Windrose Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Carrickfergus

I booked a 60th birthday meal two months ago for the 20th of August 2023 and paid the deposit. Because of the size of our group (18 persons) we were told we could only be accommodated at a long table facing the marina view window, this we happily accepted. On arrival for our booking, my wife who had gone to great trouble arranging things entered the restaurant first to place some balloons and cake on our table only to be met by the manageress (the same person who took our booking) telling us that one half of our table was still occupied by a family whose dining plans had run over.

At this point we were offered various seats and tables all set apart from each other. This was obviously unacceptable as we had more family members arriving and this was not what we had booked. After much confusion we ended up being sat at two different tables which again was not ideal and was not what we had booked and was in fact a breach of our booking agreement with the restaurant. Several times the manageress was asked why the party already sat at our table had not been informed that they would be required to vacate the table by a certain time and several times we were met with nonsensical unprofessional excuses.

At this point we would have left and gone elsewhere but for the size of our group and the difficulty of us being accommodated at another restaurant at such short notice and we reluctantly sat at two separate tables. I would say that the choice of the Windrose was down to me the birthday boy as I have eaten there many times and have always enjoyed the food.

The service that followed was completely shambolic as it would seem that we were served by a group of undertrained teenagers who just could not get the drinks orders right. Having just come out of hospital the week before, I just wanted a quiet enjoyable meal with my family and was not prepared to stand my ground with regards to the slow, shambolic service that followed nor the unprofessional excuse ridden, disingenuous mutterings of the manageress.

On checking our bill I noticed that several drinks of a type of wine that no one at our table was drinking had been added to the bill. When brought to the manageress’s attention she was unhappy, and reluctantly removed the drinks from the bill. To add insult to injury she also had the cheek to add a service charge for the dire service that we had received.

If it wasn’t for the chefs, this restaurant wouldn’t survive as no one would go there for the dire, unprofessional service they provide. The 18 members of my family who were in attendance will most certainly think twice before using the Windrose again and I would urge anyone reading this review to do likewise as there are an array of other restaurants close by who value their customers and will treat them with the professionalism that they are...

So my family for my birthday treated me to a nice dinner in the Windrose. When we first arrived the restaurant was quite quiet and we got good service. They took our drinks order and straight away asked if we were ready to order, which we were. It was about 30-40 minutes before the mains actually arrived and in between there seemed to be an influx of customers and the restaurant filled up. Our mains were very nice and we all enjoyed them. After waiting for 20 minutes with no sign of the table being cleared and asking if we would like a dessert (which we did), we decided to start clearing the table ourselves! This was immediately noticed by passing staff and all of a sudden our table was cleared and we were asked if we would like to see a dessert menu. We went onto order 3 desserts between the five of us (like I said the main meal was really nice). After 45 minutes of waiting and a table who had ordered their dessert after us got severed their desserts, we frankly threw in the towel and told the staff to cancel our desserts as they were obviously not planning on being served. Immediately after us cancelling our desserts the wait staff got word from the kitchen that it was closed for the night, so obviously the kitchen staff were never planning on serving our desserts. I do not normally post a negative review, as I was taught if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing! BUT in this case it was my birthday and I really would have liked a dessert. I was extremely disappointed with the Windrose. As a caveat I do have to say that the wait staff were that busy (there was only two on) that they were actually running! So my complaint is to the management directly, if you want to run a successful restaurant in such a competitive town as Carrickfergus get it together and get more staff or at least have on call staff that can be called in if your restaurant is busy. I have told a lot of people that I was looking forward to going for dinner tonight and I know they will ask me how was it. Unfortunately I am going to give them the same review as above. Do not go there unless you are happy to wait at least 3 hours for a main and POSSIBLY a dessert. So very disappointed, we will not be back any...

I have been to windrose around 3 times over the last 2/3 months. I can't fault the food at all- it is fantastic, especially the seafood. The windrose could be such an excellent restaurant especially due to its location and outside seating which is great. However, the staff really affect the rating I have to give. The second time I went, I was alone. There were 3 tables taken outside and as I was told the restaurant was dog friendly outside I stayed there. No one came near me for nearly 15 minutes before I had to go and ask for a menu inside. I carried my dog to the door and luckily a waitress was walking out at the same time who was able to give it to me. I waited about 15-20 mins before I decided that I would have to go inside to order. As I walked in, one of the staff came towards me saying that I wasn't allowed dogs inside. I explained I had been waiting a while and that no one had come outside to serve anyone. I was then told that there was no table service which really I don't understand. I explained that no one had told this to me and i wasnt sure how i could then order as i didn't want to leave my dog outside alone. I decided to pack up my stuff just as a waitress came to take my order. Again the food was great but the staff dont seem to know how to interact with guests. I returned again last week to see that you can now scan a QR code to order food. This is fine however I asked if someone could clean our table outside as it was quite dirty. One of the staff came to clean it but honestly she couldn't even get a hello out and literally ignored us. This made us feel very unwelcome. When my husband went to order food. There were two different table numbers on our table and when he ordered he was told that there wasn't that table number. He tried to show the waitress (the same one from the first incident) the table number to be told it had now changed to the other side for summer.... I'm not sure how we were supposed to know that. I'm sorry that this is so long and mostly negative but I just wish the staff could attempt to be somewhat more friendly as they are very off putting and make me not want to return...even though the...