Horton's Lounge — Restaurant in Newport

I googled dog "friendly" cafes before I decided to make my way into town. I live quite far away from the city centre so it was a bit of a journey to get into town.

I called one of the staff member by telephone before I left to ask if my dog was well behaved. (Which he always is) if he would be allowed off the lead. They acknowledged my request and said that's fine.

However, when we arrived, I noticed that mpst of the other dogs were on the lead. Which was fine. But my dog is my responsibility and I decided to let him off.

After no time whatsoever he was told to be put back on the lead. Eventhough the staff member told me that he could come off.

I like the idea of dog cafes, but it wasa contrasting experience to Bill's café in Cardiff. Who took notice of my dog, provide good food and excellent customer service and all in all it felt less hostile for my dog, who already suffers with major anxiety.

I think in future people should be signposted with the correct information and policies, so they know what to expects when visiting.

-In response to the owners comments.

In regards to your first question I didn't get signposted about my dog staying at the table. If you want me to go into more detail about "worrying dogs" as you've quoted. The canine sitting at the back of the eatery was absolutely fine with my boy. In fact the two dogs were going back and forth to interact with each other.

In regards to your second answer again the waitress said it was fine if he sat on my lap. Which he did. And he ate his food on the floor.

He didn't disturb any of the dogs off his lead they were all very calm as far as I can remember. I mean you could check the CCTV footage yourself if you did want to take a look to clarify that point you made? The only problem we had with other dogs was

When he was on the lead he got tangled up with a dog leaving and he barked a bit because he was nervous but barking doesn't always mean aggression it's a form of communitcation. Like how human beings have the ability to communicate through language.

The only problem we really had was when I had him on a short lead leaving the cafeteria and that other lady who didn't really have much control over her dog. Went to attack my dogs neck with her teeth showing. I'm really glad I reacted quickly in order to pull him back, I was very shocked.

The good thing is I know my dogs nature, he's a barker not a biter. Plus he has no teeth so even if he did want to bite another dog he probably wouldn't do much anyway. Just to reinforce that point he barked a few times, you might have heard him? But he wouldn't bite another dog.

Oh and I like your last point about the café. The definition of a café is a small restaurant selling light meals and drinks. I had a small glass of lime and soda and a light meal. I'm not sure if that summarises that point you...

Unfortunately I would never recommend this place. Our first major red flag was the lack of health and safety. No one asked whether our table has allergies or any intolerance, which is of great concern and needs to be addressed by management straight away.

We ordered 3 x roast dinners. 2 beef and 1 lamb. 2 of our table do not eat lamb, hence ordering beef. Unfortunately when the food arrived it was covered in a lamb gravy, which both parties mistaken tasted. Whilst this may not be a problem for some, it is when you have not eaten lamb for 25 years and are then questioned on why you didn't let the staff know you don't eat it, when you are ordering beef and not lamb. After immediately notifying the staff, we were questioned and told the gravy was beef. Our party asked for this to be checked and 15 minutes later were told by the kitchen it was in fact lamb. The resturant then begrudgingly replaced the two beef dinners. However, the remainder of the party were left with their dinner, which had already become stone cold during gravy gate, and the restaurant refused to replace or even keep her dinner warm, not until 25 minutes after avoiding our table and returning to advise we had to wait for the rest of the resturant to be served before we would have our replacement meals. When politely asked whether the lamb dinner could be replaced we were advised if a fresh meal was to be provided (after their mistake) then we would have to pay for the replacement and the cold meal they were replacing.

When the meals were eventually corrected we were met with a tirade of blame, in that it was our fault we did not notify them that two of the party did not eat lamb. The restaurant could not understand that by ordering beef we would not expect to be served lamb and to have to tell the restaurant of our intolerance to lamb when we didnt order it.

Eventually when we had finished, our table was once again ignored for half an hour before we were given our bill. To our shock the resturant had added on a gratuity and smirked as we were handed the bill and told the gratuity was optional.

The restaurant failed to apologise or adjust the bill to reflect 3 ruined meals. We were unwilling to pay full price for the meals which were ruined, cold and served 2.5 hours after we sat down. It is quite clear the kitchen and the staff do not talk to each other and the managers skills are non existent. The blame game on their customers is not okay, and from reading other reviews, not a one off either. With no initial allergen or intolerance checks, and several lack of accountability, Hortons is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Please do...

Avoid unless you fancy dicing with the chance of food poisoning. 5 hungry ladies booked and visited last night, was a complete disaster. The chicken tikka wrap was delivered stone cold and when checking was told it should be hot, staff returned it to the kitchen and then come back to say that the kitchen was now closed so the best they can do is remove it for the bill, so technically 4 people could eat and 1 could go hungry - great, once this was pointed out they decided they would recook, in the meantime we noticed that another meal had a well undercooked chicken burger, so returnee that aswell and inform them to turn the grill off as at this point we didn't feel safe eating there. AT NO POINT DID WE RECIEVE AN APOLOGY WHICH IS THE FIRST THING YOU WOULD EXPECT!! The 2 meals were taken off the bill but we will never visit or recommend this place to anyone. (I will point out that the waitress that was sent to bring our food and drinks was polite, while the other staff wanted to hide behind the counter and look at us like we were the issue). We then decided to try to go to a restaurant in friars walk to get desserts and at this point one of us had eaten a few chips, every restaurant was fully booked as it was a Saturday night so a few annoyed ladies walking round in the freezing cold. Then went to the market and what a difference, queued to get in (at this point we were ready to quit and go home) but it was so worth it, excellent food and customer service and our saviours of an almost ruined night. Good job these ladies have a sense of humour! So in a nutshell walk a few further steps and join the queue at the market as boy don't we wish we had in the...