The Jolly Gardeners — Restaurant in London

We booked table 15 weeks ahead of a match in front of the main screen. When we arrived the table was re-booked to another party who wanted the same table for two matches, the guys on the table confirmed this. Went to the bar man who booked us in and he confirmed we were moved to table 6, but denied we had a booking for any specific table which is not true. Table 6 is crammed under a small TV in a family corner with noisy toddlers on the other side of the pub to the main adult match matching audience.

One of the guys on 15 who was nice but full of beer tried to suggest we were attempting to steal his table, which was clearly not the case as the bookings were switched by the bar staff well in advance of the day.

This tension between customers was foreseeable and very avoidable by being loyal to the first come, first served basis for bookings. Noticed people didn't turn up to some better and booked tables than 6. Bar man was not bothered to offer a better table than six which were booked but empty. We stayed on 6 with toddlers either side to avoid any more hassle and enjoyed the match the best we could. But no loyalty from staff and the increased beer prices for the match as well :). Felt left down and exploited by the big price increase for match day.

There's little loyalty both ways between staff and customers at the Jolly Gardener, the staff have no equity, just employees, very stand offish with customers, normal for large cities, but not normal for any successful business. Bar manager builds zero relationships with regulars and avoids contact with the public (that's how it feels). How often do you have to drink there to be regarded as a regular !

Being faithful to customers is the only way of getting customers to be faithful to you. We'll watch the matches in the tennis club in future where prices are 40% cheaper than the mid week prices at the Jolly Gardener and 50% cheaper than match day prices. If you're going to over charge for match days , at least be loyal and nice to the customers.

Pubs are being abandoned by customers in rural areas because of high drink tax's and prices. The same will happen to a lesser extent in city pubs, will have significantly less turnover, lower profitability, valuations and sale prices. Will be increasingly harder to sell in cities in the future with lower customer loyalty and less frequent repeat "regulars" business. You practice price discrimination against regular customers, you get what you deserve unfortunately. Stick to clubs for better prices or at least stick to owner run pubs for better service, loyalty and friendliness. City pubs are also in the hospitality and customer loyalty business, not the Jolly...

I have been going to this pub on and off for about ten years. I have always loved the location, the decor and the choice of drinks. The food used to be reasonable too. However, service has always seemed to be the issue.On a busy day, they have NEVER had enough staff working. Waiting ten minutes to order drinks on a weekday evening is never acceptable in my book. Last night (a beautiful summer evening - but not unexpected, the forecast had shown it would be for some time), the pub was busy and humming but not rammed. It was pub quiz night but only hafl the pub was involved, with the rest just there to enjoy the balmy evening. Unbelievably, AFTER ordering our food we were told it was an hour's wait. So we waited an hour, during which time we sporadically saw some cutlery being proferred but not any food. The table next to us had the waitress apologising to them, being told that their order had been lost. Their food eventually arrived 90 minutes late. Ours still hadn't materialised and the blank-faced waitress told us that someone had come to find us to tell us that our choice of mains was not available but could not find us! (we hadn't moved during the whole time) So she took our alternative order. Half an hour later (2 HOURS after ordering!) our mains arrived. When we enquired after our starters, we were told that the kitchen had sent them some time ago...clearly not to our table. So we then got our starters served AFTER our mains with various offers of waiving things from the bill. However, nothing was removed from our bill at all. Risotto was REALLY greasy (butter had split out from the rice and left an oily pool) and whitebait bland with equally hellmans-ish mayonnaise. Appalling experience and the above star rating is purely based on having an otherwise fun evening...

Fantastic pub with a great garden and screens for sport but DO NOT eat here. The food was so so poor it was difficult to eat. I have no axe to grind at all, I wanted it to be great but it was the opposite. Squid was like rubber with no taste. Chicken was so dry it was tough to eat, satay sauce was just strange. And the roast beef was as dry as the chicken. Potatoes had a tough chewy skin (good colour) and the Yorkshire’s were so tough they either broke under duress or stretched. Tbf this was probably due to it being end of service but when I asked for 2 new ones the nice waitress just agreed and went straight for a refund. Cauliflower cheese was again, tasteless and watery. When I gave up trying to eat it, the waitress cleared away my plate without asking how it was, I think even she was resigned to the quality and just said ‘sorry about that’ ….. great boozer miss the food though. Bar staff not particularly welcoming, brunette behind the bar only showed any emotion when bitching about an earlier compliant and when I smiled as I walked out she completely ignored me (while looking me in the eye) and just kept her conversation with her colleague. Shame, with a good chef and decent management this place...