The Keys Yarm - Restaurant & Venue Hire — Restaurant in England

Since there has been no response to my private message, I am sharing the below to the public.

I’m hoping that this message reaches the events manager.

I recently attended the afternoon tea with the grinch with a party of 5.

2 adults and three children under the age of 6

After experiencing confusion over booking on the fb post, and paying an extra £6 on top of the ticket price… I hoped that the experience it’s self would be better.

I just want to make a point of saying that the grinch was really good and the children in our group were really pleased, so all was not lost.

However…. At £18 per adult and £11 per child, we absolutely did not expect to have to go to a buffet style set of boards for our food and drinks.

There are multiple reasons why this didn’t work…

With small children we were struggling to get any food for them and seat them while we went back for adults food… so the children had to come with us… which made it impossible to queue with the rest of room doing the same thing. And manage multiple plates of food.

We were the last table to be called up and the children’s buffet was practically gone apart from a few cheese sandwiches and a couple of cakes.

The adults buffet also didn’t have much remaining by the time we were able to go to that either.

There were no drinks offered for children at all, which is really poor. The tea made in the tea pots was cold.

It was the furthest away from any afternoon tea experience that I’ve ever had.

We expected to have a selection of food served to our party of five, which would have meant we didn’t have to leave our seats with 3 small children

There were bewildered people everywhere wondering where the teas and coffees were…

In the nightclub, there are no changing facilities for small children, which also made the whole experience more stressful.

I’m not complaining to get my money back, because my little one thoroughly enjoyed meeting the grinch, but as an adult I feel robbed that I’ve paid that price to stand in a dinner hall style queue and get scraps of left over food

That was an obvious feeling at the table I was sitting at. The other families on our table were also in disbelief.

The Keys is a long standing establishment and has a good reputation and I am genuinely embarrassed that I recommended this to my friend who spent her good money and attended with her children.

Hopefully, you value feedback and improve on what could have been a fantastic event, but I honestly can’t say this was good value for money.

It felt as though it was done to a cost saving budget and the food wasn’t properly portioned for the amount of people...

I organised a baby shower for my BF at the Keys in the Pergola and it was an absolutely amazing experience. Anyone who has organised any kind of event/occasion knows that while it can be tons of fun it's also lots of work and can be stressful. Kimberley and Elle (the event coordinators) made the process of booking/organising so much easier with their fast responses and willingness to always go the extra mile. The event itself was beautiful. I cannot express enough how stunning the Pergola is. The wisteria adds such a beautiful extra element to an already pretty space (I wish I'd taken some photos of the space before everyone came so I could upload some photos!).

The day of the event, Kimberley and Nadine helped make everything incredible. They were both so kind and so sweet and did everything they could to make things run as smoothly as possible. I've done a few more corporate style events and I can 100% say that Kimberley and Nadine are some of the best people I've had the pleasure of dealing with from events spaces. It's the little things like Nadine offering iced water to us as we were setting up (we managed to have the slightly cooler day after an intense heatwave), or the mamma and daddy-to-be being given a little treat, or that when the mamma-to-be mentioned how lovely the quiche was, getting an extra one for her. It makes a great event and absolutely wonderful one.

The food was fantastic. We had lactose-free/vegan guests and their food was just as tasty as the standard menu. Everything was prepared beautifully and it came out looking lovely. Again, Kimberley and Elle were great on being flexible and we ended up having a delightful afternoon tea with lots of tea and coffee (there was rarely an empty cup). Nadine and Kimberley were absolutely amazing about checking in and making sure everything was good and that we didn't need anything else.

Clean up, again, not one of the most glamorous parts of a party but Nadine was an absolute star. She was so kind and made even the less fun parts honestly a breeze.

If you're considering holding an event or even just a group dinner I would 100% recommend The Keys (especially the Pergola). It's a beautiful place, with lovely food, fantastic staff and a...

Leaving one star as zero isn’t an option. We booked a meal for my daughter’s birthday- us, her friend and grandparents. We waited nearly an hour for starters when they came to us and said they couldn’t tell which were the kids’ starters on the order. Kids finally got starters an hour after ordering. We’d ordered a beef stroganoff only to be told 45 minutes after ordering there was no rice to go with it so my mother in law could either have potatoes or chose something else. The waitress came back after another 20 minutes to tell me there was no rice to go with my kebab. I hadn’t ordered rice- I’d ordered corn and honey soy chips. I asked them not to bother cooking corn (we’d been in there for nearly an hour and a half and were getting quite bored) and just to bring out whatever was ready. There was nothing on the order that was right- my food came with regular fries, my mum ordered pork skewers, she got salmon and prawn. My skewers came with a flatbread (I’m gluten free) and no mayo as advertised. The food that we did get wasn’t great at all. We hadn’t even finished the food when we got told we had to leave because kids weren’t allowed in there after 9. We weren’t given the option of desserts. Various excuses of being busy, waiters leaving etc were given. Thankfully the bill was waivered because it certainly wasn’t...