Indulgence — Restaurant in Maidstone

My wife had her baby shower here a couple of weeks ago. She was in contact with the organisers regularly over the preceding weeks to make sure everything was in line with her wishes and understanding what she was paying for.

As she is coeliac, finding places that make gluten-free afternoon tea is a challenge, so we were happy to be told that they would provide her with an afternoon tea matching its non-gluten free version. This is a rare thing she can indulge in, and she was promised in writing that her cream tea would be the same as the others', but gluten-free.

She was also promised a bottle of non-alcoholic prosecco as a gratuity for her choosing to organise her event there.

We had problems with the staff throughout the organisation process, while Ellie was very welcoming and reassuring at the beginning, her colleagues left a lot to be desired after that. Each communication we had with them was fraught with confusion. I was asked to pay for the deposit despite having already paid for it, they tried giving us the upstairs venue even though we were pencilled in for the downstairs as one of her guests is a wheelchair user.

Come the day of the event, my wife is given her cream tea which includes bananas with caramel on top in replacement of scones - without clotted cream and jam or marmalade. Now I'm not a massive afternoon tea-goer myself, but to me scones are a staple for such a meal, but it wouldn't be an issue had she been warned of this discrepancy, instead of being promised an equivalent. Mind you I have seen gluten-free scones around in shops, and even made them myself. It's not hard to procure them.

She was also not given the promised alcohol-free prosecco. When she pointed this out after the event was over, they tried blaming her for the oversight - saying they would have given it if she had pointed it out to management (who was present on the day). So just to clarify, if you're heavily pregnant and enjoying your baby shower at Indulgence, you better be on your toes about what's missing on the large chaotic table, because they won't take accountability for anything they, the hosts, miss out - it's your fault.

Some friends and family also helped out by setting up the venue before my wife arrived there, they ordered some refreshments and this was put onto the final bill for my wife to pay. At no point did any of the waiters or managers try to clarify whether this should be billed at the end or not, despite the fact that the event would not be starting for another 2 hours. As someone who has years worth of catering experience, this is a no-no to me, you should take the initiative and check with those who order whether this is something they're paying for personally, or whether it's something to be put onto the event's bill.

To top things off, they charged her on the final bill with teas and coffees that were supposed to be included in the charge for the afternoon tea. So again, if you're organising anything slightly more complex than a 2-person date, I'd suggest keeping an eye on your bill at the end.

When we pointed all this out to them, they refused to admit that bananas are not equivalent to scones, they blamed her for the prosecco issue, they denied any issue with billing earlier refreshments separate from the event onto the final bill, and they only accepted to pay back the overcharged amount because it was so blatantly obvious that it was not excusable.

I hope this doesn't come across as hysterical, after all I'm just going through what happened. It just makes me sad that this tainted my wife's baby shower with such silly issues, and it upsets me how such establishments continue to advertise themselves as being gluten-free when in fact they just take the lazy way out and give you something as boring as bananas instead of pastries when they have a fully...

We had such high hopes for this restaurant visited for a family members' birthday treat. Unfortunately the service was poor from start to finish. The table was booked for 1230, and we left at 1430 in the end, having had to leave as 3 of the group of 10 of us still had not received their food. Along the way, they took 45 minutes to even start bringing drinks to the table. This was only bought over after repeated requests. Food started to be delivered after roughly 1 and half hours (again, this was only after repeated requests) was luke warm and there was no cutlery with which to eat it. After pointing this out and having to wait a further 10 minutes, we were then given dirty cutlery, which clearly hadn't been washed. Two meals were delivered, which were not what we ordered, only to be told we were wrong. We had to retrieve a menu (ourselves) to prove they were, in fact, the wrong meals, which the staff concerningly weren't even able to idtnefy themselves (keto was confused for Mediterranean). The one meal which was adequately hot was a dessert, although this again suffered the same delay. There was also chewed chewing gum in the sugar pot. Frustratingly, the food we saw on other tables (two parties who arrived after us and were served before us) looked amazing. We just never got to enjoy it. We asked to speak to the manager throughout, but they never came out until we left and informed them we would not be paying. The staff were incompetent, and after one complaint, we were informed they didn't care if we left them a bad review. Nothing was offered along the way to make ammends for this poor service. They simply blamed the chef much to our confusion. We had booked this prior to attending, so there was no excuse for not being prepared to deal with a group of 10. I do not recall ever having received such a poor service or attitude at a restaurant before. It left the intended birthday recipient in tears. We left left as a party to eat elsewhere as only a few of the group ever got to...

Went in today for brunch with my daughter , got our coffees & ordered our food, half an hour later we were still waiting for our food , as were the table next to us. Their food came out minus one dish, there were three of them but only two dishes came out, they asked for the third & a waiter went to check only for him to come back & say that it wasn’t even their food that had arrived , it was for a different table , he said he would go & check what had happened to theirs. At this point I asked him to see where ours was as we were at the point of walking out & not paying for our coffee, to which he shrugged his shoulders at me & muttered something that I couldn’t quite make out, to me, this was extremely rude , I then said I wanted our food in two minutes as we had already waited more than an half an hour , his reply was don’t put a time on me I’m going to find out what’s happened, again I found this very rude , I said I had every right to ask for my food within a time as we had already waited so long without any communication regarding the delay , he then repeated , don’t put a time on me & then went into the kitchen. After approximately 5 minutes he then came out & said that unfortunately there had been a mix up with tickets but didn’t really know what had happened & that the drinks were free for both my table & the ladies next to us . This is when we all walked out. Never have I ever experienced such rudeness from a wait staff , I really feel for the other staff as they all came across as polite & in my opinion should leave that establishment & get themselves another job with a company who deserves them . The guy who I believe to be the manager didn’t even come out of the kitchen to explain to us the errors, I know this because we could clearly see the kitchen from where we were sat. This is a completely disorganised establishment & one I will never enter again & strongly recommend that no one else...