Toby Carvery Southend — Restaurant in England

Although the food was par for the course for Toby I would have expected more elsewhere, we were greeted by I believe the manager who greeted us with hello babe you got a table booked, now I know that you may want us to feel comfortable but I am sure that “ hello babe “ is not in the Toby book of welcoming guests, once it was confirmed that we had a reservation we continued to be referred to as babe, we were asked were we wanted to sit and was led through the restaurant we explained the type of seating we wanted and was pointed in the general direction of what we wanted, on choosing we noticed a more suitable table and went to inform them of our decision to move and was told that it didn’t matter where we sat as it was all the same to them. A waitress then took our drinks order which arrived, however our grandson who has a disability required a straw to assist him with his drink and this was requested and we were told certainly be right back, I went and got my bottomless cherry pepsi, unfortunately the cherry syrup flavour was missing from my drink so I went back to the bar and pointed this out and was told that no it’s not missing because the machine would say it had run out, I told them that it definitely didn’t have any flavouring, to which one of the waitresses went to the machine to get a drink to taste on doing so she confirmed my statement by telling the other members of staff who were at the bar “he’s right there isn’t any flavouring “ I felt like saying thank you for proving that I am not a liar because that is what they were basically accusing me of being, I was told that they would sort it out and bring my drink over, whilst there I asked about my grandsons straw and was told that they would bring that over with my drink. The carvery opened for service about 10 or so minutes later and one of us assisted our grandson whilst the other got there dinner, we then went and took our seats and I went to ask where the toilet was, whilst at the bar getting directions I asked about my drink and grandson’s straw and was told “ oh we got waylaid and forgot “ I fail to see what waylaid them as up until this point there were hardly any people there, when I returned to the table my drink and grandsons straw had arrived but we had to chase the pigs in blankets we had ordered, guess what… forgotten again, when they finally did arrive which was very near to the end of our meal they were exceptionally hot and we had to wait for them to cool before allowing our grandson any of them, but this didn’t matter as they were obviously not fresh and had been microwaved to heat them up as the inside was as dry as a bone with no moisture at all, then came the final part as I have said our grandson is disabled and as such can take his time when eating but it was very obvious that he was still eating when the waitress came over and said we all finished then and started collecting the plates, we had to pull our grandsons plate back and say he wasn’t finished yet. And for these reasons I will never return to this restaurant nor will I recommend to...

Poor customer service. Abby was very rude. As a family we were banned from Toby Carvery for sharing a grievance about the way they treat their customers. I was left waiting with my newborn for 15mins for someone to get a key to open the baby change. My husband paid for and brought our food to the table in the meantime. We realised we didn’t have cutlery so we asked for some and before they’d give us cutlery we had to answer if we’d paid for the food?!!! Naturally my husband was taken aback and paused before answering and because he hesitated she said she’d ask at the counter to ‘check’ that we’d paid!! How embarrassing! As if we’d have the audacity to walk in off the street, serve ourselves food without paying and then ask for cutlery to eat it! Seriously, we’re not that hungry! When we asked to speak with the manager after we’d had our meal Abby was very passive aggressive and answered ‘we’re all the manager’. We went on to explain that we deserve an apology for how we were treated, that the staff should have remembered to hand over the cutlery at the point of payment to avoid customers being asked embarrassing questions in public. Abby said apologise for what? It’s Toby Carvery policy to ask that. I said don’t you think you could’ve upheld Toby Carvery policy in a more discreet manner for the sake of the customer? Could you not have apologised for forgetting to give the cutlery at point of payment, offer to go get it and along the way just check with the counter staff that we had indeed paid if you were uncertain?? Her response was had you not hesitated when we asked you if you’d paid we would’ve taken your word for it. She completely missed the point and went on to say that standing here discussing this was more embarrassing than her asking the initial question. Offended I said more embarrassing for you at this point because we’ve already been embarrassed. She then said we were standing in the way of other customers and that she has to get back to work and asked us to leave. We said we were very disappointed and that we were leaving anyway and that the service left much to be desired. Abby took it personally, said she didn’t have to be spoken to like this, apparently I was patronising, my husband was aggressive (how? At this point he was holding the baby and we were their with young children, I’m a primary school teacher, I cannot be seen as taking part in aggressive situations) she banned us from ever coming back to Southend Toby Carvery. If you ask me Southend Toby Carvery would do better without Abby or have her re-trained in...

I had the misfortune to visit your “restaurant” on a Monday 30th September for dinner for my children’s birthday. After being ignored completely for 25 minutes after being brought our drinks, we got up from the table assuming we had to order from the bar. When asking someone if we had to order at the bar, we were told our waiter would be over. We then placed our order, which is when I was told she had to check to make sure they had a Yorkshire pudding wrap. They did not. I changed it to a “brioche” bun. A few minutes later I was told that they had no cheese. So I was forced to choose something on the menu that I didn’t want. Also expected to be served in a “brioche” bun. What arrived on the table looked like something I would feed a dog, served in a bread roll and covered with a chopped up sprinkling of disgusting tasting garnish. I then had the pleasure of sitting by myself with my bread roll while the rest of my party queued for 25 minutes to get their food from the carvery. My children went to the ladies toilets and came out saying there were bugs flying around in there. When I went to investigate, I was horrified to find a blocked toilet - door unlocked, no “out of order” sign - filled with small flies flying around like something had died down that toilet. At this point, I just wanted to hurry up and finish our meals and leave. I did not enjoy my bread roll filled with cold meat and topped with lawn, but I ate it out of sheer hunger. When we received the bill we noticed that we had been charged for an £8.29 meal we hadn’t had. We were a party of 6 and we had 7 meals on the bill. We questioned this before paying and were told it wasn’t an error and that it was one of our children’s meals. We explained there were 6 of us and they’d added 7 meals to the bill and it was agreed they would take off the error of £8.29 added to our bill, however no sincere apologies given. So not only was it the worst dining experience I’ve ever had, but I almost paid more than I should have for it! Our visit here ruined my children’s birthday. Never been here before. Never will...