The Playa — Restaurant in Borough of Swale

I wasn’t going to leave any kind of review, as I felt a lot of my party had addressed our issues in a constructive and fair way - but after all of them being accused of being aggressive and harassing, I changed my mind. We came for the bingo brunch and yes the entertainment that was due to be there encountered some issues; highlighted now as car catching on fire, but yesterday it had just broken down. Anyway, that is completely out of any establishments control, completely agreed. What is fully in your control is how the situation is dealt with and how you manage your customers expectations there after. I approached the bar at the beginning of the brunch to ask if there would be any kind of compensation and was told no. I accepted that, thinking you would then go above and beyond to make the experience the best as possible. Unfortunately that did not happen either. Our party did enjoy ourselves but because we entertained ourselves, not what we signed up for. Multiple times we had to ask for drinks as half our table had them, half did not. So much so that you actually acknowledged the fact that we had to keep asking. It wasn’t helped by the fact that a table behind me (clearly a personal friend of one of the members of staff) had multiple cocktails each, before we had 1 each. With regards to the cocktails, you’ve stated quite a few times about the cost of the cocktails normally is £10 and we only paid £40…… but that’s what a package is, so I’m not sure why you keep stating this, as though we should be grateful we were given them? If the bingo woman had been there, we would have still got the cocktails. The food was confusing. Grazing board, which was a good idea but executed horrifically. There were no serving utensils, we were given paper plates to eat from and given that we had to use our hands to move food from the platter to plate, given no napkins. Please don’t say we should have asked. We shouldn’t have to. For a platter that was meant to serve approx 4 (based on the fact that for a table of 20, we were given 4 or 5) you placed 1 piece of quiche?! I’m still really baffled by that. Were we meant to rock/paper/scissor for it? When we complained that there was clearly not enough food, we were brought pizza and chips, but even then, really not enough. With regards to the pub being closed to the public after the event, it’s really something you should have advised everyone of to begin with. What if we had arranged for other people to come and meet us afterwards? It’s just poor customer service. I’ve been a customer of the playa for 20+ years, attending most of the previous brunches and even working some of them, along with beer festivals, weddings etc and I know how stressful on the staff they can be. So I made a very strong point of thanking each of them when they came to our table, to bring drinks, remove glasses etc. it’s a shame that same courtesy was not given back to us when other people have raised their issues with you. I’ll think you’ll find the rudeness has come from yourself. If anyone had been rude to staff on the day, as someone responsible for your staffs well being, you should have asked for them to leave. So I’m not sure where this rudeness and harassment has come from. If you’re referencing the fact that you have receive multiple bad reviews, firstly, not all of these are from our party, you should be thinking about the fact that more than one party was disappointed. Secondly, if you spent more time trying to rectify the issue with the customer, than to rubbish their review on here (I believe on a format that they cannot comment back to your reply, so you can put whatever you want -as I’m sure you will to mine) then maybe there wouldn’t be so many negative reviews in the first place. I’m sure you’ll make some kind of comment of me being personal friends with the previous owners, so therefore I’m bias. But actually, all it shows is that I’ve seen how good it can work. And yesterday was not an...

What a shame, I mean Sham!! We booked a large group booking back in At least April for a boogie bingo bottomless brunch. We had been communicating with the Management to make sure we could turn up early to decorate our table as a surprise for one of our party, we asked if we were able to stay on after the allotted time of the event. We asked if we could add extra people, all of this was answered by the management. So why when we arrive early to decorate the table we are then told that the lady who was booked to entertain us had unfortunately had car trouble and her car had broken down on the M2? The manager told us that she’d had driven from Thanet and had offered to go back and pick her up as did the managers husband. This was an hour before the event was meant to be taking place? 1, it takes an hour to get from Thanet to Sheppey on a good run so surely she’d have been late? And 2, where was the communication from the Playa to the guests?? As they’d been very eager to get us in the place prior? Poorly organised, no apologies or even compensation for the fact we weren’t receiving the event which had been advertised to us. There were people having to sit outside as they’d over booked, we had to add tables and chairs to our group as they’d not set up enough. Food- we had graze boards some had more on than others and we had 4 to share amongst 20 of us! They then tell us no more food but then when we ask we get a very disgruntled reply from the manager, “He’s cooking them now!” So out come 4 trays with an Iceland pizza cut into 8 and some chips for us to share again between 20! No cutlery, no napkins, no serving equipment so we had to pick up the food with our fingers and to top off this ‘amazing’ experience we were given paper plates to eat from! The bingo was put together last minute by the husband, we were given the prizes of £5 for 1 row, 2 cocktails for 2 lines and a meal voucher for a full house. These weren’t the prizes advertised either! Once the 15 minute bingo was finished we’re all asked to vacate the premises as they’d booked in a private party. Honestly we just all laughed at this point could it get any worse? Oh yes! Then the payment was asked from us, a number of us asked about having a discount due to the event not being what was advertised to us, we were all told no as this would put them out of pocket and if she did it for us she’d have to do it for everyone? Well yes- you should- you’ve misled everyone who turned up and didn’t offer an apology until 1 hour 45 minutes into the event and then it was the husband and not the manager who gave the “sorry this is not the bingo you were expecting” .

I left a review on their Facebook page, only to find my post deleted and me being blocked from the page, great customer service!

We went here prior for a Christmas event which was advertised as a Christmas disco party bottomless brunch, can you guess what happened? Yes, the entertainment cancelled last minute as they had covid, apparently! There seems to be a pattern emerging here.

What a shame as our group and possibly the other 40/50 people were really looking forward to this event. We have been to other similar events in different places and received much better quality food,service and atmosphere! Shan’t...

Couldn't have been more disappointed! Avoid this place, especially if you're hungry. We decided to visit before our journey home for some lunch and had a look and the reviews seemed good.

How wrong! Turned up at 1.30pm and was told it would be a 50 minute wait as they were busy but if we could find a table we could sit down. Well there were at least 5 tables free and thought by the time we have a drink and a chat about our weekend 50 minutes would fly. So we decided what we wanted, me - prawn baguette & diet coke, hubby- fish and chips, daughter 1- hotdog and chips & fruit shoot, daughter 2- cheeseburger mash peas & fruit shoot.

We waited 90 minutes just for the drinks and they only came because we asked where they were, as for the food 3 hours after we placed the order we decided to cancel and leave, got up to pay for the drinks but even that was a mission in itself because we just got ignored.

While waiting to pay they informed us our food was finally ready and by this point the children were grumpy and very hungry so we decided to stay.

Bad idea, the food was not great, the buns were dry and crumbling, the burger was cheap and disgusting, fish was well over cooked and my baguette tasted so bland and watery and the salad was brown and old.

When it was brought to the table mine and my youngest daughter's order was wrong and when I informed the young lady that served us, she said that's what we ordered with a miserable face so I turned to the one that actually took the order and said you know it's wrong so why stand there like you know, she proceeded to try and argue with me but after a 3 hour wait on a very hot day and now with 2 grumpy children I think she realised I was not very happy so they took it back and changed it.

We didn't stay for the desert included with the kids meals as we were so annoyed and disgusted with the attitude and miserable service along with the absolutely ridiculous wait time and very poor food we received.

Quite a few other tables were also complaining as we were leaving and one person even said it's a regular thing in this place.

It's a shame as it looks like a lovely place to have a drink and to eat by the sea but I can honestly say I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Very rude, unprofessional and overpriced for the...