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...

Not the Best Toby we've been to. The parking is great, the toilets were clean and well-appointed. However, the whole place looks a bit run down compared to our local. The staff are pleasant and quick to respond, which is always a blessing, though if you ask for "no ice", I recommend you shout.

The Pepsi Max was tainted with bleach, only slightly, like drinking pop at the swimming baths. I suppose it infers the equipment was recently cleaned. As for the food, some of the tables were piled with half-eaten puddings and were untouched when we left. Almost as a shrine to those who braved the carvery before us. Ah, the carvery, I think the guy serving paid for the meat himself, I can't think why else he would have been so frugal with it. Midweek, about half seven and no peas to be had, in fact, there wasn't much of anything left. It all had that " school dinner" look to it, both soft, and looking dry at the same time. Plenty of gravy and condiments though, which was pleasantly surprising. I declined the Yorkshires but did request the sausage, two tiny hard dry little things. I felt so sorry for the poor things and was tempted to rehydrate them in the Pepsi Max, but then I remembered the bleach.

No snaps I'm afraid, I didn't want people to think I enjoyed the experience and thus question my sanity. Sadly, I'm daft enough to give them a second chance, we all have our off days I suppose. If it gets better, I'll edit the review, or if...

Positive: Selection of meat and veg, chef was friendly.

Negative: Found it strange to not to have name tags of food. It was the first time for me to eat at Toby’s and I was kind of reluctant to find some items to try as I didn’t know what it is. Obviously i knew the carrots etc but it was some kind of potato in a sauce which was nice till i found something strange flavour in it, also i think it was onion in gravy. Again i would have just prefer to have a name tag to say what it is. Same as with the sauces. Some sauces had signs on them but some not so what i thought it’s bread sauce turned out Horseradish sauce which annoyed be to honest.

The 2 ladies who were at the door were really not interested about looking at us or just to say hi, you could tell they didn’t want to be there. Wee arrived quiet a but earlier for our reservation which we thought not an issue we just wait and have a drink in a bar which the 2 ladies say yeah go to the bar and they carried or chatting/gossiping about someone which i thought at least ( being there the first time ) could of told us where to go and once the table is ready we will collect you but nothing so we sat there waiting not sure if we should come...