Franco Manca Aldwych — Restaurant in London

My sister and I attempted to eat at this restaurant last week. My sister is deaf and she has as assistance dog that goes everywhere with her.

We asked for a table for 2 and were met by the manager of the store, who simply shook his head and pointed to the dog. When I asked him if he could actually speak to us, he said that only 'black dogs that help blind people' were allowed in the restaurant.

We tried to explain that although the dog is not a guide dog, he is still an assistance dog, however, he remained insistent we were not welcome. I tried to explain that the dog was legally allowed, we had the necessary paperwork to back this up and the dog, was of course, in uniform. We explained that we've eaten in that particular restaurant in the past and in other Franca Manca restaurants but he continued to say that it was the 'policy' of Franca Manca and that we were not allowed.

Our final attempt was to show him the FAQs on the Franca Manca website which clearly states that service dogs are allowed inside the restaurants. The manager remained insistent that this was referring to restaurants that have outside seating despite the black and white evidence in front of him to the contrary.

We have had challenges in past bringing people up to speed on the legal rights of people with service dogs, but to have been refused entry not because my sister has a service dog, but because that service dog wasn't a guide dog, is in essence discriminating against her because she is deaf.

Naturally we were appalled at the behaviour of the manager, not only at what he was saying, but his arrogance, rudeness and then his audacity to accuse us of bullying him. He simply continued to speak over us and then ushered us out of the restaurant.

I contacted Franca Manca directly on this issue, but have sadly, nearly a week later, heard nothing from them. Franca Manca, I implore you to speak to this individual and correct his understanding of company policy, but convey the strength of our feelings and impact that his behaviour and ignorance had. He epitomised the polar opposite behaviour I can imagine you expect of someone that works in a...

THE WAITERS ARE EITHER RACIST OR OVERWORKED OR BOTH. RUDEST, MOST NONCHALANT STAFF to ever set foot in a restaurant. I went yesterday with my friend. Sequence of events: Waiter walks over 15 seconds after sitting down, asking us to order. We ask for more time. He comes back 1 minute after we opened our menus, while we were visibly not ready and asks for our orders :) ANYWAAAY We repeated our orders 3 times, he still got them all wrong. ("yes we have iced coffee", surprisingly they don't) "we'll leave out tomatoes on your pizza", they did not and so on and so forth. The "post-pizza" desserts on the menu were brought over FIRST with the water and drinks. (???!!!!!!!) Mind you, the ice-cream melted. 🙄 Asked for sugar for the coffee, it was not brought over.😗 They refused to give us bags for the takeaway box because the "pizza box was too big"??? (is this not a PIZZA RESTAURANT?!??? Huh? And then the 10% optional service charge was automatically added on the bill after we asked 16 seconds prior that it wouldn't :)😀 (because not a single thing went right) The entire time, the waiters were rude, passive aggressive, blatantly lying and portraying that they obviously couldn't care less about being..waiters. I don't know (nor care) if they're being overworked or are just unhappy with their lives but please for God's sake, do not take it out on your customers. And do not gaslight them when they did not make the mistake!!! ("The #3 option doesn't have onions on it." The menu cleeeaarly stated otherwise.)

Eat anywhere else, London has plenty of options😮‍💨🙄👎 Unless you enjoy repeating yourself incessantly to nobody's...

Dined with friends for dinner. When we arrived, it was nice and busy. Eaten at the other restaurant any in Holborn so knew this would be good. Arrived and seated. Took some time to inform the staff that one of my friends was in a wheelchair so they prepared the ramp. We ordered drinks and they came very quickly. Ordered 4 pizzas and a side salad. Pizzas took some time as the kitchen was busy but that was fine. Food came a while later and that was the best thing of the evening! Perfect pizza and lush toppings! Fennel Sausage was delicious! Unfortunately we had to eat very quickly as the door was kept open by several members of the public attending the restaurant. The hostess wasn’t very pleasant and no one came to check on us through our meal. Eventually we finished and waited for our bill. No one came so I asked 3 times for the bill and eventually it came. Didn’t bring the salad so I asked for them to remove that from the bill. Hostess mumbled something and had an fed up look on his face. Removed salad and all split the bill by 4. Again, he wasn’t very happy about that. As we left, I politely thanked him for the food and mentioned it was just perfect. No reply or response from himself at all. Picked up the ramp and went into the restaurant. Probably would give more stars if the service from the...