Glassblower — Restaurant in London

My wife and I were on our first trip to the UK and were obviously excited to have a proper plate of fish and chips at a proper English pub. Glassblower was just around the corner from our hotel so we thought this would be the perfect place to have our first dinner.

We were wrong.

First was the service. It started off ok, but definitely not the most welcoming. We dealt with who i assume was the bar manager. Maybe he didn’t like our American accents. We ordered our fish and chips and a couple beers and headed upstairs to wait for our food. My wife and I were having a lovely conversation, excited about all we were about to experience in the amazing city of London. All of a sudden from the doorway, said bar manager yells at us “Mayonnaise or tomato sauce?”. Jarred from our conversation, we looked up bewildered and politely responded “I’m sorry?” To which our portly balding bar manager responded, and I quote: “It’s a simple question”.

I’ll repeat that. Paying customers, after asking for clarification of why this man is yelling names of condiments at us with absolutely no hint of explanation, responds by saying: “It’s a simple question”.

Wow.

Folks lemme tell ya, if we were back home, I’d have had words for our balding, bespectacled barkeep.

We laughed it off like good customers and said no thanks and continued to wait for our food.

Now for the food. Our plates came in short order and we dug in. What we dug in to was quite possibly the absolute most bland plate of food I’ve ever paid for. I mean it was so bland we actually burst into laughter. The only salt on our dishes was the single pile of flake salt in the middle of the chips. We laughingly tried to move salt around the plate to attempt to season and bring some kind of flavor to the fish. We finished up a memorably bad meal knowing that it could only possibly get better from there. And it did. There are plenty of great restaurants in the Soho area, and you’d do well to try any of them. Just do yourself a favor and skip the ol...

I have never been treated so badly by staff at a British pub.

At 11:45pm on Saturday 9th April we were told it was last orders and we had 15 minutes left to order another drink, which we did. 20 minutes later we were told we had to leave. We said to the staff we'd like to finish our drinks and then we'd be on our way.

Despite our friendly manner, the staff began SHOUTING at us that we were not allowed to stay and that we were being unreasonable. This began with one Italian gentleman telling us we should leave our half-finished drinks and vacate the premises and ended with FOUR members of the team surrounding our table and shouting at us that we had to leave. One of the staff was so angry that he kicked his cleaning equipment and was throwing things around. This abuse persisted and we left 5 minutes later with one of our party in tears at how the staff had spoken to her.

I can't understand why a pub would treat its customers in this way. The staff had no reason to shout or even be angry with us. We asked to speak to the manager, who didn't seem to be around, and it seemed the staff were more interested in going home than anything else.

In a city packed with fantastic pubs, there is no place for service like this. I certainly won't be returning to this establishment and hope the management stand up and account for such poor...

Unfortunately our experience yesterday lunch time was not great. On arrival we stood right in front of a member of staff waiting to be acknowledged, but she ignored us. The man further up the bar said hello and we asked if they were doing food, as it seemed very quiet and no one was eating. He directed us to the menus, and on picking them up I realised they were really shabby looking and needed replacing as they felt dirty. We found a table and ordered through the app, which was okay until we realised the tables aren't numbered. We asked a member of staff for the number but she didn't know, but went to find out. We ordered two salads with salmon, and two drinks. The food arrived in small takeaway style boxes, we had half a salmon fillet in the small box. The size of the salad was starter size, certainly not enough as a main. The person bringing the food had to be reminded about the drinks order, and asked us what they were as she didn't know. We visited the toilets before leaving. Very cramped and in need of a clean and refurbishment. The staff lacked any customer service skills, they were not rude, they just didn't interact. Weird experience, we felt invisible, and the fabric of the building needs major investment as it is very run down. Obviously we wouldn't recommend and won't...