TGI Fridays - Braintree — Restaurant in Braintree

What an utter debacle. Upon arrival, we encountered a minor argument between front desk staff. We were then ignored for a good five minutes while the receptionist busied herself on the computer. Eventually, she acknowledged us with a curt "Yes?" When I informed her that we had booked a table, she escorted us to one which, upon sitting, we discovered was covered in food debris and was sticky.

After a 10-minute wait, someone finally attended to us to take our drinks order. Upon my request to clean the seats, the server informed us, "I don't know why they keep seating people here, as the air conditioning unit above is dripping all over the table." He relocated us to an adjacent table and departed. Upon his return five minutes later, he took our drinks order. We inquired if the cocktails were indeed two-for-one as advertised, and he confirmed that they were. My partner ordered a Mojito and I ordered a Purple Rain. He took our order and left.

Shortly after, two bar staff arrived carrying 2 Mojitos and 2 Purple Rains. I protested, clarifying that we had not ordered 4 drinks. One of the staff quickly set down the drinks they were holding, told their colleague, "This is for you to handle," and swiftly retreated back to the bar. The remaining staff member asked how I wanted to resolve the issue, and I insisted that we didn't require the extra drinks and would just accept the additional Mojito. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the fine print in the drinks menu stated that the two-for-one offer was valid only for two of the same drink. Even though both cocktails were priced identically, the staff refused to accommodate us, opting instead to waste the drinks by pouring two down the sink rather than allowing us to have one. It was a missed opportunity for redemption.

Another hiccup occurred when our food arrived. My partner had ordered the Classic Half Ribs, while I opted for the 'Ultimate Full Ribs'. Instead, they served a Classic Full Ribs to my partner and a Classic Half Ribs to me. When I inquired if either dish was the 'Ultimate', the waiter nonchalantly explained, "Obviously not, the Ultimate comes on a large wooden platter." Baffled, I reminded him, "I ordered the Ultimate." His response, a disinterested "Oh ok," was followed by the removal of the half ribs. Unfortunately, he returned later with another Classic Full Ribs. At this point, I was too exasperated to argue further.

Overall, the experience was atrocious. The staff seemed disoriented and everything was unclean. I observed multiple staff members walking past a dirty napkin on the floor, with none showing initiative to pick it up. A table was cleaned by liberally spraying cleaner on the surface and pushing the leftover food onto the floor and down some small steps. The entire spectacle was disgraceful. If I were the manager of this team, I would feel utterly ashamed.

Regarding the food it was mediocre at best. The cobs where tasteless and the slaw came in the tiniest of pots with a single mouthful in. The Mojitos simply tasted like minty water.

I don't typically write reviews, but the sheer number of failures that contributed to our miserable evening compelled me to share...

I visited TGI Fridays today as a party of 6 having had the table booked for about a week. We had booked it to go an enjoy the bottomless brunch with the upgrade for cocktails.

On arrival the front of house could not seem to locate our booking, or had no idea on where to seat us (at this point most of the restaurant was empty) to the extent they had to go seek advice from a manager on how and where to seat us. After solving this, a further 5 minutes were spent looking for the bottomless brunch menus, which the waitress turned out to be holding in her hand for about half that time.

After finally being sat down, we reviewed the menus printed to find they were two different versions. One reads as if each person gets their own sharers tower, the other reads as if its a sharers tower between two. Fortunately we had read ahead of arrival so knew to expect to share so this was not an issue, but did look highly unprofessional. The menu confusion we did attempt to discuss with our server, but they did not know the answer and had to seek advice.

The drinks themselves consist mostly of ice. With exception to the strawberry daiquiri and the martinis, there's about 1 mouthful of drink in each, the rest of the glass is filled with blocks of ice. Given it was bottomless drinks, you would think this isn't necessarily a problem as you could just keep ordering more.... but in an hour, our table was only provided 2 drinks.

The restaurant did start to get busy whilst we were there, which we would expect to slightly delay the service, if it wasn't for the fact a large number of staff were stood around or walking aimlessly and at one point 5 members of staff appeared to be stood around the coffee machines trying to work out how to make 1 drink.

When the food had arrived, it had been standing on the hot shelf for over 10 minutes. We knew this because we were sat right next to the kitchen area. After the towers arrived, we had to chase up the chips. Even after a chase up, only half the portions of chips were bought out. A lot of the food was cold, albeit we did eat the vast majority of it as the quality was not bad - just cold and not of a standard you would expect from a well known chain such as TGI.

In addition to all of this, there were food and drink items missing from the limited menu for the bottomless brunch, with no prior warning it was unavailable until you ordered it, and no alternatives offered in their place.

This is not one of those "I would give it 0 if I could" ratings as in truth, the server we did have was very friendly and professional, albeit they do seem to need to catch up with what the restaurant is offering. In addition to this, TGI did offer a 40% reduction due to our issues which was further reduced following reservations from us.

Normally I a believer in second chances, especially when restaurants attempt to rectify the issue with a refund as an example, but having looked at the reviews... it appears that some of the issues we had is a consistent issue for TGIs Braintree.

I would...

The restaurant at the time we visited was half full. We waited just under 5 minutes to be seated, before waiting around half an hour before being served. Our server was lovely, and what we saw, was working hard. There was a small issue as she had forgotten 1 of the drinks, however this wasn’t a big deal as we eventually got it. I felt service was slow, there were lots of servers, but I wondered if they were staggering orders as to not overwhelm the kitchen or they simply lacked direction on the floor to take orders promptly. I saw food sat under the hot lamps where servers were busy or not aware the food was ready…this was due to other servers collecting food that was placed after the food(s) I saw sitting there. Anyways, the good stuff, I ordered the Cajun Spiced Chicken, this came out sizzling and tasted amazing! This was layered with onions, peppers, sour cream and coriander. I also had soft tortilla with salsa and more sour cream…I chose not to have guacamole, which was an option. The kids meals tasted good, but looked a little dry (the beans), the fries were warm and not overly hot. The cheese in the burger looked dry too. My wife had the chilli chimichanga which she said was “yummy”. Currently there is an offer where children eat free, as in the main is free. Children’s meals are priced in separate parts. You pay for the main, drinks and desserts all separately. The offer is only valid with a code which you’ll find on the app (I think you only get it once). Our server advised me (incorrectly) she could take this off without the code, she ended up charging us full price…I only realised after I left, however returned and the manager refunded me for the overcharge. I’d go back to TGI Fridays, I’m just not sure I’d go back to that branch. I didn’t hate it, the food was great, the server was lovely…I just felt the workers lacked in either training or motivation, which is down to a good manager to sort that out. There was also other customers who had small issues whilst there, such as no drinks or something small just...