MacKays On The Mile — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

We visited Mackay's on the mile for an evening meal on Saturday night and really liked the place. The food was nice and the atmosphere just right. Given our pleasant experience we decided to use it for breakfast the next morning. We were met by a bald gentleman who was stood by the bar and advised us to sit where we liked so we wandered through the very empty pub and was met by a server who also suggested we could sit anywhere. (remember for later, place was empty and there was a waiter and the bald guy) So we sat down and received some menus and just as we start reading the bald lad rocks up. "can I get you some drinks?" I'll be ordering tea but I'll do that with my food thanks. "oh so you want me to bring it out with your food? I am on my own you know" Well yeah, I like my tea hot. With a scoff he was off. Bald man returned "are you ready to order some food?" My brother ordered to filled rolls and I did the same but forgot to say it was rolls and just said the fillings and he made a bit of a show of not understanding and waiting for me to clarify it was actual filled rolls. Then with a flourish he said he'd go get the food ordered and "magic up some tea" Not sure what was going on if he just hated his job or wasn't very good at it or if he was just generally an awful person. I've since read other one star reviews that mention horrible service from the same man so it was nothing personal. It was all him. Completely differed experience when he wasn't there the night before but...

Group lunch gone wrong! So it began a couple of weeks ago when myself and a colleague who work in a nearby large office, went over in person to make a group booking for lunch. The response from the member of staff should have served as the first warning. Even though the place was quiet at the time they couldn't be bothered to take the opportunity to provide good customer service and process our booking there and then. Instead, we were told just to make a booking online, seriuosly, if they couldn't be bothered to attend to us properly at that point what are they chances of them doing so when 12 of us arrive? Anyway on to the day of the lunch and when we turned up I gave the name the booking was under and was told to just sit anywhere. I said are you sure? There are 12 of us and we did book which was greeted with an "oh, I'll just go check". A duty manager or the manager came over and just said where would you like to sit. There were no reservation signs on any of the tables and at no point did I see anyone checking any kind of reservation system. They clearly did not expect us despite a colleague confirming details with them only days earlier! Ordering the food was painfull with the waitress not even knowing what the soup of the day was. Food took an age to come and while the quality was goid overall, the chips were luke warm. Kudos to the duty manager who ordered a couple of bowls of fresh chips but in all honesty, that was the only thing that...

Ate there yesterday (Thursday) evening - service very poor. We ordered a salad and vegan fish & chips. After 35 minutes we asked the waitress, whether it would be much longer. We were told there was a long queue. Food arrived 5-10 minutes later. No real presentation on the plate. We then had to wait for cutlery to be brought.

We asked for Mayonaise and was brought an empty bottle. Food tasted ok.

Table next to us, seemed to have their food replaced twice.

We sat with empty plates for 10-15 minutes and eventually managed to catch the waitress and asked for the bill - waited another 10 minutes but the waitress had disappeared.

I went in to the restaurant to try and find the waitress, walked to the bar. Again waited for several minutes - there were several staff walking around but none of them spoke to me. Eventually spoke to someone behind the bar, and explained that i was trying to pay for my meal. (Bar was half covered in dirty glasses)

"Was everything ok ?" - i explained our experience and was offered a 20% discount on my bill.

I appreciate recruiting and retaining people is difficult in restaurants. Having recruited people, this restaurant urgently needs to do some basic training in how to wait tables and run a restaurant.

All restaurants will get busy and at times very stressed. That's when good managers step forward, take responsibility and help the front of house team communicate to...