Chi Rushden — Restaurant in England

The vegan bao bun was very good and tasty and well priced at only £6 loaded with sauce and flavour so much it dripped on my clothes.

This led to me being so very disappointed with the bang bang cauliflower, it was just mayo and chives with batter fried cauliflower in a small bowl for £10.50, which lacked flavour and left me feeling empty and let down. I questioned the server to see if there was a mistake but they just told me it was correct and before I could say anything they walked away.

I once again asked a different server if the bang bang cauliflower was correct because at other places I've had it has been flavourful with some sort of heat. They replied it is just covered in sriacha mayo but mine was white and just tasted of mayo. Also they brought the menu to me which was good, and it said chilli mayo and chives which sounded better then what I was served.

Overall the menu seemed to be lacking in exciting fulfilling vegan meals and seemed quite basic.

The decor was nice however the atmosphere was not something that would've drew me back and the air felt tense the majority of the time but that's probably largely the fault of me coming at 4pm on a Sunday and I don't put much fault on those running the establishment.

They had a service charge of £7.38 when the service could've been improved, due to the long waiting time to be served and inattentive staff. It was quite empty when we were there yet it seemed like the servers were too busy for us and when we did interact they seemed disengaged or preoccupied.

They did offer a 15% discount for our reviews which I didn't want to leave because ik I was going to leave an unsavoury review and prehaps leave a stain on this restaurants reputation, so I tried to tell the server that I was going to leave a poor review to see if they would still want it, and they just nodded kind of. So i went ahead and wrote a negative review and still got the discount. It got rid of the service charge and 2.5% of the remaining bill.

I do apologise for how offended I was in the restaurant and I could've worded my grievences better. Instead I came off as obnoxious and rude, which I regret because I had no intention of making any ones day worse. However, I feel I might've caused this. Ik that I handled it poorly and that was reflected in my previous review but upon immediate regret and some reflection I thought to at least try to correct it in some manner.

My friends whilst at the establishment did offer reassurance to the server and acted socially adept. So luckily the entire interaction between the employee and customer was not entirely negative.

I'm very sorry for my poor manners and I did disgrace myself. It was my first time complaining so outwardly because I usually would not complain to not inconvenience anyone but the money it felt I lost caused me to speak up.

Yet, It was so terribly worded and spoken that I did inconvenience the server which I'm extremely sorry and will continue to regret. Even after this you still continued to treat me well when I handled it so poorly and was an unpleasant human being to be around.

P.s it doesn't matter too much but just to clarify and explain, I spoke with a salty, triggered, upset tone of voice and was very direct with the problems I had. Which was rude and obnoxious. I should've worded it more delicately in a more cheerful tone. The way I was treated and what I felt was done wrong is no excuse for the...

UPDATE AS OF 22/01/2024

Chi Rushden charged my friend a £20 booking fee. This was not taken off our bill. They did not take our booking name when we were seated. As no charge had been taken off of the card before we got there we didn’t (stupidly) keep our receipt. When calling the restaurant the only answer given was “it would have been refunded on the night” - despite being told it hadn’t there has been a complete refusal (and lack of reply to emails) to rectify this.

Not sure why I was asked to send an email to the restaurant (which I did 4-5 days ago) when there was going to be no prompt response.

We will never be attending here again, and at this rate to get our money back just for using an online booking service we will have to do a chargeback on a credit card.

Awful customer service.

Reviewed after visit on 06/01/2024: Ok experience but nothing to write home about.

When we arrived the front of house staff seemed a little flustered and it took a while for us to be seated for a reservation we had (although it seemed that we were just put at the first table free as no one checked a chart or list or even asked for the booking name or reservation time)

The waitress who was perfectly polite came up to our table and told us that there may be delays with food because they were short staffed. In principle this was a nice/courteous thing to do but I just felt it set the rest of the evening off on the wrong foot.

Once we ordered drinks and then some time later food we were probably 20 minutes in. We then actually got a significant portion of our food before our drinks. We were sat directly in line with the bar so could see the staff and were watching them have a bit of a chat and put some glasses back and then when they noticed us looking at them they seemed to spring in to action again.

Food was actually very good and all relatively reasonable prices and all in all worked out to be £30 ish a head including tip.

I didn’t like that things were sort of dumped on the table anywhere when it was ready. We just sort of had wait staff say a food item quickly, plonk it on the table and walk off again.

Now they were busy for the first 20 minutes and then everything calmed down. They even had 4 staff members in a meeting at one table for the last hour we were there.

Everyone we had direct conversations with was nice enough.

Overall, just a mediocre experience that probably comes with the territory of being in a chain restaurant. Not the worst experience I’ve ever had, but certainly...

What a shocking experience. Had a table at 5:30 arrived at 5:42. Walked in asked by Abby (front of house girl), do you have a booking? Yes and gave our name, immediately she said you have to be out by 7pm and she said this twice to my mother in law and myself and then she told us that again (May I add with an attitude) which she later denied when confronted. Two tables that came in after us were then served their drinks before we even had our order taken. Abby then came to the table next to us and asked her if anyone is going to take our order. With an attitude she answered that someone will be there

We then got a waiter by the name is Samuel, who was brilliant. We ordered our meals. Just before finishing our meal we wanted to add something extra. This is where the drama started. The waiter was sent back to us and told us that they cannot serve us because we had to leave by 7 and there was not enough time. We then complained that it was them who took the time to actually come take our order. We explained to Samuel what happened and he said that he would try and assist us. The manager then came over to whom the story was repeated and he said that he would see what he could do. We did get our additional order and he apologized as did our waiter but the person who should have apologized as she was so rude did not even say sorry but still had an attitude. Abby is from if house, which is absolutely shocking. Have been to many restaurants in my 59 years but have never encountered anything like this. SHOCKING. We eventually left the restaurant at 7:20 and there were exactly 36 empty seats in the restaurant. When the manager was confronted about the empty number of seats he said they had cancellations which Abby said to my mother-in-law that they didn’t. So who is telling the truth here after making a fuss of us to being out of here by 7.

Apart from the above the food is excellent. So sad as it could be an amazing restaurant with the right staff.

Is this maybe instructions from the owner? Would...