The Cheese Room Botanicals — Restaurant in England

OK. Let me first say that up until this point I would have scored this place much more highly. The food is amazing and the atmosphere is great. For this reason I still give it two stars because of this. BUT and this is a big BUT, the service we received today was so abysmal I had comment. To give some background, we are local so this isn't our first experience of this particular waitress. On a good day the service is poor when she's working and talking to friends who we were meeting for the festival after, they knew immediately exactly who I was talking about as well. If you've ever been sat rolling your eyes on the terrace... If you know, you know. Up until this point though. It's an irritation however it's worth returning for the food. Today though was something else. First of all we sat for ten before my husband eventually ventured inside to ask for a menu which was then bought out. Then when she came over we asked for a couple of minutes so we could get sorted. Fine so far... It rapidly went downhill from there. 5 minutes passed... Then ten... We started staring at her each time she came out as she studiously ignored us... Taking orders and serving every table around us... 15 minutes... We tried saying excuse me a few times as she walked past us to another table. It would have been laughable if it wasn't so frustrating. The worst part was that she even seemed to be serving the empty table in corner which she returned to multiple times. Goodness knows why. It was starting to get embarrassing... Other diners who could see what was going on started to smile as she literally served everyone but us, and one commented what on earth have you done to offend her! We were all agog for her next move... At this point we honestly didn't know, all we had done was ask for a menu and (nicely) asked for a minute as we had been sorting out the kids and were unsure of what we wanted ourselves. Eventually when she had gone once again to the table next to us I actually stood up as she walked past yet again and looked me in the face as I asked please can we order. She literally looked right at me and continued to walk. It was unbelievable. You couldn't make it up. At this point my husband and myself have had enough. We start to pack up to leave. So she then picks this moment to come and take our order. We said no we are leaving. She then had the audacity to get annoyed with us. I said to her that we had been trying to get her attention for twenty minutes and she's just totally ignored us. She then to quote informed us "we aren't the only people there" this was too much. We honestly don't mind waiting for food. We expect a wait for food especially on a bank holiday. This was not the issue... But what we experienced was literally her ignoring us and serving EVERY. OTHER. TABLE. AROUND US. We honestly don't know why. The only thing we could think of was maybe it's their way of discouraging families. At this point we just wanted to leave. We hadn't even managed to order so there was nothing to keep us. This waitress still seemed intent on arguing with us though. I've never known anything like it. To put this in perspective. I rarely leave a bad review on a place, look into my other reviews on Google by all means to give more legitimacy to this one. We weren't rude. We weren't self entitled. All we literally wanted to do was order some food and not be continually ignored even when directly asked. I really do feel that this company would benefit from reviewing staffing, sending in some secret shoppers etc because we all know a company or business is only as strong as its weakest link and in an otherwise fabulous restaurant this really...

Would have been perfect bar the service of the barmaid "Naomi '( bigger lady who may be a manager but her customer service requires some work ") Being a Saturday night, my friend and I would not normally visit Rochester high street due to the amount of "younger people" , noise and drunkeness. Nothing wrong with that but for the service we received was annoying bearing in mind we were spending our hard earned money. Today was an exception due to my friend receiving some bad news. We went to George Vaults and then, as it became quite busy and loud came to the Cheese rooms for a cheese board and another drink to end our emotional night. The server Naomi (who assumed my friend was too drunk to be served or believed the establishment to be too good for us !) said that only one drink would be served given the state of my friend. Albeit she had slurred a few words she was not in a complete drunken state and was not loud or falling over....basically not in a state I would have been overly concerned about. This "server' decided she would make my friend feel worse than she already did. she wasnt polite and had no customer service to her ! Btw we had ordered food and water too (showing responsibility ). We were fine with this and ate our cheese board, drank our drinks with no police or assistance required ! And paid for what we had. At the end my friend spoke to "Naomi" to advise she made her feel bad by her actions. I don't think I'll bother going there again because of this woman's actions even though the drinks and food were good. Customer service is a big thing for me and if you are worried about how your establishment looks clean your toilets properly !! I don't like leaving bad reviews if it isn't required however I believe you should always speak to someone first before assuming. That's just basic...

This place is to die for, however I do have a complaint that I wanted to avoid saying but I unfortunately have to.

Firstly, the food is out of this world. The raclette potatoes are genuinely one of the nicest foods I have ever eaten. I've not stopped thinking about it since. Our sandwiches were so tasty and I'm really excited to come back to Rochester so we can visit again.

Now for the staff. Firstly, your man Ragnars (I hope I spelled that right) needs a raise. He started his shift after we sat down and that guy did not stop moving. Cleaning tables, serving food, asking customers if they need anything etc. This was unfortunately brought down by your young staff member who I believe is called Julie. That's the name that was on the receipt but I might not have the right name. I really didn't want to name and shame and I've been sitting on this review for almost 2 weeks but something has to be said because it changed the atmosphere, as well as our frustrations. In the 45 minutes we were in the restaurant, I watched her perform about 3 tasks and one of them was bringing the bill to our table. The rest of the time she stood by the bar and didn't move, mostly talking to the other girl behind the bar who was on her phone. And it's not like there wasn't anything to do, it was a full restaurant. I was in hospitality for 5 years and it drove me crazy watching this when we wanted extra drinks and couldn't catch anybody's eye despite her being right in front of us. Ragnars came to our rescue. I don't know if she's new, or doesn't get paid enough, but something needs to be...