The Beacon Lounge — Restaurant in England

DO NOT HIRE The Beacon Lounge REDCAR FOR FUNCTIONS

I paid a £100 “refundable” deposit which has been withheld from me - even after explaining my situation as a new mother with minimum income.

Their reasoning for this is that my party was “abusive” towards staff, which for anyone who knows my friends and family will know this would never be the case.

The issue was that at 11pm, my “private function” was made open to the public due to many of my guests going home. This would have been fine, even though it wasn’t explained to me first. I was told I would have the room to myself from 6pm-12am, providing I had 35 guests for “majority of the night”, which I did.

However, a young group of girls and boys came into my room at 11pm and began to physically fight with one another, screaming and swearing disruptively. I kindly asked a member of staff to ask them to leave the room which they did and I thanked them for. I have explained this to the manager at The Beacon repeatedly and apologised if they believed that any of my party were abusive but again emphasised that this did not occur from any of my guests.

All I was informed of before booking my party was that “the deposit is returned from the next day as long as all has gone accordingly along with the number of guests being the majority attending, no damage etc” (as you can see in my message below).

I and my family members have had multiple phone calls and face to face conversations with the management explaining the issues to try and resolve this and in return have been treated disgustingly and told that my deposit will NOT be getting returned.

I am absolutely gutted that my 30th birthday, that I enjoyed so much, has now been tainted - especially after my guests were actually helping the staff clear plates of food, and thanked them multiple times for their customer service on the night.

DO NOT use the beacon lounge Redcar for...

Let's start with the good stuff - the lounge had a great atmosphere and really good music. The bar staff were lovely, and the view is absolutely incredible. It was clean, well-decorated and a very chill atmosphere.

It's just unfortunate that the food was absolutely disgusting.

The chicken wings were overseasoned, the meat was of poor quality, and they were totally burnt. They were completely inedible, so so spicy with no other flavours to balance them out. Even the cheese sauce couldn't save them and I'm a firm believer in "anything is better with cheese". Unfortunately that doesn't extend to cheese that's been microwaved.

The loaded fries were a complete mess, the melted cheese had solidified in the microwave so it was just a large lump of once-melted cheese, dumped in a messy bowl of condiments, resting on a handful of soggy school canteen potato skins.

The pork buns were actually alright, it's just unfortunate that I paid £4 for 6x1cm cubes of pork, two steamed buns and about three salad leaves.

The menu lacked variety. The actual physical menu was almost impossible to read because of that teeny weeny hipster font. The teenager who brought our food from the kitchen had only "did you order this?" to say and gave us no cutlery. I don't know how you'd eat what was essentially a bowl of salsa, solidified cheese, guacamole and sour cream with your hands but I guess he wanted us to give it a go.

It was a big swing and a miss for me - lots of potential, but let down by the food. The price point was pretty ambitious for the quality of food we received. It was such a shame really, I wasn't expecting that we'd get Michelin-starred food, but for such a well-decorated restaurant with a nice aesthetic in a great location, I expected something...

Feels more like a bar than somewhere to eat. The best thing about this place is the view.

Staff seemed pretty inexperienced. We were invited to choose whichever table only to find most of them had reserved signs.

Ordered coffee while we decided what to eat, as we waited at the table were quite rudely told we had to pay for them first. No problem, would have been better to tell us at the bar.

Limited menu and we chose toasted sandwiches. Not brilliant but better than the burnt coffee. The ham was described as ‘finest quality’ but this is nonsense. It was big catering pack reformed muck. Please see the picture. All the ingredients seemed cheap. The ‘salsa’ was a spoonful of tinned chopped tomatoes.

Interesting owner’s response below, clearly mixing me up with other unhappy patrons. Maybe this attitude is why this venue is so unwelcoming and badly run? I won’t be back to try...