Hub Box Exeter — Restaurant in Exeter

EDITED TO ADDRESS HUBBOX COMMENTS.

I have checked with the rest of the party and NONE of us recall any offer for a free round of drinks or discount on the meal. It never happened.

I would also reiterate that the complaint is in respect to how the matter was handled NOT the actual initial mistake which we accepted in good faith.

Interestingly I also left feedback on the HUBBOX webpage and Head Office have made no effort to contact us despite contact details being left and our experience clearly being a management issue. That speaks volumes as to the management attitude to customers.

As to the claim of being “mocked”. It is true one of our party was more forthright in responding to what we all perceived to be the manager’s weary and insincere apology but it certainly was nothing other than aligned to the tone set by the manager and we left quietly without fuss. In fact we are now even more firmly of the opinion that service delays are an endemic issue and management at all levels insincere, since it seems highly likely that the manager (inappropriately) took umbrage at the attitude of one of us so decided not to offer any compensation which would explain the “miscommunication” that resulted in us deciding not to accept £100 of free food! Really?

ORIGINAL POST

90 minute wait for food on Sat night (6:50 - 8:20) Manager (Kate) apologised after we chased her down for progress with our order but she had no explanation as to why her and her colleagues had passed us multiple times but not noticed something was wrong! She came across as weary and insincere. Offered to get our food to us in 15 minutes but no proactive offer of a free round of drinks or desert or anything which we thought was poor.

We should have realised the place wasn’t running very well when we were sat at a sticky wet table (by Kate). Our party of 4 have been HUBBOX multiple times previously between us and it is not unusual to end up waiting 40 minutes which is still poor. But 90?

The food is fine - no better than other premium burgers - but fine. Service however consistently sucks in our hard-learned experience and they are simply too unreliable to be an option if you have any other plans for the night. We voted with our feet because of the manager’s handling of the situation. Don’t go here, there are more reliable...

We are big Hub Box fans from Truro, so decided to try the Exeter restaurant on our way past.

The venue was beautiful and we were seated upstairs, table 40, which was a lovely first impression.

We sat at our table for around 20 minutes waiting to be served. We could hear the waitresses discussing our table, serving tables around us, but nobody came to serve us.

So we hailed down a waitress to take our order including an order of drinks: tap water, 1 Corona, milkshake & glass of coke.

The water turned up, with 2 cups (one with stains) but no other drinks. So we share a glass of water between us.

We waited for 20 minutes before we realised our drinks hadn't arrived. Neither had the food.

So we hail down a different waitress to ask about our drinks. She was kind and apologised, and then explained that the bartender had forgotten about our order or mixed it up somehow.

So, We wait another 10 minutes, and then half of the food turns up WITH the drinks, which isn't ideal but at least we have drinks and some of our meal.

The other half of our meal is delivered 5 minutes later (a burger).

The food was lovely - no qualms there. Hands off to the chef. Hub Box food is always amazing.

The waitress who initially served us (dark hair, shoulder length, curvy, mid-20s early-30s woman) then came back twice within 5 minutes to ask if she could do anything else for us, she didnt even acknowledge the mistake with our order and didn't apologise / seem bothered at all about the time it took for us to make an order either. In fact, I thought it was a bit of a joke. We had barely seen her for 45 minutes and then suddenly at the end of our meal, she cares about our table... I wonder why.

So we ate quietly, we paid & left, quite shocked at the service we received. I did not leave a tip, and was met with a very sarcastic 'thanks very much'.

I feel like a 'karen' for writing this review, but honestly, it needed to be said. We were very disappointed and will not be returning any time soon! We have never received this kind of...

Really delicious meal. Nice messy Big Kahuna burger with good quality meats and a soft bun. Chicken tenders were nice but not strongly seasoned or quite crisp enough. The korean bbq sauce was superb for dipping though! Generous portion of sweet potato fries to top it off.

The staff were great. Polite and smiley. It did take a little longer for them to take my order than it should've though.

Definitely somewhere I'll go again.

NEXT VISIT: Mouthwatering smash patties at their finest! I had a Triple Bacon Double Cheeseburger and thoroughly enjoyed every bite. The patties were so juicy and full of flavour as well as having an incredible chargrill around the edges. My Dad devoured his burger too along with the chilli beef loaded fries. I even had a a decent reaction from my Mum to her first beef burger experience. She'll never share my passion for them though! A brilliant place to go for delicious burgers and fantastic service.

Next visit: Delicious meat but too much mustard!

I went in for a Birthday burger fix knowing Hubbox has delivered me fantastic meals in the past.

I had they're Oklahoma Smash Burger with added bacon. The first thing that stood out was the amount of mustard. It was pouring out! I scraped some off the top bun to make it a fairly reasonable amount. Fortunately it didn't take too much away from the flavour of patties. They use some of the best tasting beef I've had in a burger and the patties were cooked beautifully.

I was a little disappointed with the BBQ dip. It had a slight kick of spice to it which made me think it wasn't what I'd asked for. An enjoyable meal but it could have been better with a lighter squeeze of that mustard bottle!

The staff as always were fantastic and provided efficient friendly service. Still the best place in Exeter for top...