Beefeater Whitley Bay — Restaurant in North Tyneside

Ok, so I had an absolute mare of a visit to a different Beefeater (attached to the usual Premier Inn I stay at) so thought I'd give this one a go, as before THAT week, it was, & I was happy to say, the best place for a meal & service I had been to whilst stopping away all over the UK. This is a lovely looking restaurant, right on the seafront, modern with an open kitchen & most of the staff are very pleasant.

To be clear I'm here on business & as such have 'meal-deal' allowance which I give a voucher for & can either have starter/main or main/dessert + choice of drink, some meals need to be paid extra for as do some drinks.

Got here late(ish) last night, around 19.30 after 3.5 hour drive. Ordered Red wine (upgraded to Malbec @ cost of £1) ok so far, ordered Lamb Koftas (lovely) but no Minted saddle of Lamb, now, the other one I have been using has not had any for several MONTHS now, & I cannot figure out how a company as large as Whitbread, cannot sort out a supplier for their Lamb ( which is the reason always given, too fatty so cannot use, fair enough).

No lamb here, told it's because it's Sunday and run out & delivery is on a Monday, fair enough. I was left until my starter appeared to make up my mind about replacement so ordered 'smokey Paprika Chicken Breast with triple cooked chips, our own Slaw & side salad'... sounds nice? See pictures. After waiting for around 5 mins for girl to return with the rest of it I managed to get her attention and ask if I was to get my slaw & salad to be told 'there isn't any slaw but I can see about your side salad if you like' & the one that turned up, was woefully inadequate. Both dry in parts & old in others and the size of a gnat! All of which I hope you can see from the pictures.

All said & done, communication would have gone a long way to allay any of this but it was not forthcoming. Total of four people served me & STILL bad service. But hey, it WAS Sunday.

Monday was like night & day, good service, had lamb, all fantastic, what a turn around but consistency would be nice.

Tuesday was ok, food good service good met an old work colleague who enjoyed his food, shame the heating had failed & we were all sat in coats hats & scarves (it was during 'the beast from the east')

Wednesday morning I had to cut & run due to bad snow storms, 7 hours to get home due to conditions & accidents etc but the big question.... would I stay here & eat here again well..... yes, yes I would, it's a nice setting, one bad night/experience in the restaurant is all which was very disappointing but they redeemed themselves, mostly due to the enthusiasm & efficiency of the floor manager (the food etc should always be correct). So I've upgraded them from two to three stars. Oh, did I mention, i do have some experience in hospitality, I'm a Chèf of over 20...

Bad customer service which we did complain about at the time (as I don't ordinarily like just leaving bad reviews) but felt they completely ignored us.

Whole process took way too long - 2.5 hours and the place was pretty empty at points. 2 young children beside themselves with boredom. Husband ordered a burger and got completely the wrong thing. It was meant to be chicken (it was just a normal burger) with sausage and bacon (both absent). Didn't come with a jug of gravy. Explained this in full to the waitress who went to speak to the chefs then came back and said it was the right burger just didn't have the bacon on cause they had ran out. Ignored what we said about sausage, being a normal burger not chicken, not having gravy. Gave us 2 pounds off for the missing bacon, ignored that it was completely the wrong thing in the first place. Weren't wanting a monetary discount as my husband actually ate it before realising (trying to placate two kids was distracting as it was 1.5 hours after arriving that our food came). We would have liked some acknowledgement of their mess up.

Ordered a side of loaded roasties which they forgot to make. This is fine, stuff like this happens all the time. Instead of coming back and verbalising this to us the waitress just disappeared and didn't come back. This happened a lot, the waitresses would just start serving other people when they were there in the middle of sorting stuff out which is probably why you spend so long sitting around.

Adult food came out 10 mins after the kids food so they were almost finished we got ours. Mine came with salad which was just dry and undressed. The waitress kept putting all our drinks down Infront of our 2 year old instead of anywhere else on the table.

All in all, some of this stuff I wouldn't have complained about. I'd not even have complained about the burger being incorrect if they just owned up to it but it's poor customer service to completely ignore what the customer has said because it doesn't suit you.

Positives: apart from how long the process takes, they do have colouring sheets for the kids which are a nice touch. Waitress spent time engaging them which was nice. Nice festive atmosphere. Price for kids set...

We love this place ...but the past few visits have kind of made us look elsewhere to grab a drink & some food with the kids. Executive decisions that seem to be failing this business in the short term will no doubt have a big impact in the long term because summer trade only lasts as long as the season. Regular locals will probably seek out an alternative after having multiple pointless visits. The staff who provide service are great very professional, the place is always very clean with the exception of a couple of times where outside tables have been overlooked. The venue is great perfect for families and the view outside is amazing... Here's the things that make it a difficult visit. Turning up to be told they aren't serving food outside at all today, after waiting in the queue to order at the bar for 25 minutes in the height of a heatwave with hungry children isn't fun.. when you consider that you've first waited for a free table.. Turning up on another occasion to be told there's no fries or chips & various other items at all to order, again after waiting ten minutes in a queue. Customers would benefit from having a greeter before the queue at the bar to say "just to let you know we are not doing whatever today" to save the prolonging of the process ..it's quite disappointing esp with young children to get them all the way there to stand for a considerable amount of time to then have to tell them you need to go elsewhere. . . Again all this could be solved with a small change at busy times & appropriate supplies to meet demands. The times we have had food it has been lovely & sitting outside with the kids is...