Toby Carvery Knowle — Restaurant in Metropolitan Borough of Solihull

Actually I dun want to waste time on a restaurant which uses a nasty strategy to collect money and boost revenue.

Yesterday just before lunchtime I phoned the restaurant, a male staff picked up the call and confirmed those kids under 12 are free-of-charge if they don't order the dish.

Tonight, after we (3 adults and a kid) settled down, we have clearly told the waitress that we are going to have 3 roast main dishes with 2 upgraded to king-size. There was no objection from this waitress.

We expect the kid cannot each much, so we had decided to give the excess part of the upgrade to the kid to eat without the need to order an extra dish.

Eventually, dispute occurred at payment. 3 staff (the female manager, the female waitress, the male usher) surround me.

The female manager claimed that although the kid did not actually have the meal, as we "conducted food-sharing to the kid" and "got an empty dish for the kid from their restaurant", we had to pay for the child carvery meal. And it is their company's policy.

I rebutted that I had confirmed with your staff before on that point and your female waitress did not have any expression that we had to pay for that child when we sat down and I had explicitly told her what we would eat.

The male usher said "she need not have to tell you about that" and claims that "it is impossible for that male staff to say "free" and you MUST misunderstand".

I said if the kid's meal should be paid your staff should advise me at the beginning and I dun see any illustration on that aspect on any places of your restaurants. The male usher continued to say it is impossible to list all the things and our company's TERMS AND CONDITIONS definitely lists out that point.

Finally, I did not want to waste time to argue with these barbaric people and paid as listed in that printout. I have stipulated that I can definitely afford to pay few more quid but I am just unsatisfied with the approach adopted by your restaurant. My payment does not represent your restaurant is correct in handling this event. I won't go to your restaurant and your other stores again if I have other choices.

I have taken a look on the Terms and Conditions of your website: https://www.tobycarvery.co.uk/termsandconditions#/

I really cannot find any points regarding the payment due from food-sharing. Can any expert from your restaurant teach me according to which condition in the T&C your company is entitled to handle this event in this form?

I strongly it is an international rule to pay what we consume. Although this passage does not change anything, at least it serves as a historical record that an incident of this kind did happen.

Thank you for your time for reading this and wish that you can get some inspiration on thoughts after the reading. Response to Mr Hodson's statement on 2024-3-16: Mr Hodson definitely never said in the telephone conversation "if the child is under 2 then we charge 99p for a baby bowl to share off your plate". I am 100% sure about that. This leads to the conclusion that he is trying to fabricate something to wash up this 1-star review. I am welcome to dig out the telephone conversation to find out who is the liar.

And he never responded to my point why the female waitress did not express any need for my kid to pay given that we had told her explicitly what we will get because he clearly understands it is the fault of that female waitress.

In addition, although Mr Hodson just unprofessionally attempted to sidekick me to read the website FAQs, I read the latest version of the FAQs and did not find anything directly related to this situation, but just two indirect topics. Therefore both FAQs and T&Cs do not directly address that.

In an understaffed session to use 3 staff to surround me, apart from exerting pressure to the customer to bow down, I do not see any other purpose.

Franking speaking, it is just a financial dispute in nature. The persistence is just the pursuit of $$. What I exclaim is whether there is a need to fabricate a story openly just for a job. I would not...

Update, As We have had some really nice meal in the Knowle Toby carvery. We thought we would give it another try. Big Mistake, On arrival, it was like we weren't wanted and the front of house was upset we had booked a table. It felt cold in the room with a cold draft going around us. The waitress arrived at the table wearing a fleece over her uniform. This says a lot about the room being cold. We had the carvery as normal, this was poor to look at. Parsnips were over cooked and dry. The beef dripping roast potatoes looked poor. The selection was poor. 2 of the 4 pots of gravy were empty. No one was checking the veg or gravy. On getting back to the table the food was lukewarm. The hottest veg was the roast potatoes. We are not into complaining and getting a free meal. But maybe we should have. We just eat our meal, paid and got out as quick as we could. The waitress wasn't interested in how our meal was. This will be the last time we will go to this Toby. Don't believe it he latest reviews, I did and paid the price.

Sorry to say since the refurb we have visited the Knowle Toby 3 times. The last was the worst. You walk in and wait to be seated. Last Saturday it took over 10mins waiting to be seated. On looking around there was 1 person looking after the tables. After waiting around 15mins I had to ask if we could go straight up to get our food. It was then they took our drink order. To get to the carvery it is not clearly marked and people head through the exit instead of the entrance. The quality of the food is dropping as well as the inconsistent amount of meat you get. On arrival back at the table we found the food to be lukewarm. We are not into complaining and trying to get a free meal. I do find it unprofessional to talk about work by people eating. After requesting the bill it took ages and a second request...

Service was great from walking from the door, welcomed by a lovely young man, who was polite, escorted to the table by another young .an who again was polite. Waitress was lovely she was bubbly, very engaging and helpful. Started with drinks, carling was flat and have a funny line cleaner taste to it... Food: well, sever at the hotplate looked very unhappy, as a family we actually felt like we were and inconvenience to him as he wasn't on the hotplate to start with, he looked to be in the kitchen area chatting. We had no hello or pleasnetries, his first words to us was "yep", my mother asked for sausages, he replied nope you can't have um, there only for the king-size!" Which actually was what we had ordered. No apology for assuming! He was very short and sharp with his tone. He continue along to the meats "which one" very sharp! He threw the meats on the plate, with no care or presentation, moving on to the server yourself, all spoons in were under the halogen lights these were extremely hot to touch. Very dangerous. The stuffing was rock hard, the roast Potato's were burnt, the vegetables were dry, this could have been due to sitting under the lights so long! Someone changed the mash potato whist we were there but it came out very dry. We returned to out table, the waitress asked if everything was OK. We said it's OK but wouldn't actually rate the food. She apologised to us. We finished our meal, paid and left, I personally won't be returning to the toby...