Slug & Lettuce York Riverside — Restaurant in England

DO NOT ORDER ‘AFTERNOON TEA’

(Photos included are the website afternoon tea and our personal photos)

First of all we got there, the security asked for an email prior to us going in to make sure we had a booking? We had an email booking, but none of our other parties did, so they had to wait about for the person who booked before they were allowed in? Minor issue, but one of the very many problems which occurred here.

Secondly we spoke to a guy re our seat, we had booked a flower booth. ‘Sorry you’re party isn’t big enough (7) so you can’t have a flower booth. ? Don’t let people book into them then? (Again a minor issue, but following this we had problem after problem.

Thirdly we sat down & ordered drinks. We got them after a reasonable while and they were good. Afternoon tea came, extremely disappointed. We have a photo of the website afternoon tea which looks lovely, it wasn’t anything like this at all. It showed sliced granary bread with lovely fillings in (bird cages) it looks very pretty on the website. Probably now, the fourth server of the day arrived with a large tray of under baked freezing cold baguettes. It looked really unappetising, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t even serve this at a very informal kids party. We all asked the staff why they didn’t come in the bird cages, she said ‘we don’t do them for large parties’??? Well why not? The rest of the food came on trays, we barely ate anything. The scones were nice, but again, very very cold. I mean you should really serve them warm? Or at the very least room temperature. This all took a long time to arrive. Was almost like everything had just come out of a freezer? It probably did? Nothing homemade, to be honest I’d go as far as saying it’s one of the worst meals I’ve ever had and the worst service. Please take note! Only one girl seemed pleasant and helpful (blonde hair), every other person was miserable, slow and very unhelpful. We also got different responses to questions we asked, as apparently we didn’t get the bird cages because they don’t give them to large parties, yet another staff member said they’d just ran out!?

Lastly, we asked for the bill TWICE, I asked them for NHS discount, I called them up to an extra person to the booking, I said we work for the NHS, we have a flower booth for afternoon tea, she said yes we do offer discount and yes it’s for afternoon tea. When showing our blue light cards the staff they said sorry we don’t. Come on!!! train your staff to give the correct information!!! We ended up complaining at this point and asking for the manger, the manager didn’t even show up, it was a polite girl who had to keep speaking to management and coming back. If we ask for the manager at least come to see us. We did then get some discount which was appreciated, but would have rather had an enjoyable experience over...

If I could give zero stars I would. We visited as a group of 9 for bottomless brunch. There was no clear indication of where or who we needed to see to be seated so it took a while to find someone as the bar was extremely busy. Once seated our server came to take our food order which one of the vegetarian options wasn't available. Once food was delivered to the table 1 order was completely wrong, 2 were inedible & the alternative chosen by the vegetarian was ice cold- on asking the server if this should be warm as it stated baked the response was yes, the food was taken away and replaced with another stone cold dish. Mentioned this again to the server who suggested ordering something else but at this point the majority of the table had finished eating and the option available was the inedible choice that 2 people had already left. Bearing in mind that 5 minutes after our food order was taken we were given the bill! Out of the Cocktails that we ordered a handful of them were the wrong drink. When we raised the issue of the food to a supervisor/manager we were told nothing could be removed from the bill without the drinks being removed for those people. At this point the service then rapidly declined & we felt very ignored & had to go to the bar quite a few times just to get someone to take our drinks order. For recompense of the food being inedible we were given 7 shots!! We were not asked if anyone had any allergies before these shots arrived at the table (1 of our party is allergic to orange- the shots were orange!) & we were 2 shots short for the size of the group. Giving away free shots when we're already on a bottomless brunch is a bit joke & insulting. Definitely would not recommend doing a bottomless brunch off of this experience. We have taken photos of the stone cold food that was served...

Went on Saturday 11.5.24 for my nephews wife to be hen do just family for a bottomless brunch. There was 7 of us in the party. Shown to our table and all is good. Having such a great time. Drinks flowing most of staff brilliant having a laugh and joining in then it went bit pear shaped. We asked for our next lot of drinks. Order taken brought back and was told they had only brought 6 as one on the end looked like she was drunk!! What the hell so I stepped in and realised she meant my niece a busy mum of 2 and a nurse who had been out with us for an hour and had half a lager. How rude that she was judged and so everyone else in the vicinity could hear. She said well I think she looks like had too many will she have a water? Now I get duty of care but seriously and how wrong to judge n make assumptions. We did get a manager who came to try sort the situation and defuse but said yes I’m sorry what do you want me to do?? Seriously. We were all given a drink as an apology but it did put downer on what was and had been a lovely experience. The food was lush and drinks flowed but one member of staff dampened the mood. Even the couple sat behind said what is she talking about and couldn’t believe what they were hearing. I think her name was Ashley. Compared to all the others she definitely had a different take on things and didn’t smile much. Lots of other hen dos in the main bar too may I add laughing and having fun!! Seriously be careful having a laugh. So that’s why I marked service down. Everything else was really good but that made us...