The Bournemouth Stable — Restaurant in England

I've never experienced anything quite like it when eating out and hopefully never will again. After a nice relaxed start to our annual Christmas do, our evening soon turned sour. It seemed the "security" decided we were perhaps making a little too much noise (when sat in a group of 23, you're likely to make a bit of noise); not that we were made aware of this by the staff. A simple request to keep our voices down, etc., would have gone a long way. Instead, we had a pair from "security" sit themselves within an arm's reach of our table, one either side. This pair began to stare down members of our party. Everything about their body language and behaviour was extremely imposing and intimidating, and certainly spoiled the atmosphere (despite still being uninformed as to why they had sat beside us and were behaving in this way). After a long wait, our food started arriving; understandable as we were a large party. All but one of our party had received their food, and it took until most of the group had either finished or almost finished their food until one of the group stood up to ask where his pizza was (it was fair to assume it had been forgotten, given the time-lapse between the rest of the food being served). It turned out my friend's action of going to ask for his pizza was the opportunity the "security" had been waiting for, as he leapt to his feet and grasped my poor friend round the neck, reatraining him and begginning to drag him across the restaurant. This was a terrifying sight, and many of our party rose from our table to plee with the "security" to release our friend who was clearly in pain. I have never seen anything like this in any establishment, let alone a restaurant. And you certainly don't expect to be intimidated and then grappled with by overzealous "security" when you're out for a meal as adults in your 30s. After more pleeing, and eventual instruction from a third member of "security", my friend was released. After this, the "security" were ordered away from our table. All our party stayed in The Stable and my friend's missing pizza was eventually delivered to our table. I think it very unlikely that we would have been allowed to stay had we been guilty of anything other than trying to enjoy our Christmas meal. However, the manager, who had been absent throughout the entire event/evening, told all staff not to serve our table any more drinks. We hadn't been told this, and it wasn't until my wife and I went to get a drink some time later on that we found out. The staff were extremely polite and actually went to ask the manager if they could serve us as we appeared sober and hadn't caused any trouble, but the answer was no. The whole situation left a bitter taste and we decided to leave without having the puddings we had previously paid for; however, The Stable refunded us the difference. Ultimately, the evening was ruined by three things: "security" intimidating our group, "security" targeting one of our party physically, and the manager making decisions without consulting any of his staff on what had actually happened. With a friendlier approach in the first place, politely asking us to bring our voices down, and not employing intimidation tactics and brute force, the situation the "security" caused would have been avoided. Ultimately, there are no winners, as: we had our evening tarnished, The Stable missed out on the revenue from puddings and drinks, The Stable receive negative reviews online and via word-of-mouth, the doorstaff didn't get the reaction they were trying to provoke, and other guests must have also been intimidated by the incident. I was informed that the "security" are hired through an agency, and I requested that The Stable report this incident to the agency and conduct a proper investigation into these actions. It's a shame as the core staff we spoke to were very friendly, professional and sympathetic to our party. Regardless, I know that none of our party will ever visit any Stable restaurant again. I hope the management take this...

Srrived on time for 7.30pm booking. (contray to what that the manager later claimed. One member of the party did arrive at 7.10 as that was the timings of the bus. It took half an hour for someone to take our food order even though there were available staff as clearly they had been told to slow down service as the kitchen could not cope. I HAD ALREADY TWICE ASKED THAT SOMEONE COME AND TAKE OUR ORDER as only 3 of us were eating. , At 8pm we were told it would be 1/2 hour wait for MAINS which we accepted. However it took 1 hour for mains to arrive which were only a simple pizza. We chased the order at 8.40 to be told it would be 10 minutes when it actually took 20 minutes. On the basis that a commercial pizza oven takes 11 minutes to cook a pizza that means they would have had the pizza in the oven which was clearly a lie. If only they had been honest with the customer we could have made an informed decision. We would have paid for the drinks we had and left to have a pizza in the German market and had an enjoyable night we no issues or negative review. However they made a commercial decision to lie to their customer to try to retain revenue. I own a business and we equally have staffing issues which can not be helped and in such cases we are open and upfront that we can not provide the level of service expected and our clients are free to choose to go elsewhere. SO TO SUMMARISE I ARRIVED ON TIME AT 7.3OPM AND IT TOOK THE STABLE 90 MINUTES TO SERVE US OUR MAIN COURSE WHICH WAS A PIZZA WHICH TAKES 11 MINUTES TO COOK. THE MANAGER SAW NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. WE ONLY ORDERED A STARTER AS WE WHERE TOLD THE MAIN WOULD TAE 1/2HR . WE TWICE ASKED FOR OUR FOOD ORDER TO BE TAKE HOWEVER EVEN WITH AVAILABLE STAFF THEY TOOK 30 MINUTES TO TAKE OUR FOOD ORDER. AGAIN THE MANAGER SAW NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. I WONDER WHAT THEY CONSIDER AN UNREASONABLE DELAY...2 OR 3 HRS? Vern, General Manager at The Stable is in denial after I read his reply to my review on tripadvisor. Basically he tried to blame me as the customer for a 1.5 hours wait for our main. So to help him understand the problem he has I have gone through the trip advisor reviews and copied the below for him (I assume all the customers can't be to blame Vern?). I would suggest he spends less time watching his CCTV and more time actually on the restaurant floor sorting out the terrible delays so many customers have experienced! So I have copied below the l last 6 reviews so he does not accuse me of cherry picking. As he can see 5 out of 6 mention slow service. Is every customer wrong?Reviewed 1 week ago1.5hr wait for foo.Reviewed 5 days ago After a long wait, our food started arriving.Reviewed 2 weeks agoGood food & friendly service but soooooooo slow,Reviewed 2 weeks ago Not my cup of tea.Reviewed 3 weeks ago vGreat food but terrible service..Reviewed 13 November 2019 We had a longhorn pizza and a vegan hazelnut pizza, shame we had to wait a little while but the kitchen did send their apologies.They do seem to go through phases as they had a pretty good run on reviews but the reviews over the summer littered with the same slow service (maybe the manager does not have the experience to deal with busy periods as these are all in the summer). Whats the point of being on trip advisor if when customers leave reviews you just look to blame them. Maybe take the time to review your reviews Vern?Reviewed 27 August 2019Shocking service.eviewed 19 August 2019 greatfood let down by service.reviewed 1 August 2019 Service bit of a let down, Reviewed 27 July 2019Great selection of drinks, good but limited menu, not very attentive service Reviewed 9 July 2019 Slooooow very slow service even on a...

The evening that I booked for myself and 22 of my friends started really well. We all got there, got a drink and headed over to the tables that had been reserved for us as I had pre booked well in advance to make sure that we could all get in and enjoy out yearly Christmas Meal.

We were all having a good time, talking (maybe sometimes a bit loudly), but with 23 people all trying to be heard that's not much of a surprise. Unless you are a bouncer or the manager of this establishment. The food started coming out which probably could have been done in a slightly better way of crossing the people off the list who had got there food, but the team at the restaurant did a good job. I then noticed a bouncer sat at the table next to us and thought nothing of it and continued to eat my pizza. One of my friends then walked over to me as he had not received his pizza, at which point the bouncer stood up and put my friend in a headlock. I am not really sure why, but afterwards the bouncer said my friend tried to flip a table........ Ummm why would he do that? Seems like a strange thing to do over a pizza and no one else saw this table flipping attempt take place, even if he tried he severely failed as no one else noticed, if he was too weak to flip the table I don't think he is going to cause much harm to anyone.

Any way, then a few people got involved both from our party and the restaurant side. Another bouncer approached and got the more dedicated employee to remove his arm from around my friends neck (thank you).

There were a few different conversations that went back and fourth which resulted in the restaurant saying they would bring the missing pizza out and we all sat down to continue eating. My friend got his pizza and was happy enjoying his meal, as the food is actually pretty good and he was a bit tired from all the headlock action.

After all of this I thought it was probably best to have a chat with the manger, he was nice enough but said we were a bit loud and that's why the bouncer was there. I mean there are better ways to tell us we are being a bit loud than putting someone in a headlock, such as:

Not putting someone in a headlock Coming and telling us we were being a bit loud and asking us to be a bit quieter. A hand written sign Any other way that does not include strangulation or physical violence in anyway

After the conversation with the manager I shook his hand and we both apologised for the misunderstanding.

We then decided we didn't feel like the desert so they graciously refunded us each 1/3 or our set meal price to cover this and we went on out merry way.

But then we walked in to a pub over the road, where the bouncer followed us and started to point everyone out to the bouncers. They didn't really seems to care or pay much attention of him as they let us stay and some people were there until midnight. So we can't have been that bad, right? (Also a bit petty from the bouncer)

The whole situation could have just been diffused or not even happened if someone had just come and said something to us. We are not unreasonable, rude, violent. We were just there to have a Christmas Meal and a good time, not cause trouble or upset anyone. Shockingly enough we would have listened.

There were some very helpful staff at the restaurant, you do have some great employees. But also one very over excitable bouncer, who likes to throw his weight around.

So the moral of this tale is:

Talk to your customers. Don't assume someone has tried to flip a table Cross food orders off the list Don't put people in...