TGI Fridays - Rushden Lakes — Restaurant in England

We hadn't been to a TGI's for years so we decided it was time to pay another visit. When we walked in it looked promising. There were a few people sitting at the bar drinking and the restaurant area had a few people dining. However the venue was cold and it smelt of sewage. Hmm, nice. We got led to a table, sat down and were told somebody would be over soon to take our drinks order, then our meals. We perused the menu and was quite surprised how expensive it was, which isn't too much of a concern if that relates to the food and the service. We waited. Nobody came over. Eventually somebody saw me looking around and they strolled over and we ordered a wine, soft drink and two burgers. We waited again. No drinks arrived. There seemed to be no staff about. So I took a stroll to the loo, also to see where the staff were. The loos were disgusting. The two urinals were covered up and out of order. The two cubicles were unusable due to the state they were in. I had to urinate over somebody's excrement that was left. Either the toilets hadn't been cleaned or attended to all evening, or it was a dirty protest. I walked back into the restaurant and saw a couple of staff members talking in the kitchen and another behind the bar. I arrived back at the table and we still hadn't received any drinks. The only member of the bar staff was crouching down behind the bar on her phone. My wife's drink was sitting on the bar, my soft drink was nowhere to be seen. My wife had to go and ask the bar staff member for her wine and enquire where my soft drink was. "I have to wait for the waitress to pour that, I can't." What? Why can't bar staff pour a coke? A waitress eventually showed herself and realised she hadn't prepared the mysterious Coke. We got our drinks and were told the food will be over soon. My anticipation was growing. So was the strong smell of damp and sewage. The food eventually arrived. It was very disappointing. The burgers were cold and arrived with very little fries. These cost a few pence shy of £20 each. I was expecting a lot better. I had to go and find a waitress as again the staff had vanished. I expressed my concerns with the cold food and requested if we could have fresh, hot meals instead. A young lad popped over and apologised. "Really sorry about that, it's not the standard of food we usually serve. I will personally see that you receive fresh hot burgers." Great, thank you. We waited. New meals arrived. To our dismay they were even colder than the previous ones and the meat wasn't even fresh. Now my patience was really being tested. We weren't going to settle for that. We stood up and waited by the bar. The lone bar staff member ignored us. Another walked past and blanked us. Another walked past and looked with a confused face. I said sorry but we can't eat our meals. We explained the first ones were cold, the second ones were even colder and apologised that we can't pay for that. We were the ones apologising. She said "do you want to see the manager?" Yes please. We waited. Nobody came. We waited. We gave up. We walked out. No service, very poorly overpriced food and a disgusting damp, sewage smelling environment. We had to go to McDonalds and had much better food for a third of the price. I can understand why TGI's has entered administration. It wasn't worth...

It's a shame because when the correct food comes to your table, it's actually quite good... I already liked the place, all they had to do was serve in a reasonable time what was ordered and I would have been delighted.. So I'm not hating on these guys, they are just bad.

Unfortunately today's trip started with very slow service, no drinks to start with (when I say drinks I mean ice with a little bit of drink), when finally the order was taken, it took an age, only to be not what was ordered, attempt two for drink and we are away.. Unlimited refills, not true - they are very limited, but the staff who walk past, look directly at the empty glass placed purposefully at the edge of the table, only to walk by and ignore you, this happened multiple times, I was even sat by the kitchen doors where literally a server passes every few seconds mostly.. This is what they do in general from my experience which is unfortunate to say the least, and as it is not self service you have no control over this.

Then I ordered food, just something light as I was coming back later in the day for a proper meal with friends. I ordered the nachos.. I have been vegetarian since I was born some 40 years ago (hippy parents), so this is my diet and just how it is, so I ask for the vegetarian option nachos, which is cheese and dip on Nachos effectively. This is a hard dish to get wrong! But when I (finally) received it, it turned out what I unwittingly put in my mouth had beef on it.. I appreciate this is a bigger issue to me that others, but 40 yrs without the stuff, then TGI happens! I would sue if I thought I could - angry doesn't quite cover it. To add to this, if I specify vegetarian, what if I had an allergy - you can't trust these people to get it right. It's not the kitchen staff either, it is the servers who don't feel the need to write down your order and then mess up.

Aside from this glaring error, the nachos were burned.. I know.. It doesnt take a chef to heat up crisps! The second bowl, now without beef.. Burned.. I just wanted to eat something, so had a few, paid and left.

Not before seeing a server walk past a large smart phone that a customer had unwittingly dropped on the floor... She looked right at it and completely ignored it, no s*@ts given! So I caught the attention of a server and said about it, shortly after the phone was reunited with its owner, no thanks to the ignorance of the staff.

I had already arranged to meet friends later in the day for dinner, so carried on as planned.. Except no nachos this time! Only when we were seated at our table, we discovered a used blue plaster stuck to a menu.. I am absolutely disgusted by this place - there is no excuse, I won't be going back.

If you have allergies - don't go here.. If you have any specific dietary requirements - don't go here - if you have a desire to eat an a clean hygienic place - don't go here, if you want half decent service-don't go here!!

I shall be taking this further with the company, as it is far and away...

As someone that used to visit TGI Fridays frequently, I have to say I was extremely disappointed by this meal. Yes, TGi's is glorified fast food but it was always at a higher standard than the rest of it competitors.

Price-wise, it was as expected - just over £60 for a starter, 2 mains, and drinks. However, the quality and attentiveness of service really was shocking.

Perhaps, I have fond nostalgic memorise of TGI's coming here a lot when at university, but I think not. If the quality of the food at this TGI's is reflective of the brand, then there has been a huge nosedive in standards and what's deemed acceptable for the £ and customer.

We were seated quickly and a waitress came to take our order proptly. We ordered a solo portion of the boneless buffalo bites to start, a full rack of babyback ribs and a Meat the Beef burger for mains, and two drinks.

The starter and the drinks arrived reasonably quickly. However, the blue 'cheese' sauce was more akin to water than the thicker sauce of the days gone at TGI's. Overall, I wasn't particularly satisfied with the starter - it didn't seem like particularly good quality and the hot sauce was overpowering in acidity (is it still Frank's? - not tasting good if so).

I ordered a beer almost after finishing the starter as I wanted another to enjoy with my main. This is where things really fell apart at the seams.

Mains arrived - my ribs were missing coleslaw and i was told my waitress should have told me. Oh dear. I was offered onion rings or corn as an alternative - i chose onion rings which arrived after we finished the main courses. I also chased up the status of my beer order at this moment in time... The 'warrior' fries which I 'upgraded' to were quite literally swimming in a blue 'cheese' and hot sauce infusion. It was so intense and ghastly that I couldn't finish them. Photo attached.

The burger was worse, however. The key reason being that it was throughly burned and tasted of, well, bitter burned flavour. We had chosen to eat half of each other's food in the hope of enjoying the best of both worlds and 'enhancing' the dining experience. Well, about that...

Throughout this ordeal I was beerless despite requesting the waitress please have a look. It arrived after we caved in and gave up eating the slop we'd been given. A stark reminder that not even alcohol can drown out the misery of a unappetising, overpriced meal.

At no point did our waitress ask how the meal was or if everything was OK. Basic stuff at training I would have thought. She offered to bring us the bill before she'd cleared the plates - we'd been sitting there for 10 minutes after finishing our food at that point. Seeing this I paid up and we promptly left. No surprise, but we certainly won't be going back to any...