general manager to which she said there wasn’t one and said she was the manager on duty. Which surprised me with her attitude. A manager should reframe from showing attitude and act with professionalism at all time. If one of my managers spoke to paying guests infront of children the way she did i would be putting her on a performance review and watching her behaviour moving forward. I asked her a second time to go away from the table as one of the children was getting upset. Instead she raised her voice at me and the table and told us to leave. This is distasteful and disgusting behaviour from any worker in hospitality. Our order was well over £100 and your asking us to leave. I find it outstanding that she thought that was okay? She then walked in the kitchen and cancelled our order, to which to come back out and loudly announced infront of another waiter and other tables that she’s cancelled our tables order, this type of behaviour is bullying and the aim was to embarrass us, we collected our stuff and left. We went down to the oyster in herne bay which is part of the same chain and we spent £200 In there and had a much better experience. I am furious that the female with beige top, brown hair and glasses thought the way she acted was okay and normal in hospitality. As an ops area manager myself I would be looking into her conduct. I run 18 restaurants in kent alone for a large chain and if any of my team members went out of their way to embarrass a table like that I would...

Table for 2—booked online 4:45 slot (that doesn't fit in with your time of visit shown on this screen) We were seated and then waited for half an hour to be served a drink, and that was only because my husband went to the bar. The manager arrived with drinks very swiftly after that! We waited 45 minutes for food to arrive. The plates were lovely and warm, and the food was cool, to say the least. The potatoes were too hard to cut and too tough to eat. The additional vegetables were almost cold. However, the meat was very nice. Although we weren't offered any additional condiments to add to the meal,. But by this time we were just happy to have our food; if the booking times were anything to go by, we were just about at the point where we should have been leaving the restaurant. I had a gift voucher to use and checked with the table waiter at the pre-meal stage to make sure they were happy to accept my Marsden Gift Voucher. This sent things into complete chaos, with staff telling me the offer had expired. Which, of course, was complete rubbish. I was not allowed to see the bill; I had to give my phone with the voucher to the waiter, who then told me how much I owed. I would not pay the bill without seeing what I was paying for. Therefore, I had to go and read it off the till before paying the balance on my card. The table was sticky, the floor was dirty, the seats were stained, and the whole restaurant looked very tired. The manager rushed around, looking completely unprofessional and wearing jeans; most of the staff looked far smarter. I totally appreciated that the restaurant was very busy, but don't book a table if you can't manage the service. Perhaps review your booking system. I was told, when asked how long the food would take, that there was a larger table being served and we would need to wait. Did that mean the larger group was more important than the smaller group? People close to our table received the main course and a coffee before we had even seen any food. I don't manage to eat out very often, so I asked for a voucher for my local restaurant as a birthday gift. The Gunpower Mill is my local restaurant, and I feel extremely disappointed by the whole experience. Some sort of response from yourselves may encourage me to go back for another visit.

I will be happy to supply more...

We were seated quite quickly, which for a Sunday afternoon, was positive. That’s probably where the positive things ended.

Our waitress came over to the table with a huff and a puff. No warm welcome or even a hello. The first thing she said to us “Can I get you some drinks?”. She took the order, left without any other words and returned about 10 minutes later with a tray of drinks. The tray was dumped on the table without serving the drinks to the anyone. She pulled out a note pad and asked “are you ready to order?”. I made a point of stretching across her to give the relevant people their drinks before ordering food. I asked a question about the roast beef and how it was cooked and had a short sharp “it’s precooked!” as the answer.

My partner took a couple of sips of his Pepsi max and realised it was flat. He approached the bar and explained to the barman the issue. The response given was “well we’ve got gas so they will all be the same!” No apology, no offer to swap it for another drink. My partner asked if he could swap it for another drink and was told we don’t have any Pepsi max bottles/cans. My partner asked if he could swap it for a San Pellegrino and was told yes. To get this that stage was like getting blood from a stone!

The food arrived and my roast dinner was cold. I returned the meal informing the server the dinner was cold. A second dinner came out and it wasn’t much warmer. I was just grateful that it wasn’t the first dinner warmed up. The second dinner had a rock hard carrot, rock hard parsnip, like warm beef. The only thing that was work eating on that plate was the Yorkshire pudding and that was all I had eaten from the plate when the waitress took our plates away. No questions asked as to why a lot of food was left. I didn’t send it back a second time as I knew that all I would get would be a luke warm dinner. Also the rest of my table had finished their dinners.

We left the restaurant feeling very disappointed and unsatisfied. There was a genuine lack of customer service and this needs to be addressed.

This was sent as an email complaint but has been...