Gin Alley — Restaurant in England

This was a baby shower i organised and so i feel its important to respond to this with our side of this story. To which we have ample witnesses willing to attest to the truth.

We had the room for 4 hours for a baby shower, we understand the room was ours exclusively fom 1-5pm, we have an email chain we are happy to share that stated they were happy for us to stay beyond 5pm, with an exclusive area reserved for us rather than the while venue.

At no point was it explained to us, during the email chain, or during set up, that we needed to be cleared by 5pm, if we had known this, we would have ensured the vendors were back for 5pm and the room was clear. If this is our mistake for misunderstanding 1-5pm eclusively meaning everything had to be out then so be it but this still does not warrant the way it was handled.

Just before 5pm, we asked the 1 member of staff who served our party all afternoon, whether we needed to move the stuff to an area given it was almost 5pm . The member of staff explained they were no longer opening to the public given people had called in sick, so once we had finished she would be closing, after which we started to help tidy round,. We messaged both balloon and food vendors to collect their things ASAP. The member of staff said there was no rush and she would stay as needed. The vendors came as soon as possible, within 40 minutes of being informed.

At no point were we asked to leave the venue nor did we refuse to. We are not like that. We are a group of females, with small children and elderly relatives and a large man arrived whilst our heavily pregnant mum to be was opening gifts and waiting for vendors to arrive. He immediately turned on lights and stood in the middle of the party, infront of young children and aggressively told us we should have left at 5pm. We explained we were doing our best as we had not known this.

We tried to explain, we did not know we had to be out, it wasn't it in the email, it wasn't what we were told by the member of staff, and no sooner we were made aware that it wasn't to stay open we had notified the vendors and had no choice but to wait for them. This was 5.30pm by the way at this point and the balloon lady arrived within minutes of his arrival and was clearing up as quickly as possible.

This man was aggressive in front of children and in the face of a lady holding a baby, he made his own member staff cry and honestly, it was absolutely awful behaviour and completely ruined our day unecessarily. It's not our fault they had staff sickness and needed to suddenly close and we were doing the best we could to deal with that new information.

This could have been approached in a friendly manner and without being done in front of mum to be and children. It was totally unnecessary and unprofessional and completely lacked care.

To then say if you don't like it you know where the door is and moan about us only spending £292 in 4 hours is just unimaginably rude. They're saying £192 but that is incorrect. Irrespective of this, their commercial viability is not our problem. Do you kick people our who buy a Coke and not a Gin??

You should have pulled one of us and spoken to us about this in a calm and respectful manner. The mum to be was so upset she walked out on her own and stood in the rain until her husband picked her up.

I cannot believe you are publicly defending this or having people leave fake reviews. Our reviews are honest reviews...

We booked Gin Alley for a hen do for our friend, when we first contacted asking for a price we were shocked to find that all that was needed to secure the booking was a small deposit which was then redeemable behind the bar- we couldn’t believe our luck. We chose to redeem this against bottles of Prosecco and ‘No-secco’ (our pregnant/non drinking friends were really impressed by the non alocoholic options which also included non-alcoholic gin!) to be able to offer guests a glass on arrival. The bar staff were really accommodating for this and set up a table of ice buckets and glasses ready.

Booking was super simple, we were well informed what time the bar would begin to be open to the public but we were informed this by no means meant we had to leave at that point. They also gave some great suggestions for food, however due to having a meal booked later on we chose not to act on this. We also could’ve decorated if we’d wanted to.

The staff were helpful and accommodating right from booking, they put us in touch with musicians we were able to book for the day and everybody commented on what a lovely intimate venue it was. It was perfect for our group of 30. We’d use Gin Alley again for events in...

We went in here for a quick drink before our meal. I ordered a gin (they didn’t know how to make the cocktail we asked for) then was asked by the female manager to remove my hat. There was no reason or explanation offered so I said no. She proceeded to tell me that if I didn’t remove my hat then they’d refuse to serve me. If I’d been concealing my face with a black hoody around midnight there may have been some justification for that kind of behaviour but I was just wearing a peaked cap at 6pm on a cold evening. There was no dress code on the door and I subsequently haven’t been able to find one on their website. This is from a venue that describes itself as ‘quirky’. Sadly, all they actually are are pretentious fashion fascists. For all they knew, I could have had alopecia and been very conscious about it. Anyway, we left never to return and I’d implore you to do the same. Cue passive-aggressive rambling response from...