Banyan Bar & Kitchen - Manchester Corn Exchange — Restaurant in Manchester

Terrible experience!

Staff need some serious training in customer service and using common sense.

Came here on Saturday afternoon around 2pm the host who seated us to our table was not very welcoming or helpful she showed us to a table, removed the glasses but didn’t bother to come back and clean the table which was wet and sticky off spilt drinks. She also didn’t explain how to order our food/drink so we proceeded by ordering on the app as this seemed the easiest way. We ordered our drinks but there was no option to order food on the app. I asked a young male member of staff who was walking by if we could have a food menu, which he brought to us. We had a look at the menu decided what we wanted then were left wondering how to order. I got the attention of the same young man I had requested the menus off and asked him if he would take our order. He told us it was not table service but directed us inside to order at the bar.

The que inside was very long so I was reluctant to wait in it at first as it seemed very slow moving (I went to the toilet downstairs whilst my friend waited in the que, came back up and she had literally not moved). After at least 25 minutes of waiting in the que we finally got to the front where we were served by a male member of staff. I said I would like to order food to which he seemed a bit lost, he said one moment and alerted another member of staff (assuming she was the supervisor). She came over to the till to which he asked her if they were serving food. She told him no and then told us that we had to have a pre-order booking for food. I told her that her colleague had gave us a menu and directed us indoor to order food to which she replied the same thing in an attitude which she may as well have said ‘tough’ - no apology for the fact we had just stood waiting at least 25 minutes to get served.

I understand that it was a busy Saturday and if I was able to order food I wouldnt have been annoyed about the long wait (even though this is unacceptable) but to stand there and not even say sorry after us wasting our time when we were directed to go que by a member of staff is madness.

Management clearly need to communicate to staff what the set up/procedure is for busy days (such as pre-orders for food only on Saturdays it seems). I don’t blame the staff member who directed me in as he clearly was not told they were not serving food to walk-ins. This was clear as the member of staff on the tills wasn’t even sure and had to go ask his supervisor. The supervisor/staff member then needs to learn some customer service skills by recognising the fact we stood queuing for a lengthy amount of time snd had not been told the correct information by another staff member so the normal thing to do would be to apologise and explain why the other staff don’t know what’s going on/let us know that she would inform the staff member. Honestly I can’t get over it total waste of our time!

Shame because the Banyan in Newcastle is great and the staff couldn’t do enough for you. This branch was the...

Having visited the Banyan in York multiple times (and absolutely loving their Lemon Cheesecake cocktail), I suggested coming here with my friends. What a mistake that turned out to be.

The tightly-packed tables were arranged in a nonsensical order: we had something like numbers 74 and 86. This meant the servers were often wandering around aimlessly, unsure where to deliver food and drink. One of our friends ordered a round that took about twenty-five minutes to arrive, and that was only after informing one of the staff members that he was still waiting for them.

The cocktails (or at least the Pink 75, Berry Collins and Banyan Iced Tea) were unimpressive and lacked taste.

Three people ordered the Deep Fried Brie Wedges, but two of the portions were not warm. Despite my friend requesting for the Bang Bang Chicken Skewers (which were paltry for their price of £6.95) to arrive as a main course in the app, they came with these starters. He wanted to have it with his salad, but by the time that arrived, the skewers were cold.

I ticked the ‘Speak to Server’ box when placing the order as my friend wanted to swap her chips for a salad, but nobody came and so she had to let one of the servers know when they brought drinks (this server looked and sounded clueless when told about the ‘Speak to Server’ option).

Though half of our group’s mains arrived in reasonable time, the rest didn’t come until long after we had finished. Two of us ordered the Alpine Chicken Schnitzel: this was bland and not overly filling, and came with a wilted, droopy salad.

The general ambience wasn’t great. We were sat under a cheap-looking gazebo, it was very loud and customers smoking within the seated areas were not told to stop. Service was generally unfriendly.

A £60 deposit was taken from my card to secure the booking. Though it was mentioned in the confirmation email that any unspent money would be retained, it wasn’t highlighted in the reminder email nor in person at the restaurant. Understandably, for their own reasons, my group wanted to pay on their own cards, and so I only spent about half of it. The fact that Banyan refuse to give me the rest back is disgraceful. It is theft disguised by seemingly irrevocable ‘Terms and Conditions’.

To add salt to the wound, the Lemon Cheesecake cocktail did not appear on the menu. It’s safe to say I will never go back to the Corn...

Went to Banyan Corn Exchange as a group of 8 people last night (06/05/2022). We had pre-booked for the bottomless supper and paid deposits of £15pp, our table was booked for 7pm.

We got to Banyan at 7 and it’s safe to say we weren’t expected. Our table wasn’t ready and they thought we were coming at 7:30. We waited 15/20 minutes to be sat down.

It took us 45 minutes to get our drinks (which we had ordered 15 minutes after sitting down). A waitress brought over a mocktail and a apricot cocktail and couldn’t distinguish between the two. Initially, the drinks were placed one way round, and then it was “oh no actually it’s this one.” The mocktail was for a non-drinker and a person who was driving that night. After querying this, non of the staff could tell us what drink was the non-alcoholic and the person was encouraged to “drink that one and I’ll bring you a new one.” As we had waited 45 minutes for drinks and the non-drinker having no drink (everyone else had Prosecco as standard), we thought it was reasonable to order the second round of drinks, our first orders weren’t yet at the table.

The waiters then had a conversation next to our table being quite rude, one of the party member could hear the conversation and challenged them on this. As another waitress was explaining something, the other waitress said “well she can hear you apparently.” Rude..

Another drink arrived which was the mocktail and this one tasted completely different to the one originally brought to the table. The first one definitely had alcohol in it and was not the passion fruit mocktail which the waitress claimed it was.

Anyway, after an absolute shambles of a service, it came to the bill. The cheek of it - they added £30 tip! There was absolutely no chance any of us were paying it as it had been terrible. We asked to speak to a manager and thought it would be reasonable to ask for some sort of discount or compensation of any sort, which wasn’t rectified for us at all. So we all paid nearly £40 each for one of the worst experiences some of us...