Par 59 Bristol — Restaurant in Bristol

Went here in January and our visit was almost ruined by the staff. The golf courses are relatively small, even by indoor standards, but with fun themes and a reasonable amount of variety. The course attendants were friendly and helpful... Then we get to the rest of the staff.

I have never encountered such consistently incompetent people employed by a single business. Ever.

The security guard at the door didn't look up from his phone as we entered and we went upstairs to the check-in desk to be greeted with: "Hello, who are you?"

Strange, but okay. We explained that we had a booking and the attendant spent more than ten minutes trying to find it as a queue formed behind us. We were asked four times whether we were playing one or both courses during that time.

Having sat at a table to order food, it's QR codes only. This is great apart from there's no signal in the building and the in-house WiFi was down. The app also has higher prices than in-person and adds a mandatory 12.5% service charge, which thank Christ we didn't pay.

So off I waddle to the bar, hovering for thirty seconds before one of the six (!) members of staff doing eff all decides to engage. Having had a confused conference about whether I could order food at the bar, they get my order wrong. I highlight this and the member of staff assures me it's correct.

During this time two members of staff are making the two cokes I ordered. To be fair, two cokes is a two person job. One arrives with two cubes of ice, the other stacked to the brim with ice plus lime plus straw. Lads, at least make a glass of coke consistently.

I'd just sat down with my drinks when a card machine was proffered admitting they'd messed up the order and I had to pay the difference. I'd literally asked thirty seconds ago.

It's at this point I should say the male manager is a complete lech around the young and consistently female waiting staff. The guy was leering and making comments and it was a bit unpleasant to be around.

So, food turns up. Waitress' first comment was: "I dropped your food".

It took a few minutes to understand it had fallen off the plate in the service hatch, rather than been on the floor. She then offered us cutlery from her jeans pocket (not wrapped) by saying: "Here's some... whatever these things are called"

We asked for mayo at which point she handed three very raggy and warm sachets from the same jeans pocket, telling us she'd been hoping to take them home. We didn't attempt the mystery mayo.

Our chips turned up five minutes later, cold on one side and overcooked on the other where they'd been perched unevenly under a Salamander grill to keep warm. When your chef can't keep chips warm, you've got a problem.

The food order was wrong (meal came with none of the advertised sides) but at this point we'd lost the will to live. The chicken was actually great, really moist and great sauces!

At no point had anyone explained what the deal was with actually playing mini golf (where to get clubs, pencils, what time our slot was etc), so we went over and asked the guys on the course and they were friendly and helpful.

As mentioned, the courses are significantly better than Jungle Rumble in Cabot, although much smaller in scale. Nowhere near as much staging or variety as Bristol Golf Centre or Congo Falls' outdoor courses.

Overall, it's fine, just don't expect staff who've ever seen another human being or worked in...

I had high hopes for Par59 Bristol, especially after a great experience at the Cardiff location when it first opened. Unfortunately, my visit on Saturday, 23rd November, at 12pm left us all disappointed due to poor customer service.

We booked the darts and 9 holes package for a friend's special birthday, as the bottomless brunch slots were unavailable. Sadly, the experience didn’t live up to expectations for several reasons:

Unclear Instructions and Poor Service: Being the first slot of the day, we were the only group on darts. However, it wasn’t made clear how to order drinks or food. We couldn't order cocktails via the app, so we headed to the bar. This process took around 20 minutes, cutting into our game time. When we asked if drinks could be brought over to save time, we were told, “No, as you haven’t chosen table service.” (which is impossible apparently!)

Shockingly Bad Cocktail Service: Two of us ordered the same cocktail, which was mixed together of course. When there wasn’t enough for both drinks, the bartender filled one glass and topped up the other with ice (half!!) instead of properly addressing the shortfall, as she was advised to do - in front of us.

Frustrating Food Ordering Experience: Food wasn’t available to order on the app, so we enquired at the bar. We were told the kitchen was too busy due to brunch PRE-orders and advised against ordering. We explained we were happy to wait, but they refused to take our order, leaving us with no food options at all. This was baffling given it was the first slot of the day, and the venue didn’t seem overly busy.

As a side note, the games were fun (golf and darts), but the atmosphere was severely soured from all above.

Overall, we felt like an inconvenience rather than valued customers. We had planned to spend generously on drinks and food, which would have been more expensive than the bottomless brunch, but the poor service ruined the experience.

All four of us thought it felt like opening weekend chaos, so we Googled it—only to confirm it wasn’t!

At this point, I wouldn’t recommend Par59 Bristol. The lack of attention to customer care and basic service standards was unacceptable. I hope management addresses these issues, as the potential for a great experience is...

Disappointed to be having to leave this, have made numerous attempts to resolve directly with the venue, they acknowledged my first response then said they would do a thorough investigation and get back to me within 48 hours, two weeks later I am still waiting. I booked our Christmas do here a couple of weeks ago - we had the buffet; I asked for one serving to be low fat due to requirements within our group. They emailed confirmation, but nothing appeared on the night. I had to chase and my colleague waited for a plain grilled chicken salad for about 40 minutes. I then realised we had not had our chocolate brownies- after chasing three times and being told they were being made, they turned up over two hours after our original buffet. they were not chocolate brownies, but looked like sponge cake that had been cookie cuttered into a shape. they were nice, but cold so clearly not just been made. We were served in cardboard trays, fine, saves washing up, but in the four hours we were there they were never cleared away and there were trays of half eaten food scattered around - I ended up stacking them and moving them and some glasses myself as we were trying to have conversations with cold leftover food on the table. it looked steady enough on the night but there was plenty of staff around and there were enough times where they would stood behind the bar chatting, so they were not rushed off their feet. I also felt that one game of crazy golf for the price that we paid was inadequate. I think most of the team had a good evening just catching up, but I left feeling really disappointed and didn't think we got value for money at all at £40+ per head. Also very suspicious of the posts below - most people only ever provided one review and listing all the people that...