Pesto Widnes — Restaurant in England

Booked 2 hours in advanced on a Saturday after reading the reviews. This was a birthday meal. Seated in a corner next to a large group celebrating an 8th birthday. We ordered starters, mains and desserts together. Starter arrived and had to wait to get someone's attention to get a folk. The server was attentive during that first course. Then the server served the next table their birthday cake & more drinks. Then another large group arrived and seated behind us. In the first group the kids were well behaved throughout, but one woman with them laughed a millions times that was so loud even I couldn't hear myself talking, and I was shouting in the end !! During this time i asked the server to order the next course, when I wasn't quite finished with the first. For the next 30 minutes we had difficulty chatting because of the 'LOL' woman, I'd gone to the toilet, we tried to get the servers attention but she clearly didn't hear because she walked away from the noisy table. After a while I'd had enough, I didn't want the mains we were waiting for or the dessert. I wanted to pay the bill and leave because my birthday was ruined by the staff and the inconsiderate customers. I had to tap on the arm of the server who was being attentive to the older lady's birthday behind me. I told her I'm not happy it been over 30 minutes waiting and I don't want dessert and I want to go home because my birthday is now ruined. Her face had totally changed and said she'll get the manger. The female manger came over quickly. I told her what's happened and whats been ruined. She said she'd take 50% off the food and I think one of the drinks off the bill. I said are you sure, because I wasn't complaining to get money off, just that I want to leave and I won't be back. For context I visited often before it was pesto and for a works Christmas party when was pesto. The whole inside was different, all open plan, 1 small bar and open kitchens. When speaking to the manager the mains arrived, the noisy table was gone, and half way through my partner ordered a coffee. The whole experience took 2 hours !! We called for the server for the bill, booked a taxi, within a minute the taxi was there but no server about again so my partner went off trying to find someone to pay the bill. I'm so glad that I took a picture of the bill to add to this review, but I'd noticed the prices on the receipt once I was home and the promises from the manager didn't happen. I done the figures twice. We paid FULL PRICE for a bad experience on MY Birthday!! And the manager doesn't need to reply to this review by offering any other free stuff to rectify the mistake on the bill because I definitely would not be returning, or come to ruin another...

Went this evening with my 2 friends. Food was nice and the waitress we had was lovely and so attentive, however, whoever the woman was on the desk was not quite as pleasant, (Pink hair, glasses, for anyone wondering who it is if they visit). When we arrived at the desk we said ‘Hello’ and got completely ignored by her, after about 2 minutes of standing there in silence waiting for her to acknowledge us after just sitting on the laptop, she finally did. She asked if we had a booking and we said no, she put us on a table which was practically sat at the desk and just said ‘Is that fine’ and pointed at the table. Didn’t bring over menu’s or ask if we had any allergies as she did for every other customer who arrived as we were having our meal. We may only be younger but we deserve the same amount of service as anyone else as we are still paying customers. She was chatty and smiley with everyone else apart from us. Unfortunately, this is something that does seem to happen being a younger person going to a restaurant other than Nandos etc. I tried to get her attention and said ‘Excuse me’ several times to ask if we were able to move, but didn’t seem to hear. We ordered food and drinks, all was fine. When it came to the bill, I asked the waitress if we could get the bill and she brought it over. While our waitress was busy and we wanted to pay, I said ‘Excuse me’ again and asked for the card machine. She didn’t say a word, brought it over, and we said we’d all pay £21 each, which would result in them getting a tip, as we did have a lovely waitress. She made no communication through the whole thing as all 3 of us payed. She didn’t say anything when the last person payed and just walked away without saying anything; no thank you, no ‘hope you enjoyed’, nothing. She was extremely rude and clearly thought she was above us in some way. I have given a star for the food, and a star for the waitress we had, but unfortunately the extremely unpleasant manager (or whatever she was) has resulted in that being all I was...

We are stuck in this derelict city that past it’s glory, literally all choice of restaurants here is chain, so does this one, old tired pub redesign cheaply with poor decor, it’s pretty crowded when we were there, guess being the only restaurant at least not too fast food-ish family around not have much choice but going to this one.

Service is good, staff is friendly and we asked for quiet place she tried her best to accommodate us, food however such a Let down, so the high rating is very confusing, pasta is soggy and no taste, seems staff forgot to add salt but put tons of pepper, crepe is passable again with soggy shell thankfully this one the didn’t forget the salt, pizza is decent, 2 we tried both are good but it was soaked literally with olive oil.

Either we were not lucky having food prepared poorly due to busy eateries but still consistency is pivotal on restaurant.

If you are around surely this is better reasonably choice than eating in McDonald’s, but if you can pass and drive further don’t mind...