South Deep — Restaurant in England

I've visited this place with my friends this week. We decided to seat outside as the weather was nice and we had a dog. Plus sides: location, new outside spaces, free parking and overall layout. This time (of my visit) too many minuses sadly. Staff is lacking training and experience and general enthusiasm, which is too obvious for the place that is expected to be busy especially when the weather is good and there was enough people on shift. No one mentioned that there's no table service either for drinks or food. If you are there for the first time, you would seat there and wait for a long time... You have to go to the bar, order and pay straight away. On the tables they have numbers and q r codes that allows you to order online, however when you try to do it, only drinks menu is available and no option to see the food menu, let alone to order it. How they expect people to help themselves I'm not sure. After people finish their food the empty dishes should be taken away especially when people are still seating there, that would encourage anyone to make an additional order of something(these are the basics of hospitality industry). Once we finished our meals our dishes still where on the table an hour later, no one paid attention or made an attempt to try to take them away, very disappointing. Even in the fast food places staff do it(not mentioning fancy restaurants). ...We had to do it ourselves by moving them to an empty table near us. Afterwards we ordered some drinks and when we asked about outside heaters which where near to us, one person didn't even know they have them another one said that they don't work. Staff clearly doesn't pay much attention to what they do, whilst we were there one of them turned the lights off, we had to remind them that they have some people still in that area to keep the lights on. If the management thinks they could get away with such services for long, then it's even more disappointing. I am not looking forward to visiting this place...

Very disappointing experience, ruined dress and poor handling by management

I’m a regular customer at this restaurant and had taken my sister, who is visiting on holiday, to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Unfortunately, what should’ve been a lovely outing turned into a really frustrating experience.

My sister sat on one of the outside benches, which had rough splinters sticking out that completely ruined her dress—a brand new one that is now unwearable.

When we first mentioned it to one of the waitresses, she was very empathetic and kind. She even offered us a drink to apologise, which we declined as we were already leaving and feeling very disappointed by what had happened. Her response was appreciated , it’s a shame the same can’t be said for management.

The manager’s attitude was incredibly frustrating. We remained calm and simply suggested he get the bench fixed to prevent this from happening to anyone else. Instead of taking this on board, he dismissed it entirely, saying, “It’s an outdoor bench,” as if that excused the damage.

He repeatedly said he’d “ask the insurance,” but also made it clear he didn’t think they would cover it. Regardless, he kept asking how much the dress cost and implied we’d probably need to hand over the ruined dress, even though he doubted anything would come of it.

There was no accountability, no genuine apology, and no real effort to resolve the situation. Just an awkward and dismissive interaction that left us feeling unheard. Accidents happen, but it’s how businesses handle them that makes the difference. Sadly, in this case, they completely...

Very disappointing… again! I so wanted this to be a good venue, but I’ve tried 3 times now and none of the experiences were good. First time, waited ages to be served and then half the order didn’t arrive, no apology. Second time was slow service and lots of kids running around, ate and left. Due to the close proximity to our house I wanted this to be good, so gave it another go. We booked well in advance for our 25th wedding anniversary, I emailed (no reply) and called (no answer) to check on the day that we wasn’t sitting outside on the benches as it was raining hard. So we ventured down and was greeted a young girl who when I said I had a booking walked off, then another young girl come to serve us as the other one obviously didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. The girl then argued, yes argued with me saying well I had booked outside so it’s my fault, of which I said I didn’t , this went back and forth and she eventually said well it defaults to outside unless you request inside. I asked her does she really think anyone is going to be sitting outside in this weather and she said yes!!! Honestly I was gobsmacked at the surly girls attitude. Surely any decent venue would call ahead to check that you knew it was raining and did you still want your booking as you were seated outside, or at least answer your emails / phone! Sorry if you don’t like bad reviews and I can understand they can be damaging, but if you get it right you won’t get...