The Waiting Room — Restaurant in Egglescliffe

The Waiting Room

I must admit I was sceptical when my good wife suggested going to a vegetarian restaurant on her birthday, but since it's her day I agreed and we stopped at the Waiting Room on the way to Yarm.

The venue is billed as dog friendly and on arrival I was surprised by a rustic venue, busy and the food smelled amazing. We were sat in the bar with the dogs which I completely understand. The wife even joked "I hope they don't forget us".

The staff member behind the bar in some retro funky black flares paid absolutely no attention to us walking past 2/3 times with no eye contact or chat.

Unfortunately the Waiting Room lived up to its name and we sat and sat, we had to ask for the menus and even though I had decided on what to try from menu selection. After 35 minutes of no service what so ever, not even offered a drink we got up left.

Such a shame, as the place came highly recommended and would not be our usual choice. But the staff were non existent or ignorant with absolutely no level of customer service.

Replying to your response. We entered the restaurant and approach your till area at the back to ask if we were allowed to bring our 2 dogs inside. We were told we were able to eat in the bar area only and shown into the bar area by one of your staff members. We asked do we need to come through and order to which were told no I'll send someone through. After about 15 mins we asked the guy in the flares if we could have menus and again if we needed to go through and he said no it's okay I'll go and get someone. He then brought back the menus for us and we didn't see anyone again. So we gave up and left.

Your reply made it sound like we went into the bar area, plonked ourselves down and expected your staff to see through walls to see us and that we needed serving which wasn't the case. Your staff knew we were there as they took us there. If you ask your staff who were in on friday they should be able to remember a couple with 2 dogs it was a male and a...

Started off good, website had vegan options labelled but the website menu was different to the sit in menu. The sit in menu was not even labelled up with which dishes were vegan and neither was the dessert board so we had to ask every time. For a vegetarian place I would have thought they would be all over the vegan aspect of dietary requirements but this place wasn't and it wasn't as though the menus were unable to be changed it was just paper.

In my opinion the food lacked taste, very high end priced and smaller portions than we expected. The pink grapefruit hummus was homemade hummus with two small pieces of bread and a slither of pink grapefruit, although they did offer us butter but we had to ask if they did a vegan version. The hummus needed more salt and lemon and the green pate we had also needed more flavouring.

Onto the mains, to say we were disappointed was an understatement, the vegan variety of enchiladas was a poor attempt to recreate the dish. Although it had slightly more flavour than the starter, it came with grated carrott and the hummus, two wraps toasted with the puy lentil middle.

There was no check-in to see how the meal was from staff either.

£70 for a meal for 2 with drinks and dissassisfaction with the whole experience was not to be expected at all after some reviews and their awards.

Due to all the above I would not recommend a visit here.

All they need to do is have better food and greater attention to detail for vegan substitutions like a vegan cashew cheese and vegan cream along with improving their passion for flavour and this place could be a real hit, the drinks were excellent and the cocktails went down a treat and the atmosphere...

What happened to the place we used to love? It's been years since we were in the area so we booked a table at a place we'd celebrated many special occasions over the years. We arrived and were told it's a limited menu, we were told she knows it's annoying (we weren't remotely annoyed), and they were out of a couple of items on the limited menu. She insisted on telling us, how awful that was. Ok, we made it work with our picks. Then they were out of one of those. Fair enough. She confused me with what she said next but we got there, soup and bread for me and a main for my husband. Sorted. Until I asked for butter. That was brought and slid at me and then stormed away. OK. Didn't think it was an outrageous request. We'd almost finished when the potatoes were brought out with a, "sorry, I forgot to bring these." No sincerity and a slammed dish. Things were feeling really odd at this point. But we were ready for dessert. "Would we like dessert," "Yes, please." I ordered mine and then she turned her back the moment I finished, my husband didn't get to order. As it happens mine wasn't very pleasant so he probably didn't miss out. We left quickly after that. Such a shame we went, so many happy moments have been shared there with great service and food. I wish we'd kept them...