Ellison's of Low Fell — Restaurant in Gateshead

Update following owner's response:

As you will see below, the owner's response to my feedback tells you everything that you need to know about this establishment.

To clarify a couple of points:

1. In spite of what they claim, they didn't reply to my final email where I confirmed that the photo they sent of the vegan sausage roll didn't look anything like the one I'd been served.
2. I'd previously eaten the vegan sausage roll from Ellisons so was very capable of determining that the one I was given on this occasion was different.
3. I didn't realise that I would be required to produce - as the owner put it - 'evidence' of their error, so didn't feel the need to keep the sausage roll in question.
4. The sausage roll I was served was not like a Greggs sausage roll; it looked like, smelt like, had the texture of and tasted like, meat. I made this clear in my email.

The levity of the owner's response below only reinforces my point about their lack of consideration and concern for dietary requirements. I note that one of their other 1* reviews also mentions getting served bacon lardons in their vegetarian hash meal, so this is a recurring theme.

If you're looking for somewhere that sneers at and mocks its customers for raising genuine concerns, then this is the place for you.

Original review:

Terrible customer service and they don't take dietary requirements seriously.

As a vegetarian, the only two times I've eaten meat in the last decade was at Ellisons after being served it in what we're supposed to be vegetarian meals.

On the first occasion, I found lardons in a vegetarian hash dish. When I raised this with the manager on duty, she didn't seem remotely bothered - she didn't apologise and took my plate away without comment and charged me in full for the meal.

On the second occasion, I ordered their vegan sausage roll from the deli counter downstairs to takeaway. When I got it home and started eating it I very quickly realised that it was pork.

I emailed the restaurant and the manager who got back to me was incredibly defensive and rather than apologising and providing reassurances that they would investigate what had happened, didn't seem to accept my complaint and defensively listed all the measures they have in place to prevent things like this happening (which clearly don't work).

No refund was offered, even though I'd had to throw the item away and hadn't eaten it and the manager didn't even have the courtesy to respond to my last email and totally ignored me which is incredibly rude.

Their conduct around dietary requirements doesn't provide any reassurance about how seriously they take allergies (which would be far more serious if food items were negligently served) and I certainly won't...

I needed somewhere to kill some time by myself while my son was at an acting session, I frequent the area because of my son and always go for the easy option, chain coffee shop, 'Costsa fortune' and this time I wanted to find somewhere different, so where I could maybe grab something nice to eat and a real nice coffee or hot drink, I looked online and Ellison's came up, it was away from the main drag which is clearly why I haven't seen it before, but what a little find! I ordered myself a latte and a Brie, bacon and chutney sandwich, which they asked if I wanted toasted, yes!! I had a lovely little seat by the window downstairs, I didn't realise there was an upstairs, but apparently that's the restaurant area where its best to book for brunch etc everything was nice, sandwich was really tasty and the coffee was lovely too, I was able to sit for about an hour before I gave the table up which was booked in, the place filled up and there's was many people passing to go upstairs to the restaurant, obviously very popular, how could I have missed out on this little gem? Before leaving, with some cakes to takeaway obviously, I had a little look round the ajoining gift shop, there was pretty much everything you needed in there if you're looking for that special something, cards, jewellery, bags, homeware, toys and so much more, it was there that I got speaking to a lovely lady who informed me of their restaurant nights which are really popular and the fact that they've been voted top 15 places for brunch in the North by Living North magazine, which is no surprise really, now I know they have a larger menu to order from in a larger space upstairs I can't wait to try their proper brunch and I think I've told everyone I've come in contact with since about...

The service is so slow. Takes ten minutes to take drink orders, then another ten minutes just to bring two drinks. It took one hour from entering restaurant to receive food.

Food quality is generally good, but the chicken burger on the lunch menu had very little chicken in it mostly overcooked bread crumbs. I would have mentioned it to staff but impossible to get their attention.

Response to owners comments:

Hi,

I was at Ellison’s on the day of the review and the booking was under another member of the party.

Thanks for responding to my review. I do understand that fresh food will take time to be prepared, but 2 cokes shouldn’t take 10 mins to come to the table. There were also other delays that I didn’t mention, for example I asked for salt and pepper when our meals arrived and that took 5 minutes to bring it. Even the table next to us were complaining about the service time.

With regards food quality, it’s never been an issue on previous visits but the chefs should clearly be able to see that the chicken burger wasn’t up to standard. I maybe should, but didn’t mention the issues to the staff, but then your staff never checked to see if everything was ok with the meals and when I asked for the bill they didn’t even print one off, just but the card machine in front of me the the items on it.

I tried to be fair with this review as I’ve had many great meals at Ellison’s and would never want to discourage anyone trying it as it is a great restaurant, but recently the service has been getting worse and I think it is important to...