20 Stories — Restaurant in Manchester

We came here on Friday for Valentine's / Birthday celebrations. We have previously dined here 2 years ago for the same event and had an amazing time. This time around was not too amazing, It actually left a foul taste in my mouth that has resulted in not wishing to come back to 20 stores. We came from out of town just to dine here also which makes the situation even more upsetting. We arrived at the venue. The atmosphere was lovely, the venue was busy, and lots of people were enjoying themselves. We got some drinks from the bar whilst we awaited our table booking, upon the table being ready we were escorted to the table, upon arrival at the table my partner's drink was dropped on the floor and had to be cleaned up, this isn't so much an issue, accidents happen, The part I was unhappy about is we were left standing with everyone looking over at us whilst the staff cleaned up, it would have been nice if we had been escorted back to the entrance.

Once we got seated, the replacement drink arrived, it took around 15 minutes for our order to be taken, even then when the waiter arrived he just asked "What can I get for you" No "Hello welcome to 20 stories, what can I get for you" no "How is your evening going" or anything like this, the service felt cold. This wasn't the case on our previous trip, the waiter couldn't do enough for us. Whilst taking our order we were not too sure what dessert we wanted, we went with a set menu and wanted to have our main course and then see what dessert we would be feeling. The waiter told us this wasn't possible and they had to get all the order now. I don't get why this is the case, I've worked in hospitality previously and if we had set menus or deals, guests could wait till the end of the meal to decide on what dessert.

We got our order in then then not long after our canapes arrived. 1 plate with 2 tarts with filling and 2 falafel. The Falafel were ok but the tarts tasted awful. No presentation just 4 items on 1 plate. Upon observing around us all the staff seemed extremely stressed and there were times we could see staff getting told off in front of the whole restaurant and staff arguing. We waited for our starters, and they arrived. The presentation was ok, nothing magical or special, my partner ordered scallops, we have had them numerous times before, even here, and we love them, however, these scallops had no texture, they are supposed to have some texture, they tasted fishy, I understand its seafood, seafood isn't supposed to taste fishy, that usually means it's not fresh. We called our waiter over and explained the issue, he spoke to the management team and next, we had 2 floor managers fighting over who would speak to us about our issue. By this point we were so upset, The floor manager was trying to make our evening better for us but said the only thing he could do is give my partner a different starter from the set menu but she wouldn't have been happy with the other starters. The manager expressed that as we are on the set menu all he can do is offer another dish off that set menu, but we declined. He did provide 2 Free drinks.

The mains arrived, and they were ok at best, my partner had the sea bass, and I had the Fillet. These dishes were ok at best, we could eat them and didn't have to send them back, the steak had no flavour or seasoning. The waiter came to take our plates away and asked how the food was, we informed him we were really upset, the food didn't taste amazing, asked if there was anything he could do we just asked if we could get our deserts to take away as we just wanted to go, he said ok then headed off, Once he came back he said there's an issue, they are pre-made into a glass so if we want to take them away, we can't.

Realising we had spent £190 for food that wasn't fresh, had not a lot of flavour to it. We had booked a hotel, travelled 2 hours by car just to come to this restaurant and we were severely let down. Won't be...

I never ever thought that I would be making this review today about 20 Stories…because I have been going to this place for years and I always had so much fun 💔

But yesterday was just disgusting, degrading and inhumane the way we got treated by the staff, we got racially profiled, humiliated and embarrassed at the reception point as we were leaving the restaurant after having paid. This was so upsetting and humiliating I am outraged at the way the manager and the supervisor treated us, she treated her own staff badly too! But the way she treated us and how the manager treated us was just disrespectful, degrading, traumatising, disgusting and humiliating.

So much happened but I will be giving you a summary, so long story short: We had a birthday meal there and some people didn’t pay for their food and bare in mind- before this whole situation happened we had already paid for our food and I had our receipt in my hands…someone, I think she was like the supervisor, she let everyone of our same table leave but us. She let one of our white friend leave but she had security holding us back and we couldn’t leave the premise, we weren’t allowed, but when our white girl wanted to leave she was allowed to and I told the supervisor- you told us that we all needed to stay until everything was paid and cleared, so are you going to tell our friend to stay too then…and she was like humm well she can’t leave and I was like well tell her to stay too because you are literally holding us hostage here and you are not letting us go, so you better tell her to stay too, like you did for us. And our friend was able to leave in peace, without security holding her back. But when it was us wanting to leave she was literally telling security to make us stay, and to not let us go, that we had to stay there and that we couldn’t leave. And this was all in front of people. And when the manager came later -I had to be the one asking the manager to go somewhere else so that we could talk. And the manager when he came out of nowhere all he started saying was “don’t be saying this is racism here” “don’t do that” “don’t say that” the man was not even here how can he even try to say that this woman was not practising discrimination and wasn’t racially profiling us and was not being disrespectful- the man was not there at all! And when he came he didn’t try to understand the situation- he came with the attitude and the intention to put us down and to disrespect us and to degrade us and to just aggravate to the stressful situation. How can someone claim that x has happened or not happened when he wasn’t even here- this just straight baffled me and really put me in shock!

I have never ever experienced this amount of disrespect and humiliation in my entire life. We just came to celebrate someone’s birthday and we spent our hard-earned money there to get treated like that. 20 Stories your staff needs to learn manners and do better! Because this whole experience was just degrading, inhumane, humiliating and...

Took my GF here first time for her second time for my self At first every thing seemed to be going very well, we ordered off the set menu, 2 x Courgette & Basil Soups 2 x Flat Iron steak's, fries and water cress salad 1 x BlackBerry Cheesecake & 1 x passion fruit roulade

The things that put these reviews down were as follows, when we ordered the soups after they took the order, they come back and asked would we like some sourdough bread and butter, we thought this was complimentary, as well as what sauces we would like with the steak 1 x peppercorn sauce and 1 garlic butter.

However when we got the bill it turns out the above were extras that weren’t mentioned on the set menus or mentioned anywhere at all given the steak was an extra £5pp were actually extra hidden billable items and ended up adding an extra £20 to the bill. The way we got asked about the bread & butter for the soup sounded like it was complimentary but no this is not the case so be careful before ordering from the set menus from here

For example the charges for some of the items were around the below prices sourdough bread £4.50 Butter £4 Peppercorn sauce £4.50 Garlic butter sauce £4

The other reason why this review was lower than expected was because of the service charge of 13.5% now this charge is hidden in small text and not clear font at the bottom of the menu I only realised this until afterwards. However since this was a discretionary service charge & due to the unexpected items mentioned above I opted against paying which the restaurant had no problem with. However the happy service from the waiter we had at the start turned to incredibly rude in front of both me and my gf, the response we got for that level of dining was appalling, I got questioned about the remove of the service charge, then why I wanted the service charge removing and so on etc, then once it was paid the kind attitude wasn’t there anymore was like cheers and bye compared to what other tables were receiving

The bill without service charge and hidden extras was £138.80

Now if the other items I thought were included or if they were made clear to me that they were extras I would have paid the service charge and wouldn’t have got the “extras” If the above events didn’t happen this would have been an easy 5* review

Would I come again: if they make things clearer about extras and if the service when the bill comes at the end probably, for example make it clear that the sauces aren’t included on the set menu when asking the customer, because when you take a customers order and then ask what sauce would you like with it & give a range of options like peppercorn, garlic butter etc that makes it come across as if it’s included however if not then no not at all especially when there’s other restaurants that can offer service from start to finish and not “interrogate” at the end when asked about the removal of a service charge

Ps the view at sunset...