Frankie & Benny's — Restaurant in Gateshead

Absolutely shocking. Frankie and benny’s is really going down hill. Nothing like I remember it growing up. Food quality is no where near as good but our main problem here is the service is horrific. Been to Newcastle eldon sq during the summer holidays and this time we deliberately came to Metro Centre (after having good service previously) as we had such slow service and were over charged at Newcastle but this time it was even worse! I honestly didnt think it could get any worse than the slowness of Newcastle! But it was! Imagine feeling trapped in a restaurant? That is how we felt! We literally were in here from about 1pm until 4pm (not even joking!) it took about 30 minutes from us sitting down for them to come over and take our order for drinks and then another 30 minutes for food order!(the server serving us looked like she was fed up and didn’t want to be there) she had a bit of an attitude when taking our orders as she wanted to take them in a certain way there was absolutely 0 personality from her, then it took about an hour for our food to arrive! They came out and gave 1 of us a starter and for some reason the rest of the starters came out with the mains! What is the point in that?! So there was 1 person eating and a bunch of us starving! We even had to ask where is our food and suddenly it appeared after we asked? It was like they had forgotten! It was honestly ridiculous and then when we were asking for the bill that felt like it took another hour! We decided against desserts because we just wanted to get out! We had to go and ask to pay because it was so bad and the waitress serving us had an attitude because we were obviously unhappy with the service and she spoke to us as if we were the problem! Making us feel bad for being unhappy with the slow and terrible service!! Never ever again will i set foot in another Frankie and Benny’s and quite frankly it wouldn’t surprise me if the place went out of business. They clearly didn’t have enough staff for a busy Saturday (the upstairs part of the restaurant was also closed) and the staff they did have just weren’t interested in giving a decent service because they were probably being paid peanuts and rushed off their feet! When you start being tight on paying staff and staffing your restaurant that’s when the service goes down. We were sat by the door and I felt like telling people not to bother coming in unless you want rubbish service and to be waiting ages for food and even ages to pay! Seriously would not bother and go somewhere...

I just don't understand how this place has survived for so long at the MetroCentre when Coast To Coast has had to close down! Coast To Coast provided a much nicer dining experience from their customer service to their food, it was all good! My friend and I had booked for breakfast here today, as it's the only thing we like to eat at Frankie & Benny's. Our booking was for 11:45 making it just in time for their breakfast menu which finishes at 12, unfortunately we arrived a bit late at 11:55 due to the traffic on the A1. When we got there we stood waiting to be seated for at least five minutes, making it 12:03 by the time someone came to take our booking reference. We explained that we were late and asked if it was possible to still have breakfast with it being just 3 minutes past the time and with it not being our fault that no one came to seat us therefore making us miss breakfast.

The girl serving just replied no sorry you've missed it. I said well it's hardly our fault that you didn't come over to seat us, so we walked out not really knowing what to do as we were looking forward to breakfast. The manager then must have heard us discussing it as he came over asking if everything was okay and we told him what had just happened, luckily he was understanding and asked the chefs if they would be willing to cook us a breakfast so they redeemed themselves somewhat. But the girl's attitude that was taking the reservations at the front of house was awful! All she had to do was ask her manager if we could have a breakfast but that was apparently too much trouble for her. I would have totally understood if it had been 12:15 or later but to knock us back at 3 minutes past is pathetic! Eggs benedict with bacon and a few hash browns isn't exactly the most difficult meal to make in the world now is it!? She wasn't very accommodating at all and just generally didn't seem bothered nor interested. We then had a nice breakfast but what I found astounding is at a time when the chain is closing branches left, right and centre how they can afford to turn down and disappoint customers, or is it simply because their main competitor (Coast To Coast) has recently closed down so they no longer care? Thank goodness they have some nice staff in this branch, it's a shame I can't say that about...

Had a last minute date night tonight after a busy day at work for both of us for a Saturday we hadn’t eaten. So off to the metrocentre we went. Now Frankie & bennies you get what you pay for food wise it’s standard not Michelin star. However I have to say the staff today were amazing I have a food intolerance that isn’t part of the top 12. Onions and garlic (yeh I know right the bases of everything) however when I explained the way the intolerance works alongside Ulcerative colitis the server was amazing. I know my limits for fodmaps. Today the server went above & beyond and I’m so sorry I didn’t catch her name. She took options of what I wanted and then went to check the ingredients in every part of my meal. I fancied pasta and I knew I would be limited. But we went with it and I was able to eat the mac & cheese with no problems. I also ordered the loaded skins with bacon. The spring onion I can eat the green part of the spring onion and she noted this down. So that I could eat them. Husband had meatballs to start and he said they tasted nice. He then got the chicken burger and to be honest with everything going on with me it’s no wonder she hit the wrong chicken burger on her pad. Once we realised this they asked twice if he wanted the BBQ sauce and he said no. We had no complaints it is what it is. When it came to the bill she nicely took off 2 of our 4 drinks which essentially half priced his burger. Which we weren’t expecting. Again so so nice of her to do without us asking. Atmosphere it’s a Frankie & bennys so it’s standard as all the others. There was a family next to us with little kids and it’s good it caters for families. Our food came piping hot and was delicious. Better than some of my Frankie & benny experiences. So thankyou to the server for checking every ingredient it’s made my week you went that far and were...