Central Oven & Shaker — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

I am writing this review as I dined with 27 others on Feb 18th for my mams 60th birthday and I filed a complaints shortly after but I am still awaiting an acknowledgment nevermind a response! Im posting on here to hopefully generate a response

Complaint:

Having been a long time customer of “central” I had high hopes and was confident with my choice to celebrate my mams birthday with 26 of her friends, but I have been left feeling disappointed

I would like to say the staff were attentive and brilliant with checking we all had a drink and the two girls who mainly served us were very friendly

There was a couple of issues with the meal, one of the meals was forgotten about, unsure how as there was a pre order, and as it was chicken it would take 20mins for another when everyone else had their food. A quick pizza was ordered instead for time but it wasnt what we had wanted. Also there seems to be discrepancies in the lasagne. One was lovely, well cooked with plenty of sauce. On the other hand, my mams was dry and burnt to the bottom of the skillet, she didn’t particularly enjoy it and ate some of my chips instead, which might I add being labelled as “rosemary and parmesan fries” had not even a hint of rosemary. Lastly, the person next to me was presented with a vegan goats cheese pizza, we said that wasnt correct and we didnt order vegan. The waiter said it must be someone else in the group, i confidently said no one had ordered the vegan pizza as it was myself who had completed the pre order. The waiter came back a few minutes later and said that a vegan goats cheese pizza had been ordered as thats what i had “clicked”, i informed him i hadnt “clicked” anything but had “typed” goats cheese pizza which we showed staff the email. Again, this was rectified after 5-10mins but was a bit of an argumentative process to get there.

Lastly, and by far my biggest issue with the day. We tried to order some more drinks not long after 3pm but were told we only had the table for 15 more minutes. By which point we had only just had our plates cleared and were yet to have birthday cake. Again, i confirmed with staff that we had the table 1-5pm and showed them the confirmation email. After some time away they came back and said it had been a miscommunication but we needed to go as there was another table waiting to come in. Now ive worked in hospitality and have been on the receiving end of a disgruntled customer so I was polite and told the girl I understood it wasnt her personal fault but I really wasnt happy. Where on a busy saturday afternoon was i meant to go with 27 other people who were not finished celebrating and were expecting to be out much longer. As you can imagine I didnt have any luck in securing anywhere and other venue staff said “no chance if you haven't booked”, which I fully expected. I know the manager said she would see what she could do with the bill, but we would have rather paid for what we had and been able to stay in the venue we had reserved til the time we had agreed.

My mam had a lovely afternoon, she always would as she hasnt seen some of her friends for years but I cant help thinking I should have booked somewhere else. Never have we had a bad meal with yourselves, until now. Never have we had anything but brilliant service, until now. On the one day I wanted it to be perfect for my mam. I am curious to know how there was such a breakdown in communication (pre order and reservation time), how there are discrepancies between the same meal, from the same kitchen at the same time (lasagne) and why some of the staff feel the need to argue about a pre order (goats cheese pizza) when it is written in black and white

I look forward to...

They do gluten free pizza bases so it's a 10/10 on the food front.

Staff were polite and friendly but I wouldn't say it was the best customer service I have had.

EDIT REVIEW:

Second time I have been and holy **. I won't be going back. We walk in and no one at the bar advises us to sit down or shows us to the table, if it's table service I expect to be shown to a table, if it's bar service I expect to be welcomed at the bar. My poor dad went up to the bar to order a drink and 3 members of staff who were doing nothing wouldn't even look up at my dad to serve him. It's like they were suggesting "it's not my responsibility to serve you its the waiter". We felt very unwelcome!!!

The pizzas again were delicious.

I got a GF pizza and my dad a normal one. He ordered a tomato garlic bread for starter and I asked for mozzarella balls. Then my dad gets his garlic bread for starter ... I asked where my mozzarella balls were which was after my dad had finished his starter (that's how long it took to get the waiters attebtuon) and she said "well it usually comes with the main"... but she knew I wasn't having the tomato garlic bread as I can't eat the pizza base. So surely she doesn't just assume I was going to sit watch my dad eat his starter and then have two dishes for my main course. It was really frustrating.

Was 1hr after arriving that it took for me to eat any food and I was absolutely starving. My dad went up to the bar even to ask if the barwoman would put some of those sweeties in a glass (they have a jar of sweets beind the bar), and before he even finished speaking she said "I can't give you free samples of whiskey". Jesusssssss Christ.

I love the food here but the service needs a long hard look at if it's...

Let's not get too excited over this place. Yes, it is a nice environment and has the potential to be great but the overall quality is nothing special and prices for some items are way too high, considering the size of the portions. Firstly, I ordered a White Americano coffee which is £2.50 and the size was tiny; I took two usual size drinks from the cup and it was just about empty...and it was lukewarm. For a starter I ordered the Mozzarella Balls and, for £4.50, it was an insult. 6 miniature, cold, naked pellets of mozzarella with some mini segment of cherry tomatoes around them that didn't make it look any better. I was so angry at this point that my brother had to force a bit of his cheesy garlic bread on me so that I didn't lose my temper. Garlic bread was good but it's not difficult is it? And finally, the main course; Pepperoni Pizza (£10.50). You can't really mess a pepperoni pizza and it was fine, not great, just fine. However, it had a soggy bottom and an overly crispy, slightly blacker than I like, crust. It tasted fine though and that's all I can really say.

I probably won't be in a a rush to go back and neither will the other 3 people in our party.

Bit gutted as I wanted it to be so much better.

Oh and my girlfriend just mentioned that the chips weren't anything special either, considering that they were their signature, Central...