Rendezvous & Royal Oak Weymouth — Restaurant in England

Venue is nice enough and they have a reasonably good selection of craft beers but that was the only good bit about my recent experience at this place!

I booked a table for 8 of us (4 adults and 4 kids) through their website to watch the football on Saturday lunchtime and ordered a mini keg of 8 pints of Brewdog beer which I had pre-paid £40 for. This all sounded great I thought as I would have a guaranteed table for the football and not have to go to the bar for a drink during the football. How wrong was I!

When I turned up at the venue I was given a table as I had ordered but when I mentioned the keg I had pre ordered 3 different staff members were called over and no one seemed to know what to do! Eventually someone did manage to confirm that I had indeed pre paid £40 but I was then informed that due to an event that was taking place in the venue that day that "event" pricing would have to be applied and the keg would now cost £51 plus I had to purchase plastic cups at a cost of £1 each! No where on the website was this mentioned, the festival was not even advertised! I suggested they should honour the price advertised on the website or it could be construed as false advertising and I could take it to trading standards but I was told they couldn't put it through their system and the website is run by someone else which they have no control of so it wasn't their fault! The £40 price for Brewdog kegs was also still being offered via advertising boards visible all over the bar and on a number of the tables though!

Anyway eventually I was given the option of either paying the extra or using the £40 as a pre paid bar tab instead but either way I would still have to pay £1 for the cups and the now inflated "event" prices! I reluctantly agreed to pay the extra as I still wanted to watch the football and I didn't want to have to try to find somewhere else with an available seat 15 mins before kick off otherwise I would have gone elsewhere. I was then informed that they didn't actually know how to fill up the mini keg of Brewdog so I'd have to get individual drinks anyway and come to the bar each time I want one!

Having agreed to do this we then sat down at our table and my wife proceeded to order some cocktails on the app and soft drinks for the kids. The order went through fine but we were then informed that again there would be an extra charge for the cups which again wasn't mentioned anywhere on the app. On top of this they only had plastic pint glasses so the cocktails would need to be served in those! In the end my wife decided to get a refund and she and the kids went elsewhere instead while I and a friend watched the football and ran down our pre-paid bar tab.

Finally the last comical addition to this story is I received an email from Rendezvous yesterday asking how my visit was and requesting me to complete a survey about my experience but when I click on the link it doesn't work and...

Ordered some drinks on your application as advertised on the tables. These took a long while to arrive and when I asked a staff member they informed me there was a problem with the system and they would check. It’s worthy of note, the staff were not attentive in the slightest. Given everything is table service and your app is temperamental I would have assumed staff would be regularly checking if customers wanted any additional drinks or food - they were not.

I ordered food at 1945 which arrived at 2040. I had concurrently ordered drinks, the food order went through but the drink one did not, strange given they were on the same order?! The drinks came after the food - 60 mins for two cocktails in a bar that was hardly busy, with four members of staff was poor.

When the food arrived I asked the staff member what the delay had been - she informed me the tickets are printed downstairs and they were not informing upstairs. She then went on to say there is a 45 minute delay on food - like I should have known this? This was unacceptable, this was your problem to resolve. The food was plonked down, no can I get you any condiments - cutlery wasn’t provided either.

The chicken meal was not as advertised. I have attached pictures. Garlic tiger bread, soya bean and sesame seed dressed salad with dipping sauce was not provided. The nachos had the smallest dollop of guacamole and looked to be light on the cheese.

Again had to wait a few minutes for cutlery to the point I went to the bar and asked to see the manager. When she arrived I informed her of my concerns and she apologised and took the nachos away. Five minutes later cutlery was provided, complete with dirty knife. The nachos returned and were passed over another table for me to collect, it was at this point I didn’t want to continue with the poor experience this far and requested a refund.

It was at this point the surprising customers informed me of their frustrations. One couple told us they had to ask multiple times where their drinks were and so were finishing them and moving on, and another couple agreed.

I’m not sure what the issue was in all honestly, and COVID wasn’t an excuse in the slightest. Your staff seemed out of their depths in what appeared to be a fairly slow night from a customer perspective. Your venue was not busy and I dread to imagine what it is like when you are actually busy. Staff had plenty of excuses but seemed to lack any customer service skills.

Emailed a complaint with no response - not surprising given the lack of customer service skills experienced in the place.

Avoid at all costs. Please don’t be tempted by the empty tables - they’re empty...

Called at Rendezvous on our second night of our holiday. World cup football was on so quite busy. We ordered some food and was prepared for a wait, no problem. After the first half of football finished we were starting to get concerns, just then a waitress called at the table and informed us that our food had been left in the lift and no one noticed. A fresh meal was being made as we spoke and free drinks would be coming . Ok we thought, how long for the fresh meal. Only 10 mins we were told. 20 mins later a waiter walked round the surrounding tables asking who had ordered food. The table numbers were on all the tables. After he walked round half the pub I decided too approach him. Apologies were again passed, but we had our meal only an hour had passed all was good.... The chips were cold, the garlic bread was burnt, the onion rings were cremated, it was clearly a reheat. We have both worked in pubs and food services so decided too approach the manager quietly who again apologised and offered a free meal on our return. All good, and perfectly acceptable. Two days later we decided too take him up on the offer and called back in. It was the evening of England game so expected it too be busy again. Some tables were reserved for fans so we asked a barmaid for assistance, she informed us that some of the seats were reserved but if we found one without a notice on we were ok. Table found drinks ordered all good again, until just before ordering food a notice was put on our table by an employee informing us the table was booked. Argument was futile so vowing not too return we left... It is not the fact we were in our mind mistreated it is the fact that they had opportunities to correct their mistakes and still bungled. Customer service is very low on their list, customer turnover is very...