The Real Greek - Strand — Restaurant in London

Awful customer service from one member of staff, nice food.

Looking at other reviews with some negative comments about service, I believe those reviews are referring to the same waitress I am. A young, short-ish lady with dark hair. The waitress didn't take our drinks order first to get that order going so we could get a drink quickly. She left us for about 12 mins then took our order all in one, for drinks and food. I wouldn't have minded so much about this if we didn't have to wait so long for drinks.

We waited 30 mins after ordering and still had no drinks. I had just ran the London Marathon, so was rather thirsty and the other four members of my group wanted their drinks too. We couldn't see any members of staff pass our table for a while so a member of my party went up to the bar to ask where our drinks were. He said there was no one at the bar but he saw our drinks there, so he took the tray of drinks back to our table. The restaurant should be embarrassed that as customers we felt the need to go and serve ourselves to quench our thirst, after waiting 30 minutes for drinks. The order was pretty simple too - 3 bottled cokes with glasses and ice, and 2 beers of the same drink....

The waitress came over 2 mins later and frowned at us looking confused asking about the drinks. My party member told her he saw them on the bar and I said we've been waiting ages for our drinks, 30 mins. She did not apologise or show any customer service and just said she had to go tend to some people at the door and ''please don't do that again''. I was quite shocked by her reaction, because if anything SHE owed us an apology for us having to serve ourselves but came across as very unfriendly.....I can't understand why our drinks didn't get to us immediately after they were poured, and were just sat there on the bar. And surely she could have just said to the people at the door I will be with you in one minute, and came to serve our drinks at the table first before tending to them. The drinks also shouldn't have took this long to do in the first place.

The food was also quite a long wait. I had the Greek plate and noticed the rice advertised on the menu for this dish was missing. I didn't mention this to the waitress as I felt she was so unapproachable.

When the bill came there was a 12.5% service charge added...!! The irony, given we had to serve ourselves our drinks!!

My party member looked at the bill quickly and got the cash out. He passed the waitress the money, she walked away with this. I was having a private conversation to him about paying the service charge and was asking if he noticed this was on there, as we shouldn't really be paying it. The waitress was listening in to this private conversation as she was walking away, turned around and came back asking about the service charge. The member of my party just said it's fine (to avoid conflict), then she went off frowning. I found it rude she intervened in our conversation, and would have thought she would have removed the service charge herself, given the poor service we received which we obviously weren't happy with....

When we left the restaurant she had her back to us as we walked by. Her colleague next to her said goodnight, but she didn't even turn to acknowledge us. Another member of staff also said goodbye.

It's a shame just one member of staff's attitude let down the whole visit for the 5 of us. Customer training and how to talk to people is...

Oh dear. On my endless hunt for moussaka we took a chance on this place. We should have known that the fact it was completely empty was a sign. There were 2 members of staff who appeared to be on their break and looked offended by our presence. We were shown to a table but weren't offered drinks, we were handed menus and left to it for 10 minutes. It was only after I had managed to catch one of the staff members eyes (there were now 3 of them all on their phones and giggling with each other) that we were able to place an order. I ordered moussaka (obviously) only to be told it wasn't ready and wouldn't be for another hour. We discussed leaving and going elsewhere but I decided against it. A bad decision as it turns out. The houmous, feta cheese and bread came out on a tiered cake stand. Interesting. It was fairly tasty but hard to get wrong, let's be honest. Our next course came out straight away almost as if it had been sat waiting for us. Once again it came on a cake stand. This one was wonky and wobbled. The chips were overcooked and luke warm. The meatballs were tiny , overcooked and bullet like in a cold tomato sauce. I think they were £8 for the meatballs.. so the extortionate price of £2 each. The wrap had tasteless chicken with more of the horrible chips shoved in for good measure. It was all so lack lustre. Considering we were the only people in the restaurant I would have thought the food could at least be hot. At no point did anyone check on us or ask how the food was, we weren't offered water even though there were water glasses on the table and our beers weren't offered to be replaced when we finished them. We had to catch someone's eye again to ask for the bill even though we had sat there for a while. I can't remember when I last had such appalling service. When the waiter finally came I told him to take the service charge off as we hadn't had good service and he didn't question it or apologise. When we left the waitress sat playing with her phone didn't even look up. Given the location , where there are so many other places to eat , I'm not surprised this place was empty....

Well....this was an experience.

Last week my partner and I were wandering in the centre of London and we got hungry. We saw this restaurant "The real Greek".... Let me tell you NOT A REAL GREEK. it's a scam!.

Food: the food was dreadful. I am not a greek person, but I have lived in Greece for 3 years and I do know how to speak greek and know their customs and especially food! The Pitas were so bad, without any taste the salad was at least 4 hours old the onion ware like noodles soft no crunch to them and the tomatoes was really mushy. We asked for the salad to be replaced. They took it back to the kitchen but they

just cut some fresh onions and tomatoes on top of the old one. The ouzo was nice...but it comes from a bottle so it shouldn't count. I don't think it's the cook's fault either, they do what they are been told and what they have on the menu. The problem is within the people who want to do this kind of business without spending money but make money instead.

Service: The best part of the experience was the service, nice people, good and prompt service. Really nice, I don't know how much they earn, but they should get a raise. They probably hear negative comments every day.

Atmosphere: it was meh, I mean there was no greek music in the background.

We have spent 55£. Definitely not worth it. If you want to wat REAL GREEK FOOD go in wood green at Pitta Corner. This is not an ad it's just proper food. The bosses of the real Greek should go there to taste the food, write some things down how greek food tastes like and go implement that into their restaurants!

I...