Zizzi - Cambridge, Regent Street — Restaurant in Cambridge

So I went out for a meal for my friends 18 birthday and the service here was completely unexpectable, I myself work as a waitress and I have for 5 years. The problems here started when my friend and I ordered two drinks; one was an alcoholic cocktail and one was none alcohol, they ended up putting alcohol in the wrong drink, serving my 17 year old friend the alcoholic drink. Then later on in the meal, my two friends ordered two none alcoholic drinks, they ended serving two alcoholic beers, one friend was driving home after the meal and the other friend was 17. When we raised the complaint they then told us they had no 0% beers left, but we weren't told this when ordering the drinks, before we got them or whilst they brought them over. The third issues occurred when we had to ask for the birthday cake to be brought out, the woman replied "oh right yeah, the birthday cake" as if she'd forgotten. Whilst the cake was then being brought out they didn't sing happy birthday and we were left for around 5-10 minutes until I finally had to go up and ask for plates and cutlery for the cake. Then when paying the bill I raised a complaint and said we did not want to pay the service charge; which is not compulsory, especially if the service was bad or if you were not made aware prior to the meal. The waitress, who was the restaurant's supervisor, then expressed she couldn't take the service charge off as she couldn't do it on the till, this is completely wrong, it should be possible on all tills, and was not acceptable given our experience there.

However, I can happily say the...

We went for an early dinner here on Sunday afternoon. When we first arrived two members of staff were chatting for 5 mins before a 3rd member of staff suggested they should greet us. (This should have been my first red flag to leave).

The starters were okay. Although the children’s bread was burnt and their side carrots were soggy cooked yellow carrots from the fridge which was bizarre. After we finished our starters no one cleared our plates for half an hour. I eventually had to hunt down a member of staff to ask them to take the plates away.

It then took quite a long time for our mains. I ordered the Chicken Calabrese. When it arrived it was also burnt and extremely dry. They seemed to have a problem with burning food because the table next to us also sent back two pizzas that were black.

My youngest daughter asked for the popping candy with her ice cream which was listed on the kids set menu. The waitress said they hadn’t had any for 12 months. When I said they should take it off the menu, her response was they are a chain and it was tough luck really.

It was clear they were understaffed. We were never asked if we wanted anything or more drinks. I had to actively seek the waitress TWICE to get the bill. The atmosphere was not nice as it was clear most diners were unhappy.

The main reason we went was to spend Tesco vouchers. There is no way I would have paid full price without the vouchers. Their menu has great potential but the chef could not deliver unfortunately. We definitely won’t be...

Table of 7, drinks ordered at 5:45pm, 25 minute wait before we get to order starters - at least those came fairly quick... Be the last time anything does this night.

Over an hour between starters being finished and mains arriving (with a 4 year old who didn't even get one, even though the kids menu was supposed to be 3 courses), and we wouldn't have minded if they were up to par, or even as advertised... 2x beef & chianti ragu's with watery sauce and barely any beef, a warm chicken salad that didn't see a touch of seasoning and a "Sticky Pig" pizza that was missing literally half the toppings (no prosciutto, meatballs or crackling AT ALL). Waiter must have known the kitchen were turning out sub-par food, because he didn't come back to the table to check on anything for well over another hour, and that was just to clear the plates.

Its now gone 8pm and we finally get the dessert menu's. We question why everything has taken so long (it was hardly heaving in there) and just get a dismissive "there is a couple of big tables tonight" response... Desserts arrive, again with items missing (it's okay, I didn't want ice cream and chocolate shavings with my cherry cheesecake anyway...) and still frozen in the middle - they clearly wanted us there EVEN longer.

Bill comes for £245, and has the cheek to include an "optional" £22 tip. Food was poor, service was poor, bill was shocking....