The Vintage Tea Rooms Chesterfield — Restaurant in Chesterfield

This place is under new management, the manager is rude and a liar.

The following review I left on Trip Advisor (shortened due to google word limits):

"I telephoned to book last week (annoyingly you can't book online) for a table for 8/9 and was very clear we were coming for tea and cake for my birthday. This morning they called me while I was still in bed having a lay in and asked me to confirm. When we arrived the table was setup with lots of plates and tea cups and no menus which was odd. I asked to see the menu and was immediately in a confrontation with the manager. She stated that I had booked 'Afternoon Tea' for 8. According to the menu 'Afternoon Tea' consists of a variety of snacks and tea. I informed her that we had come for tea and cake. She then went over to a member of staff and grilled her then returned for another confrontation with me stating that the staff member had confirmed with me this morning that I had booked 'Afternoon Tea' for 8. I honestly can't remember how the staff worded the question on the phone when they called, they may have said 'You have a booking for afternoon tea for 8' perhaps but that term is rather subjective and I was more than clear on my original phone call. The manager was very rude and immediately put a dampener on the occasion. All 8 of us ordered tea and cake and a couple of us ordered a more substantial meal. The staff made a total of 3 errors with the orders. The food was satisfactory, though one person commented that their cake was dry which I'd never experienced there before. The woman who I assume was the manager was notably standing in the 'window' to the kitchen with a cross look on her face pretty much the entirety of our visit. Sadly although I've enjoyed many visits to the tea rooms in the past, I won't tolerate this and will not be dining there again."

The manager Sharon Hilton had the nerve to respond with the following:

"When we explained that you had booked in for afternoon tea, which is made in advance, and as my staff member remembers clearly asking you on the phone, even to the point of you ordering a coeliac one, you replied 'it depends on your definition of afternoon tea, it’s the afternoon and we’re drinking tea'. Needless to say it went downhill from there. Hospitality staff are not there to be spoken to as you see fit, and are more than entitled to get annoyed by rude customers. As for having a terrible visit, your party stayed for hours and even reordered more drinks. You are of course entitled to take your business elsewhere. But maybe consider how you speak to staff members in the future. We are there to serve, we are not servants."

This is a pack of lies. She has completely taken my comment about the definition of afternoon tea out of context, what I actually said (after she had hounded me twice in front of other customers, my friends and the staff and having grilled her staff in front of the customers) was that on my original call to make the booking I was very clear that we were coming for tea and cake only and that when the girl called me the morning of the booking (my birthday treat, which she put a dampner on) I couldn't remember if the staff had used the term 'afternoon tea' but that this was open to interpretation. The staff asked me on the phone if anyone in my party had any dietary requirements and I said one was Coeliac, I even recall saying that from experience I knew there'd be CAKE for her, that is not me 'ordering a coeliac afternoon tea'. In response to the comments about not being servants, nobody in my party was rude to any of her staff (despite 3 errors) and I don't appreciate the suggestion. Instead of learning from the error, perhaps by offering online booking which would eliminate these misunderstandings she chooses to attack her customers both in person verbally and online. We also were there for 2 hours because some of the party were late, we didn't realise we were on a time limit but perhaps this would explain why she was giving us...

Went here today for a baby shower that I had organised 12-3pm we booked the room for. Paid £75 for the room upstairs which is lovely but very tight on space to hold 23 people. £16pp & £17 for gluten free afternoon tea we got 3 different sandwich fillers with hardly anything on the sandwich got about 3 each 1 scone each and a slice of cake. Unlimited tea no coffee or any service for alcoholic drinks … was told we had a male looking after us that would take our drink orders and he never came to ask us if we wanted anything else. Food was brought out dead on 12pm so by the time people sat down to eat it was going hard. Had to stand up multiple times to ask for water for the table and it took ages for them to bring it, dirty cutlery hair found in cake and when we told the staff we just got a sorry no cake brought back to us what we had paid for. Two people from the party didn’t show up and had paid previous and didn’t get money back but I’m glad they didn’t come because there wasn’t enough food for anyone else. By 2pm they was taking all cakes away plates glasses etc not asking if we wanted takeout boxes completely tidying up around us making us all feel extremely uncomfortable and had to leave. Overall experience I wouldn’t recommend at all. Very disappointed with how much it all cost and got...

My friends and I went today for afternoon tea. I was really looking forward to it but I have to say I am bitterly disappointed. The lady who served us was pleasant enough but I felt like she didn't have the time for us and rushed through our order to the pint where actually the cake order itself was wrong when it arrived. Our booking was for 1.30pm and when we gave our order of afternoon tea we were told there was only one cheese scone left and the rest were cherry ones, which was fine for me but there was two in our group that don't like cherries. I mean what!? It was only 1.30pm surely they have an idea of how many scones are needed in a day!!!! To top it all off we saved what we thought was the best till last.....the cake. Once again disappointment. We have a variety of different slices between us and ALL of them were dry and tasteless. I won't be returning to the vintage tea room. It was so much better when we went for afternoon tea when it was down on beetwell Street. What a change of...