Nando's Cardiff - Mermaid Quay — Restaurant in Butetown

We enjoy Nanods normally. But this Nandos was a complete let down. So just going to avoid this one.

Food ordered 19:27 on 3rd July 2022

Went to till to claim red chilli reward, Told they don't accept card at till but to use the app and that we have to claim it via that. So we paid via app but then people behind us getting takeaway could pay by card. I don't mind them encouraging people to use the app but at least don't lie about it.

Drinks didn't arrive and had to ask a waiter after 15 minutes waiting. Which they then brought over the unlimited machine drink glasses not the actual bottled drink we had ordered. But, we didn't bother mentioning it.

Food was served to the wrong table, the members at the table were confused but said it may be the guys who's in the toilet. About 3-4 minutes later, when he got back he told a waiter it wasn't his food and they took it to the kitchen then after a discussion with another waiter in the kitchen they brought the plate to us. I asked if it had been on another table the waiter paused for a while then said 'yer, but they ain't done nothin to it' which I asked 'how does he know that, was he watching them?' We took the meal anyway but not great being re-served food that's been sitting at another table during a pandemic this really put a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the meal... and it was of course cold at this point. Speaking of which a guy at that table managed to sneak over and take an unlimited drinks machine glass without the staff seeing. (Staff really were not on the ball).

When we had littrually 4 chips left on the plate a different waiter came around with a ticket/recipt and asked were we still waiting on any drinks. In which we did then get the bottle which was missing from our order. She then proceeded to 3 other tables doing the same for other orders.

Whilst there we saw others having to get ahold of waiters to get their missing food.

Food was enjoyable though, so not giving this 1 star review but 2.

Other than what went wrong just a another note as part of review the restaurant was at half capacity (6 tables inside that were empty with a 30 minute wait). I assume they are understaffed...

Awful service.

From the moment my wife and I walked in, the customer service was poor. We expected it to be busy on a Saturday afternoon, yet the staff didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on and chaos ensued.

The lady who greeted us didn’t seem to know how long we’d be waiting and then proceeded to give us two menus. Fair enough, but she just walked away and didn’t offer us anywhere to wait, so we just stood by a crowded entrance, close to people already eating who were probably not too impressed.

After 10 minutes we were taken to our table. Which thankfully had just been cleaned, but was still very damp. We went straight up to the tills and then proceeded to wait 5 minutes before a young girl walked out, yawned at us then took our order. She was very rude, uninterested and could do with a lesson in manners.

Off to the condiment section next.... not too bad, but no forks. We asked twice for some forks. Eventually we got one after asking a third time and someone brought us two to the table.

Onto the food.... took an age to arrive and probably the worst quality I’ve had from Nando’s. Undercooked garlic bread, cold chicken wrap with hardly any chicken and half a portion of super grain.

Finally, the couple next to us seemed also to have a nightmare. The young girl and her partner ordered at the same time and were brought food out at the same time, only for hers to be missing cheese. When she challenged this the server asked for her receipt. Righty so, however the young girl didn’t have it. She asked if the server could check on the till to prove her order. The server took her food away, then 5 minutes later another server came out with her partner’s receipt claiming no cheese was on the order. The young lady informed the server it wasn’t her receipt, to which the server seemed very inpolite, claiming no cheese was ordered, then stormed off to do God only knows. By this point the young lady’s partner had pretty much finished his meal.

At that point we left. Disappointed and likely not to go back to this Nando’s again. Clearly seemed understaffed and staffed by igronant and inexpericed...

NO CHICKEN - MORE LIKE NO TRAINING

God where to start, gotta be the WORST nandos I've ever been to, not to he dramatic but being out of chicken in a chicken restaurant is mental- we weren't Greeted when we arrived just a shurg and an arm gesture to a half wiped table no menus given to us and the server just walked off the staff just seemed to walk around the venue doing the bare minimum watched one staff member put dirty cutlery in amongst clean sets as he couldn't be bothered to polish them I was staggered - we were told they were out of ALL boneless chicken however the QR code showed that they had things in stock, they weren't able to clarify when I went up to the bar either, during my ordering process face to face the server just walked off the bar to do something else - the staff training and hospitality just really isn't there - one staff member Adam I think , was rocketing round the venue trying to fix every issue he could but for a max 70 cover restaurant that was barely a quarter full I had 2nd hand embarrassment- when we finally did order we were told after I paid that they were out of salad as well - you honestly couldn't write it - so then I had to find something else to order only then to be told that actually they did have salad - I used to frequent Nandos quite a lot back in the day but honestly the way they are being run from this experience I probably won't return again food was pretty sub par sat with dirty plates at our table for ages whilst the server just strutted around the restaurant doing anything other than his job - back to the drawing board in this site for sure - no communication between staff or guests - really poor hospitality- atmosphere was one of panic and disorganisation and this one bad experience is enough to put anyone off not even an explanation of the items they were out of stock of just a smirk and "yeah we don't have any chicken"

Wow

Please do better the brand is dying in this store and for the prices we paid it wasn't worth it I felt ripped off and taken advantage of - didn't feel valued or even like I existed in...