Claro Lounge — Restaurant in England

UPDATE November 2021 Visited again 2 weeks later, for breakfast this time. Completely different experience to the one below. Ordered using the app and the order arrived promptly. Staff seemed much more organised and on the ball. Breakfasts were delicious. Review upgraded to 4 stars.

October 2021 Great concept poorly executed. 2 stars

Visited in October 2021. There is definitely a niche for a place like this in Ripon. The decor, vibe, location, music (albeit a bit loud) and menu are great. Sadly this is let down, as mentioned in other reviews here, by issues with the service.

Saturday night 21:30, perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the tables were occupied. Ordered 2 cocktails the bar. Drinks took 24 minutes to arrive. I enquired after 15 minutes and a girl behind the bar said she'd find out. By 20 minutes went up again and asked to speak to the person in charge. She was apologetic and brought the drinks a few minutes later. She apologised again and offered us 2 more cocktails on the house which was a nice gesture and is the reason this is a 2 star instead of a 1 star review and why I'll return in a few weeks to give them a second chance. The 2nd round arrived in 7 minutes. The barman who brought the 2nd round apologised again for the issue earlier and accepted responsibility and was very genuine.

There are plenty of staff there, I counted 7 behind the bar at one point, but they dont seem to be working as a team or be being directed effectively; it all just seems a bit slap-dash and disorganised. If someone could get a grip of the service and get on top of the issues therein this has the potential be a be a great spot.

It struck me as odd that there were no door staff (bouncers) here. Perhaps they were on a break but I didn't see anyone on entering or leaving, has the potential to be an issue I think.

Will visit again in a few weeks and see if thing...

We have been here twice, first time for breakfast, second time for a birthday meal.

First time we arrived at 11am, wasn’t busy at all, we waited for 39 mins, chased up twice, been told short of staff, finally breakfast came but nothing special just like an expensive spoons, coffee was bland.

Second time was a family meal (6people), not everything on the paper menu were available, food came very quickly this time but we sent half of our meals back as chips, 3 tapas were stone cold, they took them away returned the food but they didn’t change them, just put them in the microwave & fryer as they were so dry & burnt! Sent the tapas back for the second time but came back still the same! Didn’t bother to send them back for the third time as simply they can’t cook.

Waiters & waitresses would definitely need further trainings as no one seems know what they were doing, including the male manager we spoke to, no apologies whatsoever for the stone cold food.

Overall nice decor, music far too loud, couldn’t even hear the person next to me, we won’t be...

What a dreadful experience. We booked this relatively new venue to give it a try....not a good idea. We'd already been warned beforehand that the residents of Ripon said it had mixed reviews. But we decided to give it the benefit of the doubt.

We arrived as arranged in what we assumed was a restaurant, where we were politely shown to our tables and given menus. After some time, I approached the four members of staff chatting at the bar and enquired how we could receive some service. I was quite taken aback, to be told we had to download an app to order or go up to the bar to place the order.

After consulting with the other six in the group, we decided that we wouldn’t both if that’s how they look after their customers. So we left and found a very nice Italian a short distance away, where we spent £160 that Claro lost out on.

They could really do with looking at how they interact with customers, as they were about a quarter full, which says everything. The Italian was very accommodating, but we did have to wait a while for a seat, as it...