Olive Tree Brasserie Chester — Restaurant in England

We visited on the Wednesday just gone, 1/11? Came in for a strong start, was swiftly seated by a lovely girl with black hair in a medium length ponytail. Off to a good start I think so far. Following this we're left for two minutes or so before she comes back and requests some drinks, excellent timing as we know what we want - the Monterey Bay Rosé.

As she's serving some other guests, a girl with short blonde/pink hair brings the drinks over and disappears again.

After waiting a further ten minutes the original girl is back to serve us (black ponytail) being polite and courteous as ever. A delight of the evening was her attentiveness. Checking twice at the door and after orders as to if either of us had allergies or requirements.

Following this, the black haired ponytail girl cleared our plates and brought our mains, I had the fish and chips. She was running around still trying to serve everyone at this point so I didn't want to bother her. However, the chips were bland and lukewarm. The fish was soggy, crumbly and lacked flavour or any remote crispness. The peas were overwhelmed with additional ingredients which left them with a sourness and the lemon aioli was more like mash. It wasn't very enjoyable. No check back.

Afterward, we waited approximately twenty minutes to have our plates cleared and then the same girl brought us dessert menus. I got the Loukamades as last time I visited the Brasserie in Warrington, they were out of stock and I was so excited to try. However, these 'donuts' were stale, rock hard and made me chip my tooth. Ny other member of our party also tried and he too confirmed they were dry and stale. Not an enjoyable sight. In this time I presume the girl with black hair in a ponytail was on her break as she disappeared for a while, yet the other two girls, who were on, stood at their respective computers the ENTIRE time, and didn't move at all to check on anyone.

We finished swiftly and were then left waiting over an hour for our bill. The girl with blond/pink hair started dishing bills out and we felt like we were purposefully overlooked as we didn't even get any check backs, asked if we wanted more drinks or the bill. I was craning my neck trying to catch SOMEONE's gaze. Until the girl with black hair (surprise) was the gem who actually came and checked up on us after returning, I mouthed can we have the bill as I caught her eye turning around and she was over within the second. At this point we were fed up of having wasted an hour of our time waiting (I know because I respectively checked my phone as the minutes ticked by), the mid-level quality of food and couldn't even be bothered requesting for the gratuity to be removed as we hoped the girl would get it for HER service only. I'm unsure of her name unfortunately (Caitlin I believe going off of our bill? Small, petite girl, medium length black hair in a high ponytail with cut fringe pieces that frame the face in the FOH Standard grey uniform and apron). Interesting night to say the least. Caitlin deserves all positive rewards possible for essentially running the establishment alone. I understand overseeing bookings or doing admin at computers but maybe do so when you haven't still got 9/10 tables still in and have hardly seen to any of them all night or manage time better and do so in the morning/ during proper close. Seemed like a definite power imbalance going on. The food was subpar and we came to celebrate our anniversary so it definitely left a dampener...

The experience started well with a call to the restaurant to enquire could we use our Groupon voucher and make an amendment to the time of our booking, all accommodated over the phone without issue. We arrived in time at the restaurant with no one to greet us. We were eventually seated and given menus no drinks ordered were taken and after 15 minutes of waiting and still no one came to take a drinks order or a food order. In the end I had to get up get someone’s attention who then came and took our orders. The drinks took equally as long to arrive, the food actually arrived before the drinks did and the order was wrong. The restaurant was relatively quiet so I don’t feel the delay was due to a busy period. The restaurant filled with smoke and it appeared that someone had burnt something in the kitchen one of the staff opened the main door to let the smoke out out which meant we were freezing as we were close to the door. I asked a passing member of staff if we could ave some horse radish and could see by her reaction wasn’t sure if she could provide this and said she would check with two thumbs up to us! She returned with two pots of horseradish and was told there you are my darlings! Not language I think should be used to customers. We felt we were interrupted multiple times during our meal by the same waitress who insisted on clearing the table of extra wine glasses cutlery and one pin t reaching over me to take an unused glass whilst we were in the offer of our meal. We finished our meal had one more drink and then waited again for the bill still no one came to us, we had to get up and go over to the bar to pay a manger had to be called as the staff couldn’t apply the Groupon voucher and gave us the wrong bill. The manager did ask us if all was ok - we both hesitated and don’t want to answer but with other staff standing there we did not feel comfortable saying what we truly felt, we couldn’t wait to leave and thought the service was terrible, unfortunately we wouldn’t return because of our experience which is a shame as the regulars t looks lovely but the food wasn’t great and...

Me and my husband are regular visitors to Olive Tree in Chester and the food is always delicious. Last night we went out with my husband's parents for the Tuesday 2-4-1 offer on Gyros and Kebabs. We ordered 2 x kebabs and 2 x gyros (the kebabs are about double the price of the gyros). The food was great, but things became very awkward when we got the bill. We got charged for the 2 x kebabs (and given the 2 x gyros as the free mains). We had expected to pay for 1 x kebab and 1 x gyros. When we raised the issue, the waitress explained that the system gives the cheapest mains free in the offer. We said that if we'd been ordering as two separate couples, we'd have ordered the 2 x kebabs and the 2 x gyros separately, therefore that is the basis on which we'd like to pay. After a period of the waitress conferring with a waiter, the waiter then came over and said "I understand you're struggling to understand our offer". We found this to be quite rude and unprofessional - and had to then explain to him that we would like to split the bill in the way we'd explained to the waitress. He went away and took a long time to do this, but eventually did - so we paid and left. The staff members became quite frosty with us and clearly felt that we were 'pulling a fast one' - so we left feeling unvalued as (long-standing) customers. In all honesty, the difference in the bill was not what we were fussed about - we understood that the till system is programmed in a certain way and that different interpretations could be made of the offer when ordering 4 x items - but the attitude of the staff in dealing with it has really put us off wanting to return as they made us feel like freeloaders. In this day in age, offers in restaurants and bars are really important to people because everything is so much more expensive but people's wages haven't really risen to match - and it's wrong to make people feel bad for wanting to...