JRC Global Buffet — Restaurant in London

My family and I visited this place to celebrate my niece's birthday. We were a group of 14 people. The 1st red flag was the front of house staff refused to let the majority of us pay and to be seated because 5 members of our family were stuck in traffic. Instead we were made to wait in the waiting area for 30 minutes! Then when the rest of the family came we all had to go back to the main reception to pay. As paying adults, we told the Front of House how many children were in the group, including the Birthday Girl/ my Niece and they insisted that all the children had to stand up against the wall to get their height measured against the notice on their wall! WARNING: if your child is taller than 150cm, they will have to pay the Adult price! Ridiculous. I paid £36 for myself and my 10 year old son.

The 2nd Red Flag was not being told that drinks had to be paid for separately. To get a drink, you need to buy a red cup for £3.80 in order to be able to get basic juice, fizzy Vimto etc from the drinks station which is near the desserts station. Needless to say with many children in our large group, we went to the other drinks station and were told that we could use the glasses we used for our water and then these glasses could be used to fill up with drinks from the other drinks station. So my son (10 years old) and one of my nephew's (8 years old) went to go a get a drink from the self service drinks station. They both returned looking upset because the staff there told them they couldn't have any drinks! The staff (who confirmed that using a normal glass was fine) was approached and they confirmed it was ok. Minutes later a member of staff with a headset on, approached our table and said that none of us were allowed to get drinks if we didn't have red cups. His tone was rude and so I kindly referred him to his colleague that told us it was ok. The member of staff asked if I was sure that his colleague said that! I referred him to his colleague again and a few minutes later he acknowledged that his colleague had said that we could use the glasses but we were not allowed to have any more drinks unless we all purchased red cups! Total stupidity with the mixed messages.

The 3rd red flag was seeing a member of staff use utensils for the thinly cut cucumber station (where the noodles, rice etc is) and pick up pieces of cucumber that had fallen on the surface outside of the main serving dish and proceeded to put them back with the rest of the cucumber in the serving dish! Even my youngest nephew (who is 5 years old) asked why the member of staff was putting the food that fell back in the serving dish!

The final red flag was being asked by a member of staff to vacant the table soon because only 20 minutes was left before they needed the table. We looked around and it wasn't busy or full to capacity which was odd because it's a peak period where children/ young people and their families are on summer holidays/ annual leave).

The food was varied, but hit and miss - some food was piping hot with steaming serving stations and others were not and more luke warm.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend, it wasn't worth paying £36 for myself and my 10 year old son. One of my sister's ended up paying £60 for herself and her two children! You're better off spending your money elsewhere - there are better places to eat with better customer...

My husband wanted to come here for his birthday after reading these reviews I didn’t have very high expectations of this place. BUT we went & honestly it was about 70% good, not many restaurants are bold enough to try this all you can eat buffet style and maintain it so I give them props for that. Pros: Most of the food was actually pretty good, some did make me go “eww what’s that” but the good thing is you can always go try something else and honestly most has flavour and was quite tasty. There was also a good variety.

Con: Children over certain height pays adult price. Lol what?! My 10 year old is almost as tall as me & I'm 5ft 5in. Does that mean she eats like and adult? Absolutely not, her Dad is tall so she’s genetically inclined to be. In fact all she had was a couple pizza slices. This was so disappointing to me. The lady at the front was like “it’s our policy”. Oh ok then I suppose that makes it better?

Pro: Birthday meals are free. This was the only absolution I had after paying for my child to eat 2 pieces of pizza - the fact that I didn’t had to pay for my husband and he had a feast. So I just considered it to be that o paid for myself & my husband and my daughter ate for free. Otherwise I’d be livid!

Con: £3.50 for refillable drinks? Ok, that’s not bad. But why the hell are the glasses only slightly bigger than a shot glass? Huh? Do you know how many times I’d have to walk to that drinks machine to even get £3.50 worth of coke? Smh. Also, why is there only one drink station when the place is relatively big? This is not Nando’s! we were seated all the way at the back and it was really difficult to keep going to the front every time we got thirsty, also the front is quite busy so the likelihood of you bumping into someone with your drink in hand is very high. Maybe put a drink station at the back too?

Pro: The overall environment was nice & clean, staff takes away your used plates regularly or there is a table you can take them to yourself. Staff didn’t seem unapproachable and the guy that gave us our table was quite nice.

Con: The bathroom had a weird scent! Could quite put my finger on it and it wasn’t dirty or nasty at all but it just smelled weird, and not in a good way.

Overall, I did enjoy my experience here. Would I return? Probably not, a part of me hated the idea that a group of people are being discriminated against because they are genetically taller than others. I only have one child that’s affected but I can’t help but think about families with more than one kids who have to pay adult prices for them to eat. It’s an unfair policy, just pick an age & stick to it. That way it covers everyone and not just some people. This and the drink situation are the only reasons for not...

Treated POORLY.

I think that’s ultimate issue I have with the visit, the food was okay, typical style buffet, all you can eat, a nice variety of food but customer service was abysmal!

I was celebrating my 23rd birthday with family and some friends but really was let down in how was treated by staff. I felt no one there who worked there cared it appeared no one served with any sort of smile and the was a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy by the staff.

For example a bit of bureaucracy was when my sister and her boyfriend was about £10 short and wanted to pay the rest of the bill through card payment method and bare in mind they do accept card and cash but the person who was in-charge of front of desk refused to accept this and effectively had to use some of my own cash to pay for the entry even before sat down to eat.

It comes across as unnecessary and complicated. Other establishments I’ve been to allow this if you want to split the payment 50% cash or 50% card. They allow it. So I don’t see why the person who was front of desk needed to take issue with this. So that’s not a good start.

Then when we lit the candles and the sparkler after we done the celebration bit and put them out as they/you do, after this was approached not once but twice by members of staff.

I would consider candles or sparklers on a cake rather normal, I’ve been to other places in the past and not a problem but for whatever reason these two members of staff took issue with it and after the fact it was done and dusted and past issue. It just uncalled for and unnecessary and rude.

I am trying to enjoy my birthday, enjoy my time out with loved ones, family and friends, yet these staff appeared to want to butt the heads in and try to ruin it, to ruin our time. I have made a formal complaint over it online through the complaint system they operate and who knows what the outcome of this will be but way I look at it’s £25 a head and I think one can reasonably expect paying that price to be treated with courtesy and respect and maybe even a warmer greeting and smile!

It really wouldn’t go without a miss. Our group last night would’ve at least minimum contributed £222.80p to the restaurant in total and what did we get? Poor below par abysmal customer care and service. Really disappointed. And the food was okay as I said, some dishes was nice, some weren’t as nice, the fresh grill is a feature I do like and enjoy but ultimately when it was ruined some what by staff unnecessarily picking or not serving with a smile or being bureaucratic over how people pay then ultimately it lets it down. Plus also our special requests to have cake stored in fridge just seems like it’s a let down.

But it is what it is, I can only share my thoughts...