Fat Hippo Durham — Restaurant in City of Durham

High disappointed with my experience with the restaurant and the customer service I received too. I had wanted to try this food for a long time after seeing it over social media. I was happy to be visiting Durham and saw they had a restaurant in the area, however due to circumstances we’re unable to sit in so decided to order it to the hotel. We had pre ordered our order at 6:30pm for it to come at 8pm when they had reordered for online orders. I was constantly refreshing the app for updates but it had gotten to over an hour and it said the food was still been prepared. I work in food hospitality my self so understand the pressures and how busy it can get, especially on a Saturday that’s why I gave the restaurant the benefit of the doudt for time. However, I had rung up 1hr 30 mins later after still tracking my order and it stating the rider was at the store, they said it was still cooking and would be 10 mins this was at 9:30pm. Which a Saturday night or not we had preordered at 6:30pm for it to be delivered at the time slot of 8pm and it constantly been pushed back up until not arriving to us until an hour and 47 mins later at 9:47pm in which we record it cold!! There was absolutely no way that food was still been cooked up when I rand and been told it would take 10 more minutes. We had cheese balls that were flat cold, chips that we cold and wet condensation having the texture of cardboard and burgers with wet soggy bread buns! This had clearly been sat in a heater or on the side to condensate in the containers which is disgusting! If we had been rang or explained that it was going to be late or it was busy ect I would understand but we was lied to on the phone. I then followed this up the next day with an email to the restaurant and a phone call a couple of days after this was the 4th May. I received no response so messages on Facebook, still no response. It is now 2 months on and still no response but instead ignored for a problem that was down to nothing but poor customer service. The price of this food wasn’t cheap to receive it so late at such a poor quality and then be ignored is distrusting. It really lets the company down and puts me off ever trying your food again. I didn’t want to have to write such a public review but I couldn’t get a response...

Bare in mind we went for lunch on a TUESDAY afternoon so not high peak time, there was many tables available.

Me and my friend went for lunch with also my pram with my 9 week old baby in. Before we were seated the waiter had to go check with a manager before hand which seemed odd however we were seated and they offered us a high chair but she was too small so declined. Once the food was done it was delicious however whilst my friend was STILL eating the manager came over and said they needed the table back in 10-15 minutes. As soon as she finished eating the waiters almost instantly cleared our plates and the waiters kept peering around the corner to check if we were getting ready to leave.

There was people that were there before we had even arrived and there was many tables available yet they were asking us to leave. We felt very rushed to leave the table as we could see them constantly checking on us. My baby needed changing and feeding however we felt pressured to leave so I did not see to her until after we left.

I find it very strange that they offer high chairs yet are quite clearly not family friendly, it seemed they wanted us to leave as the pram took up space in the restaurant.

I would like to also point out that we were in the restaurant for LESS THAN AN HOUR!!! so it’s not as if we were being ridiculous and spending ages there. If the table had been reserved they should let the customer know instead of trying to rush them out as quickly possible, but as I said it was a Tuesday afternoon so not busy and many tables available.

The food was nice however the customer service was not and they’re quite clearly not family friendly. I ended up going to the public library to change and feed my baby as we felt forced to leave.

Would not use again maybe we were ruining the vibe of the restaurant by bringing in a baby!!...

I've been to Fat Hippo twice. It has plenty of vegan starters and mains which is brilliant and all of the stuff I've tried has been really delicious. The reason I'm only giving 3 stars though is because on both occasions of visiting I have noticed very poor customer service. We have been lucky in having generally nice staff serving us but I remember on the first occasion there was a member of staff turned away from the seating area at the back of the bottom floor, where all the customers were seated, looking at his phone in view of all the customers and never looking back to check on customers to see if they were ready to order or check if they needed anything or were enjoying their meals, which I found to be very unprofessional (having worked in similar rolls myself for several years). On the second visit we were sat next to the entrance/exit of the restaurant and I noticed a couple commenting on the fact that the food was very expensive for what it was to one of the staff members as they left, which in all honesty was a fair comment to make, and instead of replying politely and saying that they would relay their feedback to a manager or something of that ilk, the member of staff replied in a very sarcastic and rude tone to the couple saying something about the fact that they were a restaurant and they get what they pay for, which was shocking to witness and honestly put me off going their seeing a member of staff act so rudely and unprofessionally. Clearly the high prices of the food does not pay towards customer service training. Personally I would come back as I do really enjoy the food but they really need to train their staff in customer service and basic manners. Also on a side note it would be great if they could add some...