Bar + Block Steakhouse Winnersh — Restaurant in England

Visited here last night with some friends, four of us in total. We'd heard very mixed reviews (mainly poor) regarding the new restaurant however thought we'd give the place a chance.

We had booked a table and arrived a little early so our table wasn't ready which wasn't a problem, went to the bar and got a drink and waited the ten minutes like we were told. Then our table was ready. We ordered around 10 minutes later, each a starter and main. The first problem was that they had ran out of a starter and the waitress said ''its very popular but we don't have enough in'', if a dish is popular why wouldn't you order extra in?! Then we noticed a lot of people on tables around us complaining about the time their food was taking which made us a little on edge about ours, and right we was to be.

Our starters took nearly an hour to arrive, when they did I asked the waiter if the main meals will be taking as long as if so we would be leaving. The waitress was lovely and said she's tell the kitchen to hurry along. After waiting so long for our starters although the taste was good they were only luke warm.. we didn't bother sending them back as we were all starving and didn't want to wait another hour for them to be replaced. After our plates were cleared we thought our mains wouldn't take that long but nearly an hour later just before we were deciding whether to leave or not they arrived. When they did arrive there was items missing such as sauce etc, and again the food was barely warm. We ate most of the food because we were so hungry after waiting so long. We did feel lucky to get our food as there was other tables around us that were still waiting, one had been waiting for 1 hour and 20 mins for their starters!

When we had finished we just wanted to leave as we were fed up and actually felt quite angry with our experience. Also some of the group were still hungry due to the long wait and lack of quality in the food. I called a waitress over and said that we'd still not received our bill and that we would not be paying full price due to all the reasons listed above. The lady simply replied ''OK'' so i asked her what she would be doing for us and her response was ''you can just leave'' and that's exactly what we did, without paying for any of the food. I did feel sorry for this lady as we could see she was getting a lot of complaints.

This restaurant has great potential and the front of house staff were lovely and getting the back lash of all the problems which i believe stems from the kitchen. The chef's didn't look rushed or stressed at any point of the evening and i feel that they didn't care, which when your a chef your passion should be providing amazing food to your customers, sadly these chef's don't do that. I'm not sure if they are simply inexperienced or what but i feel if the chefs and the organisation isn't sorted soon then this restaurant wont stay in business for much longer.. We spoke to about 5 other lots of customers outside and majority of them didn't pay either.

So there is a lot of money and business being lost here, the reputation of a place is always best spread by word of mouth and i know for a fact there will be a lot of people warned off from this place.

We most defiantly wont be returning, unless in future the place is up to scratch and...

Bar & Block could have been great - it has a great interior, nice ambiance, a decent menu and the price is affordable. However they let themselves down with poor service and some questionable food preparation.

The worst offender is their indifferent service. When we walked in we were greeted at the door by someone who walked us to our table, gave us the run through of the menu and then failed to check in on us again. We had to enjoy the buffet even if we didn't want to, as no one came around for our order. If that were an isolated incident it would be tolerable all things considered but the troubles kept piling up. During breakfast they were not busing tables (at a buffet) and dishes were piling up. I'm not sure if it was a staffing issue or if they do not bus tables but a stack of plates on our table was not appealing. The food was mostly good however there were two issues: the streaky bacon was undercooked and the "beef hash" was very troubling.

The streaky bacon was tragic. It was cooked to the point that it looked like meat however there was no crispness, no colour and very little appeal. It was actually very nice tasting bacon but you cannot serve streaky bacon cooked the same way that rasher bacon is prepared. Streaky bacon is supposed to be crispy. If you cook it until it browns you will have a hit on your hands. Do better. As for the beef hash, I grew up eating beef hash in Texas and would call myself a subject matter expert on all things hash. I can tell you that the dish they were serving that they called hash was most certainly NOT hash. Hash should not have beans in the recipe - ever, and hash, any hash, should never have a sour flavour or ingredient. The chef seemingly made the unappealing hash with brown sauce or vinegar, and it was the single most disgusting mouthful of hash I have ever ingested. Just rank.

However, take away those two questionable food items and the remaining food on offer was really good. Fresh and hot croissants, pancakes and pain au chocolates, a very nice granola, 4 or 5 different yoghurt choices, many different breads to toast including a loaf of sourdough and absolutely outstanding hash browns really set them apart from other area breakfast eateries. If Bar & Block can sort out its service issues I would expect this place to be much more in-demand for...

I have to say that having been so pleased on my first two visits that I am so disappointed with this new restaurant as it has sadly failed to meet my expectations. It has not been open a month yet and I have visited it some five times and the service gets worse every visit . The menus are great with some good choices and the quality of the food is pretty good as well but there is something missing in the customer service department. The lack of a nice welcome on arrival is a bad start and the service has got so slow now that there must be something drastically wrong in the overall management or training somewhere . The actual waiting staff are all quite pleasant and do their best but the time waiting for food to arrive is getting worse and their knowledge of the menu is not too good. It seems to embarrass the waiting staff as well so I do feel a bit sorry for them. Popped in for a quick lunch today as they advertise a 10 minute lunch. We were given the main menu and we had to ask for the lunch menu which took ages to arrive so after some 15 minutes our order was taken. It was then nearly 20 minutes before it arrived and my well done steak order as barely medium so it went back to appear again after about 10 minutes almost dried up. So much for a quick lunch. I do hope that they can sort out their problems as it is a very pleasant place to eat, good value and good food so why is the service so bad??? Come on B+B get your act sorted out as you have the makings of a really good local steak house but I fear that your lack of attentive service is going to cost you dearly. It genuinely saddens me because I really wanted to like this place but I am struggling. I’m not going to give up yet so I will try it again and I’m hoping to see an...