The Optimist — Restaurant in England

Went for the food, stayed for the drinks & the business model. This is a great place to share a drink, big space and good service, you have to order & pay at the bar and they will bring the food to your table, we ordered a pizza and a couple of prepared drinks (don't remember the names), the pizza was okay, a little cold already when it was served to us, taste was okay and nothing more than that (but very good for pub's food in my opinion since this places are more for the drinks than the food) The drinks were very tasty and the service just excellent, they are polite and very fast preparing your drinks. When we got the pizza we were concerned that we didn't get napkins nor plates with it, then we realised that the straws in the drinks are made out of recyclable/biodegradable material and that if you ask, they will give you napkins, plates or whatever you ask for, but they don't leave them in the tables so you don't waste them, and I just loved that business model cause it helps a lot to reduce waste.

I really recommend this place to...

Visited 28/3. Drinks, starter and 2 mains, service was appalling. Only 1 staff on the bar, looked only to be 1 person on the floor as far as I could see. Took an empty booth with empty glasses and dirty plates as no option. Ordered on the app, no problem. Food took about 25 min to arrive, nachos, burger, pizza. Staff brought drinks, didnt remove dirty plates etc. Then brought 2 plates of food, left without removing dirty plates, brought 3rd plate a few min later, had to ask for him to take the plates. Asked for some cutlery, none ever arrived. I wandered around the place until I found the last 2 knives in a tub and a couple of forks. Pizza and burger ok but the sharing nachos were so smashed up you had to eat with a fork, there were no complete tortilla chips in there, only small broken peices and crumbs. I wouldn't recommend this place. A shame as I visit the peacock in kettering regularly and the food and service is great, I was expecting the...

We as a table paid separately which I understand sends the tickets down separately because of this none of us ate together and the first/2nd/3rd person had eaten before the rest came out. If they had waited it would have been cold. This could have been alleviated by the server telling the chef we were together. Also a few times the server had to tell us there was no rice for the curry, no eggs for the gammon after we had ordered. This again could have been alleviated by identifying this before people order. Lastly I had to ask for another batch of scampi to be cooked as mine was served to me actually burnt and hard and it should not have been served like that. I've eaten at the Optimist many times before and its been amazing but this time we were very disappointed in the quality of the food, and the messy arrangements of getting...