The Blue Moon — Restaurant in Cambridge

Great pizza and the kitchen went out of their way to make sure our family with severe allergies felt comfortable eating here. The place is very let down by an incredibly rude woman working the bar who was passive aggressive and went out of her way to be rude to small children. So my advice is avoid dining here with kids (who are allowed here before 9 pm) and take your pizza to go somewhere else!

UPDATE: WE ASKED AT THE BAR WHAT TIME CHILDREN WERE ALLOWED BEFORE PLACING AN ORDER AND WERE TOLD BY THE MALE STAFF 9 PM! So get your staff up to date if you want to argue with your customers. And I’m happy to provide further insight for “rude woman”.

Our kids were picking the wax off a bottle of whiskey used as a candle stick holder to reveal the hidden eagle under the wax. We told them it wasn’t allowed. Our daughter then looked around the room and said “but every other candle has the wax peeled off” so we said sure then ok as long as we pick the wax up after. A woman then came over, took the candle stick from them in a rude swift manor, sweeper wax up, put the candle on the table behind us, lit it (it should be noted next to a candle stick that someone else had picked all the wax off of!! As they had done on every other candle in this establishment), and walked away in a huff. I commented to her they are just kids you know, not based on their behavior but based on how she treated them in the interaction which left them very confused. She said “I like the wax on the bottle” to which we replied then light another candle and it will all come back, but there is no wax on any other bottle here. It was a rude way to treat children, and they were left asking a million questions about the interaction. “Why didn’t she say anything to us? Why is she being so mean? Why didn’t she just ask us to stop?” It completely ruined the mood for them, two tiny people just trying to learn how to interact with an adult world, and who were just on an innocent quest to find an eagle buried...

Dystopian Nightmare!

I just went down to the Blue Moon because I wanted to see the stand up comedy event and have a pint. But after the barperson poured my beer and I tried to pay with a £20 note, he told me that they only accept card payments. What kind of dystopia has the UK become? You're like frogs in water being brought slowly to the boil!

Let me explain...

I am here just for a few weeks, from Spain, to work. Every time I use my Spanish bank card I get charged extra fees in Spain, so, naturally, I only pay with cash.

Sure, I could have whipped out my Spanish card and made an exception, however, an exception here and an exception there all adds up to money that my Spanish bank would only pocket.

But my complaint doesn't end there. The Blue Moon's policy of only accepting card payments is exclusionary. Not everyone has a bank account! What about buskers, artists and tradespeople who get paid in cash? Waiterstaff who want to spend their tips and any other person who doesn't agree with the electronification/virtualisation of money. As a place that markets itself as an alternative venue supporting the arts and music, I can't understand how the owners haven't taken this into account!

Also, you lose business! I probably would have consumed 2 or 3 pints. I had a few friends (also living in Europe with European bank cards) coming to join me and who, between them, would have consumed at least two pints each while watching the gig.

And how do the barpeople get tips? There's no loose change to give them with card payments! I'd much rather tip a waiter with some loose change than pay a bank fee to ING for an international transaction!

The Blue Moon seems like a pretty interesting place to hang out and see some music and comedy. Despite that, I left the joint, feeling frustated and thirsty, with my crisp twenty pound note in my pocket while the unpayable fresh pint started to go...

Apparently having the kitchen next door doesn't allow you the privilege to place a food order. First time you wait in line to find out you can't just place directlly the order and you've got to use a separate website and pay remotely. Which would be fine if it didn't create a grotesque situation.. Despite trying to place an order, I had issues with payments - meaning I had to start again and go through the process. The system wouldn't make me proceed further for some reasons. I go to speak to staff which tells me the Kitchen is closed. At 21.00 despite on the site says it's open till 21.30. Been standing there 5 metres away trying to work out their system is pointless, you fail as a human and don't deserve to eat. Thank you for nothing, whoever is the clever mind behind this. You had me wasting time finding how the system works on a busy night where the menus and qr codes are displaced and I wouldn't be looking for them as I have no clue this is YOUR system. But the good thing is that I went away without ordering so I saved some money for my food and drinks for the night, and learnt which pub to avoid in the future. Plus had time to write this review to warn you that your system is not infallible (perhaps try to convince the clever mind behind this that tech is great and might be making you look cool but customers are what keep you in the system). Take it as you wish, perhaps as a push to consider those poor idiots who come to your pub for the first time, struggle for whatever reason, and rely on the timings you report on your system to know when the kitchens are open/closing.

Surely for me I might think twice in the future before coming back to such an inefficient, sterile and customer careless approach. And btw it was a wednesday, so god knows why you decided to...