Gosforth Traders — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

I visited here about a year ago and it was only until I was asked the other day of a place where I wouldn't visit again due to poor service when I thought of my terrible experience here and felt compelled to write about it.

Me and my brother visited on a Saturday morning, we were instantly met with dirty looks by the two young female members of staff and older, presumably manager, male member of staff at the counter.

We looked at the menu and after initially going in to get a coffee, we saw they done milkshakes on the kids menu so we thought we would ask.

After standing and waiting quite some time, we were finally given a very cold welcome from the manager who asked for our order. We asked if it were possible to order two banana milkshakes, he looked at us and said "you don't look like kids to me". We explained that we recognised it was on the kids menu but asked if it were possible for us to order. He begrudgingly agreed to our small request, charging us more than double the price of one child milkshake per adult milkshake - I don't mind paying a bit extra, as long as it then isn't a child's portion (which it was).

The manager then began to make our order, he turned away from us and was whispering to his 2 younger female colleagues, clearly talking about us as they all continued to turn and give us filthy looks.

When he wasn't busy trying to impress girls half his age by slagging off his customers who pay both his and their wages, he made what appeared to be a concoction of one banana (for 2 drinks this is for), a lot of ice and a dash of milk.

He then served us two small cups of what me and my brother could only describe as banana water.

We reluctantly took the drinks and left the premises quickly with absolutely no intent to return whatsoever. I'm all for supporting local and smaller businesses so it is unfortunate that this one was...

Dog friendly? Hardly. If your dog barks, prepare to be barked at.

If you have a dog that might bark, do not visit Gosforth Traders because the manager/cook will aggressively shout at you.

Our 1 year old dog had just exchanged barks with another passing dog. As the manager walked by our table, he leant down and roared “SHUT UP!” causing the table next us to break conversation look over in a perplexed / concerned manner. At that point, I wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny or not.

A few minutes later, a woman then came out the toilet and approached our pup in a sympathetic way as she must’ve seen him getting shouted earlier. Our pup let out a yelp of excitement causing the manager/cook to come back in a very threatening way and shout “IF I HEAR THAT DOG ONE MORE TIME YOU’RE OUT!” So we immediately left. The woman who’d approached us was incredibly sorry and close to tears - I explained it wasn’t her fault, it was the overly aggressive manager.

He might’ve been having a bad day but he’s in the service industry. Surely he could’ve handled this a lot better - just come and politely say “Sorry could you keep your dog quiet, we don’t allow dogs that bark in here.”

If you’re going to allow dogs in your premises, you should expect a little bark now and then - after all, that’s what they do - they bark.

There are loads of other dog friendly places within 5 mins - Cafe Espresso, Cafe Beam and the whole of the high street. They’ll even look over and smile if they hear a...

Unfortunately we didn't get to experience the food. We had booked a table in advance, and we arrived on time. However the table had not been reserved for us, and the area where we had asked to sit was full with other people . When we asked about this the person who appeared to be in charge - and who had actually taken the original booking - was extremely rude. He said that we could not expect a table in the area we had asked for - even though when he took the booking he had said there was availability in the area we had asked for. He then said he could offer us a table elsewhere and it was our choice whether we stayed or not. Not surprisingly this made us feel very unwelcome. The other staff seemed to "get" where we were coming from and appeared embarrassed by the attitude of the person in charge, as indeed I would have been in their position. We decided not to stay but it was unfortunate: we were looking forward to a pleasant evening out after a busy week, but this was ruined by the attitude of the person who appeared to be in charge at the time. Perhaps there are some training...