The Town Wall — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

We came in on Friday evening for drinks and food, but unfortunately just didn't have a great time which is a shame considering the great potential of the place. The bar was busy with 3 sides and more than enough staff, however there seemed no system in place as to who was serving who and on which side which meant waiting for a drink took an unnecessarily long time, and then when some did come to our side, they would have no idea who was first so would shout 'who's next', which if you are small and behind one of the large beer taps, and a bigger guy behind you shouts, you will miss out. We had table service (which we didn't expect, we'd thought we'd have to go to the bar) to order the food and the waitress was lovely. The food itself was ok, standard pub grub. The red pepper hummus tasted a bit odd and the katsu tofu was a bit of a disappointment - greasy silken tofu and cold curry sauce. But everything else as expected. We'd intended to stay for a few drinks but the acoustics were pretty terrible meaning you could barely hear the person next to you talk, which I get it's an old building with high ceilings, but there are ways around that. The biggest issue was when we tried to get our food bill at the end. By that time they had stopped officially serving food so there were no staff on the floor, and everyone was behind the bar. It was then impossible to get the bill without essentially queuing for a drink, which I didn't quite fancy. I tried to lean over to ask a very young bartender, but was just told by him he was busy serving someone. Eventually our same waitress who took the order was able to help, but it was a bit of a long and drawn out process for something quite simple. Would've been easier to order food at the bar in the first place. I work in hospitality myself, so am only trying to be constructive and not criticise, I think it's a great venue, just needs a little operational...

We'd booked a table for Sunday lunch at 5pm . I accept that may seem late (to some) for lunch but it fitted our travel plans and it was the time slot offered on their own website. There were later slots so we assumed all would be OK.

Early afternoon on the day we received a call asking us to either pre-order or move our booking forward. I wouldn't normally but we were keen to try this place so we agreed 4pm and re-arranged our plans.

We arrived at 3:45 and asked the barman if our table was ready. He checked, said it was and pointed in the vague direction of where the table was leaving us to find it. I asked if we needed to order drinks/food at the bar and was told someone would take our order at the table.

We sat and waited 15 minutes before I went back to the bar to order our drinks.

We sat and waited another 30 minutes before paying for our drinks and leaving.

The barman knew we were there (he'd even opened a tab for the drinks) and the Manager knew we were there (I'd spoken to him when I ordered the drinks). It was quite quiet and there seemed to be plenty of staff.

Perhaps the guy cleaning the cutlery could have taken our order. Perhaps the girl who cleared the adjoining table whilst we were sat there could have taken our order. Perhaps the Manager who knew I'd had to come back to the bar to order drinks could have taken our order or at least proved his worth as a Manager and made sure someone did.

If you ignore customers for 45 minutes in a near empty pub then you don't...

I was dining at 'the town wall' this evening when I noticed bar staff using glasses to scoop ice into the glass, and not using proper ice scoops or tongs.

When we received our tap waters there were pieces of glass in the water. We only realised there was glass in the water until we had drank it.

I went over to the bar to complain to the manager but when at the bar I over heard two colleges joking about "Are You Trying To Kill Our Customers" which was very rude and disrespectful.

We did complain to the bar manager who was more then unhelpful and did not apologies until I asked him to. And when I was at the bar speaking to the manager I could see that other customers were continueing to receive ice in their drinks.

We were not at any point assured the ice had been disposed of or the problem was being delt with.

After speaking to the manager we paid for our bill and left. One of our guests had a panic attack outside and I can feel pain in my throat.

The situation was not delt well by the staff or manager and I would like there to be a full investigation and the bar staff to complete health and safety training. Including how to safety make drinks.

Not...