Toby Carvery Enfield — Restaurant in London

I am writing to complain about the poor treatment I received via phone from the Toby Carvery in Enfield. I am especially upset at the experience as I have been visiting this establishment, with the same group (and therefore the same accessibility requirements) for years and have never been subject to such disappointing treatment.

On 5th September, I made a booking for 7 people at 19:00 for Sunday 8th September. In the notes section I included the following "Please could we be seated nearer the entrance as several in our party have mobility difficulties".

A few hours before my booking, therefore several days after I made the booking, I received a phone call from the Toby Carvery. Initially I believed it was to confirm my booking, however I was in for quite a shock when I was told that they could not give us a table for that many people with step free access and that my party would HAVE to climb stairs if they wanted to attend the booking.

When I explained that two people have cancelled last minute, and asked whether that would make a difference to the booking, I was told that it would not and they could not accommodate us, as there were no tables closer to the entrance. I asked why they had left it to almost the last minute to contact me, I was told that the booking system allocated the tables and that it had put us on a table that was upstairs.

Admittedly I was too surprised to question why they could not manually override the booking system and allocate us a table nearer the step free entrance. Having visited the establishment many times over the years, I know there are a number of tables that are accessible and near the step free entrance, and our request has never been an issue in the past.

The person on the phone just kept reiterating that there was no way that they could accommodate our request, but did not go as far as to cancel the booking. This meant I was left to verbally cancel the booking as it was clear that they had no intention to accommodate those with mobility difficulties.

This was especially upsetting as it was meant to be my birthday dinner, and I had travelled down from Scotland to celebrate with friends and family. Unsurprisingly, spirits were somewhat dampened by the obvious disability...

So I have never visited this Toby carvery so on Friday 22nd I visited with a friend and being a Toby carvery I expected it to be much the same.

Apon arriving by taxi I noticed the outside and the run down looks there is parts of the carpark that appeared to be unkept and not used, not being here before we where a bit confused about where the entrance actually was I only noticed one sign after walking halfway around the building.

After entering you enter into the bar area where the toilets are located and after a few seconds we were greeted at seated at a table. We noticed several things were sticking and unclean including menus, the salt and pepper shakers and the window shelf which really gave a negative feel to this restaurant.

The self service fizy drink machine was also sticky and dirty but the ice machine and fizzy drink dispenser was working and they had a good selection of drinks to choose from.

The carvery area is on the small side but still managed to put everything a normal Toby carvery has four freshly cooked meats and a selection of vegetables, the beef dripping roasted potatoes was in my opinion a slight let down being soft the rest of the vegetables was nice and fresh perfect temperatures throughout.

Me and my friend both had a dessert which overall was good, I had the Toby's seasonal crumble which was okay the crumble on top was not quite as crunchy as I personally liked also the amount compared to the ratio of fruit was a let down, my friend had the chocolate fudge cake and they said it was very nice but slightly rich in taste.

I did on this occasion visit the toilets this being the male toilets and again a running theme emerged throughout this restaurant they sadly wasn't as clean as you would expect there was liquid on the floor around the urinals, the cubicle toilet roll holders was broken there was toilet paper left on the floor, the handle to leave the toilet was sticky and just generally made me feel like I needed a lot of hand sanitizer after.

So wrapping up the restaurant has disabled access and the carvery area is on a level service, food was good the server was friendly and polite but the cleanliness just let it down and I don't personally believe I will be visiting this one...

Waited at the reception counter to be seated for at least 5 minutes, whilst staff walked past us and completely ignored us, like all 4 of us adults were invisible, not even a "I'll be with you in a minute" When someone finally showed us to a table, one of us sat at the table with our belongings whilst the other 3 of us went to the food counter, guess what, no one was there to serve either. We waited again, after a few minutes a man finally came out behind the counter with a new dish of vegetables, saw us three waiting and walked away straight back into the kitchen, not a word, not a "I'll be with you in a minute" not a word. We joked that we must all be invisible tonight, but joking aside I found it extremely rude. We waited a few more minutes, until I became so frustrated (as I have a spinal condition and cannot stand still for long without being in severe pain) that I actually shouted out "Hello, can someone serve us please?" He still didn't appear. I complained to the next staff member to pass us and she said she'd go and get him to come out, which he finally did. By the time i sat down with my plate I was in agony, so much so that I forgot to put any gravy on it. I sat for a while and started eating as I didn't want to get straight back up again as I was in so much pain. When I did finally get back up to pour some gravy over it, I wished I hadn't, as the gravy tasted like it was off and on the turn and ruined the rest of the meal. I left the rest, paid and left as we were going to see a film at the cinema and didn't want to make us any later than what we already were due to the waiting around because of the lack of service by complaining further. I would never go back there,...