Big Easy Bar.B.Q & Crabshack - Bluewater — Restaurant in Dartford

Absolutely ridiculous attitude and performance from the manager.

Huge thanks to the general staff who did their best to make our birthday meal a pleasure, however the managers behavior, lack of respect, horrendous professionalism is offensively pathetic.

It was my son’s birthday, we received some gift vouchers for his birthday and his only request was to use them at the Bigeasy.

We wanted his day to be special, and this particular manager quite literally left a bitter taste in our mouths.

We called at 4pm to double check that gift vouchers were accepted within this branch. We had their blessing and confirmation so we booked the table for 6:30pm (same day).

We wouldn’t be able to afford the meal otherwise so we heavily relied on the vouchers to be accepted.

We enjoyed our meal with the help of the staff who presented my son with a birthday cake and really made it a core memory for him.

To our surprise, the vouchers were not accepted when it came to payment, they said the machine or system had been switched over and they couldn’t get it to work.

The manager came over and asked us to pay with another method - this was not something we could afford right now but we still wanted to make our sons birthday special with the gift vouchers. We explained our situation (as embarrassing as it is as for us at the time), and he simply replied “it hurts me as much as it hurts you”, this was a low blow. It was incredibly unprofessional and also lacking in logic, in what world would this hurt HIM as it hurts us?

My mother in law ended up footing the bill and we were very grateful for this.

We checked at the Bluewater help desk and confirmed that the vouchers are indeed valid and they too are confused as to why The Bigeasy did not accept the vouchers. As a rule of thumb (as we learnt), any system update simply requires a reset and the vouchers would be accepted without any issue.

To put this bluntly, the manager was simply too lazy to handle the situation.

He made our special day into a nightmare, caused us more issues that necessary, all in the name of his unprofessionalism. Whether he knew or not why the machine was not working, we noticed he didn’t even try to check.

His disgusting response of “it hurts me as much as it hurts you” is a vile and pathetic attempt to undermine, offend and embarrass us.

I won’t name names.

However I’d like to say, Mr Manager in question; you ought never to have a hospitality job .. ever! I mean.. ever! Your service, attitude and lack of patience and empathy makes you a person who is unable to perform any client facing job.

Good luck with your future endeavours but until you learn how to act, behave and handle a professional situation, please consider additional training.

We would like to be the last victims of your atrocious “professionalism”

Thanks! From a very...

We went to a the big easy. We pre booked in the week.

A point to note here is that all staff were exceptionally polite and respectful.

Positives of food: Most of the food was good. Lobster, beef brisket, kids meals, 3 milkshakes and a coffee. All enjoyed the food.

Negative of food: The macaroni cheese was very slight in flavour but this didn’t really impact on the meal.

Service positives: Everyone was extremely friendly. Always smiling and making an effort. Food was timely

Service negatives: Had to ask for water 3 times and it was very slow in coming. (We all had milkshakes prior to asking for the water) We asked for skinny fries with the lobster and was told that we could only have the chunky chips to which we declined. The server told us that we had to have it as it was part of the menu which is false.

I observed the 90 minute rule. I entered 10 minutes later than scheduled after queuing for over 20 minutes which was acceptable.

After eating our meals and after the water was brought to us. We wasn’t approached until we had only 10 minutes left. Then we was asked if we are ready for desert for the kids! This was far too late to be approached for desert but I said nothing but yes we will have it now. 4 minutes later we were told there are no biscuits left (oreos) I said ‘no Oreo’s?’ and looked at the server. I thought to myself, this isn’t a signature dish, surely this can be remedied in minutes!! Regardless. A restaurant should know what they have and don’t have when the customer is ordering. The children were fixed on these deserts so I had to cancel the desert as milk and cookies without cookies is just…milk!!.

The bill The bill was presented to me in paper format and I looked at the total and said I will pay by card. When the server came with the card machine and I went to pay. The server then said to me, you don’t have to pay the service charge, it is optional.

I thought how very unprofessional of the company to print the bill. Present it to you and then say you don’t have to pay the service charge!!!! Surely if you felt it was optional, why wouldn’t you ask the customer first. I found that action appalling and quite uncultured.

I paid the full amount including the service charge as I intended but that ‘tacky’ approach was poor at the very least.

As crazy as it sounds, the poor service I have to attribute to the management and not individual as it was clear that the server was over stretched.

Unfortunately, that became my problem as an external customer.

Good food I expect as a norm from a restaurant such as this

Service is what enhances the experience and we all wanted a good service to accommodate the good food.

My review was of the whole experience...

We attended for the first time on Monday the 20th of January. We arrived promptly and admittedly 10 minutes early, not expecting to be seated until our allotted time. However we were not seated until 10 minutes past our booked time. We were told our server would be with us shortly - another 15 minutes before they arrived.

The 4 of us in attendance ordered the "deal of the day" which was a limitless BBQ with a drink. One member of our party does not drink fizzy drinks, and we were shocked to find out he couldn't sub a 2 pint pitcher of alcohol for a 500ml glass of apple juice, but could add countless other drinks. The server also seemed to loose all interest in us when she worked out we would not be drinking alcohol.

Once food arrived it became evident that some of the food had been sitting around for an extended period of time, the chicken was as dry as it could possibly be! the ribs were nice but everything seemed to be covered in so much BBQ sauce that the flavour of the sauces impacted the actual flavour of the meats.

There was no evidence of a smoke ring on any of the meats we were served which suggests counter to their claims that the meat was not smoked over real wood.

We then didn't see a server for the duration of the time we were eating, when we finally did manage to gain her attention to order more food, we waited another 15-20 minutes for only one of our 4 orders to show up, but we all got a pot of BBQ sauce... Ordering a portion of Hot Links for 3 person rendered us with what I can only guess was one sausage cut into 3 pieces, not the 3 sausages we hoped we would get.

A visit to the toilet that was apparently checked 45 minutes prior to my use they were not checked, there was urine all over the floor both stalls had a roll of toilet paper sitting on the cistern and not present in the actual dispenser that when I went to check fell open in my hands. The lighting in the toilets was so abysmal it was virtually impossible to work out if there was a coat hook on the back of the door.

On receipt of our bill we found a 12.5% service charge with no option to remove it, I do not wish to pay a service charge when I do not feel I was actually served well. You earn your tips. Especially when you say you don't charge a "cover charge" which very few restaurants do, you kind of cover that with your service charge...

We will not be going back here, service was abysmal, food was substandard for what was advertised. Hygiene in the bathrooms during a pandemic was abysmal. Staff were not wearing masks, I know its not a requirement but it's at least a...