Loading Bar — Restaurant in Great Britain

Last month we had one of the WORST experiences i've ever had at a bar/restaurant. We have been patrons of loading bar for years, including hosting birthdays at the London branch, so in good faith, we emailed multiple times and contacted on instagram to discuss, and this establishment did not respond to us, and then BLATANTLY LIED on a google review response about the circumstances of our visit and our efforts to contact them. We have all the screenshots with time stamps for all these efforts, and they were clearly just trying to save face for future customers.

In short, save yourself the trouble and go somewhere else unless you want to be spoken down to extremely rudely by staff for querying why you're getting kicked off a table after spending £50 on food (3 burgers - could have gotten a meal at a nice restaurant for that price) and having been there for less than 90 minutes.

This place advertises as free to play games, but there are hidden charges that you are only told about when theyre telling you to leave for not spending enough money. This is not advertised ANYWHERE (I've been to the London one at busy times enough to know what the standard rate is at busy periods which is £5ppph, not £15 as we were told here, and we are always informed about this BEFORE we are seated). You have to give people enough information to make their own decision. We specifically sat in a dark corner table as we were told that we'd have longer here as no one usually wants to use this console.

None of this felt paticularly great when you have been victimised, especially as the only non-white person in the bar.

Loading bar, dont lie in your response this time, and refund me for my visit. I never intended to ask for a refund, I just wanted to discuss how you can improve the experience, but after the lies and the ignoring of our emails and messages once you realised we had a bad experience, I can't believe the customer service and I am so disappointed. I've probably spent hundreds of ££ over the years with you guys, and the staff are usually great. DO...

When I heard about a new Loading Bar was opening in my home city I was thrilled. Having gone to both London venues I had high hopes. Man was I disappointed. The decor has been half finished (I tweeted and emailed management and they said more was in the pipeline, that was about 2 months ago) chipboard and hanging wires everywhere, and don't get me started about the toilets.

I know a lot of places go for that unfinished look, it's modern! It's cool! It's punk! When you have seen the other venues you realise that it's lazy! It screams, we ran out of money!

We tried the food too. After getting through the confusing menu we ordered a burger and a drink. The food was bland and over priced. If I remember my burger, with a slice of cheese (that cost £1 too add) and a magners came to about £12/13. That is ridiculous!!! If it wasn't for the tomato sauce you wouldn't taste a thing.

We played a boardgame to pass some time as we felt awkward sitting at the table in an empty, lifeless, cold bar. We spent around 1.5 hours here. In that time I witnessed groups of 17/18 year olds, all playing videogames/DS... What got me thinking was in that time I never saw one of them purchase anything. The thought I get is that the young nerd crowd this place wants too attract will treat it as a community centre. How many 18 year old do you know would spend what I did on a burger and a drink? Haha 😂

The older crowd that actually have money too spend won't go here because it's too uncomfortable and it's nothing compared to the comfort, warmth and money saving they can do at home.

The winter month will be a struggle for this place. I won't be suprised if this place is gone in 18 months.

I said to the group I was with on the first visit I would give another chance in 6 months. I'll update this review...

Went back again to Loading with my friend, as I enjoyed my experience this Monday evening with other friends playing games etc. My second experience was a little bit different. Firstly the first server that we had was polite, friendly and helpful in sorting out a table for us.

The second server, the old lady with glasses and white hair was rude, unprofessional and not nice towards us. After playing the Nintendo Switch at our booth, we wanted to play Scrabble on another table, grab a few more drinks and let the other customers have a chance to use the Switch.

Instead, we were told off for "table-hopping" and said she told us about how they don't work as a normal cafe, restaurant and bar place. That you had to pay per hour on the same table in order to stay for longer. As they needed to keep track of bookings etc.

But this wasn't clearer to us as we assumed it was only the gaming table and didn't include the board games as well. There were 7-8 other people who had already booked a table with the board games, wasn't busy and several empty tables available, so we thought it wouldn't be a problem. Clearly it was to her and it really made us a bit uncomfortable about it.

Then when we got back to our original table, we were ignored for 40 minutes by the same server and still waited for table service and to pay the next hour of gaming. It was only until I went to the bar myself until I was told by another colleague that it was only table service for today and I went back.

She did eventually served us but things were still frosty.

Please BEWARE of hidden fees if you visit this bar, cafe or whatever do you call this place anymore, as Loading never was like this where they charge a table per hour even if its not one of the gaming booths. Its a...