Route Dalston — Restaurant in London

Place is in a very nice area, and it's well decorated, clean and overall good looks. The food is actually really nice, but a bit pricey for the size of the portions. Why such a low score? Because the layout of the place plus the service are terrible. They have long tables which you have to share. No problem with that. But, it's not spacious enough, you end up elbow-wrestling with the unknown person yo have next to you. When the couple next to us left, I changed my seat so I was sitting next to my girlfriend instead of in front of her. I got a first warning: "If someone comes you'll have to move, it's Sunday and we need to optimize seating". So, 1- Why do I have to move? Isn't it uncomfortable enough? 2- Can't people sit next to each other? Given that you also have a bar facing the window and lots of couples having breakfast there, it sounds ridiculous. 3- We were a couple, and were sat on an 8 people table right in the middle, in-between strangers, when there were 4 people tables (more than one) free "just in case a big group comes". 4- While we warned we may had to move, there were at least three other customers using a seat just to hung their coats. 5- It finally happened, we had to move (with all our dishes, cups and everything), and finished our breakfast while one single person was waiting for the other 3, that came 1 minute before our departure. 6- While paying the bill, I spot a nice 2.35 pound service charge included without asking, in an 18 pound consumption (obviously I refused to pay that). Conclusion? Change the layout, change your staff (or better not, re-educate them) and you'll definitely get a 5...

Never one to complain ; but this service was something I've never experienced and actually really upset us.

We received tasteless very small dishes, but were willing to overlook , carry on eating and compensate with bread. As we tried to be understanding .

I don't think they could cope as our dishes were taken 4 times to the wrong people.

We asked for the bread 3 times and didn't receive it. So we're left feeling undatisfied and hungry.

Also it was raining with a baby so asked to be moved inside and then was totally forgotten about.

After having much patience , we told a waiter about our experience, and he told us we had to get up and go and find the supervisor (that she couldn't come to us)

Once the supervisor did do something ( took something off the bill) she did so with a lot of attitude rolling her eyes then right at the end instead of apologising she told me next time to need to say something earlier and reiterated the point about coming to her. And she made a comment that we should understand that they are busy people are human. I 100% understand that, but just an apology and less guidance about what I should do as a customer and more emphasis on how they should treat their customers would have made the errors more bearable.

In my experience managers would always come to you (the customer) not expect you to go to them and that itself would have made us feel better and cared about. That's all we wanted .

I hope they improve as a result . We used to go here daily for coffee but after this upset we would...

I visited for the first and last time today, very poor customer service, we were ignored on entry and had to really work hard to get anyones attention even though they weren't busy (just chatting amongst themselves). After finding a seat and waiting for a long while to be served, I eventually had to go up to the bar and order. When they said to me that someone would be over to take my order, I had to insist on ordering there. The food and Coffee were ok (fairly average but not too bad), but when asking for the bill it took an age to come, when I asked to pay by card the waiter didn't return for a long while. He proceeded to take other orders and set another table, when reminded him (twice) he said oh sorry I will get the machine now and then disappeared around the back, we could see him have several conversations with his colleagues and stand around doing everything apart from get one of the four card machines from behind the bar. So we decided to take the bill up to the bar and pay. My girlfriend was very unhappy and complained to the guy behind the bar, who seemed a bit bemused and not at all bothered with a stupid smile on his face, he said sorry have a free biscuit on the house... which we refused, we paid and left very unhappy customers we also had to pay a mandatory customer service charge.... so bad we will never be returning this place, it is the worst customer service ever and we are big supporters of independent coffee shops but this falls well short of the...