The Hockley Arts Club — Restaurant in Nottingham

Booked Hockley Arts Club for my 21st birthday, it was a party of 13, 8 people had preordered for the bottomless, 3 people had booked for just the afternoon tea with one cocktail and one processco. 2 people didn’t want afternoon tea at all due to not wanting certain food and drinks.

When we arrived the waiter didn’t even introduce himself, he just put us in the room, and left us with menus on the table for cocktails. With a bottomless experience i would expect at least a welcome but also someone explaining how the 90mintues works, considering 11 of us have preordered and 3 of those people are also not doing bottomless but a different meal plan. Nothing was explained and we were expected to just understand how everything works!

I then realized there were two chairs which have not be added to the table despite I booked a table for 13 people. It took them awhile and a few reminders to bring a chair, the waiter bought us one chair and I then had to ask again for another, in which a waitress who I saw working at the bar came in and literally threw it across the room, she didn’t put it in place or around the table. Just literally threw it. Incredibly rude, and abrupt behavior. Felt as though we were an inconvenience to her shift. Already this experience began to get a bit stressful when I expected with preordering and booking a table it would have already been organized.

At this point we still hadn’t received our welcome cocktails or been able to order them, again because the process was not explained we did not know if the people with different set menus could get the same cocktails on the menu. The waiter then began to tell one of the party members on bottomless brunch that she couldn’t have the one from the menu, completely confusing everyone.

At this point on my 21st birthday I was getting very flustered by the situation they have put us in and then suddenly food was being put on our table with no explanation what the sandwich’s are and some people still not even having a glass of processco yet. The food was just put on the table with cards with veggie, gluten and classic which I thought was great, but no organisation , or anyone checking if everything is being run smoothly or how it was going for us. The service was really quite terrible.

At this point whilst everyone was eating , I had to go to the bar to speak to someone else and I wish I knew his name but he was so lovely and within a few minutes he had sorted out our welcome cocktails and also explained how the process worked. He explained that obviously they don’t see how many people put down the deposit etc so that why there may be some confusion. So I completely understand that some things were out of their control, however what is in their control is good, polite, service. As a customer I shouldn’t feel like I’m being a nag by asking for our drinks, asking for chairs for my party to sit on and I had booked for.

Other than that, the food was great, everyone enjoyed it. The bottomless Prosecco did end up coming out faster after being stalled for a good 45mins, and the atmosphere and music is great in there.

For future there needs to be more organisation for a big party, better service that’s actually polite and...

Extremely disappointed. Booked afternoon tea here for my partners birthday and it was terrible. The menu online was different to the afternoon tea served and apart from one waitress the service was awful.

We arrived excited to celebrated my partners birthday with a great menu that was advertised online. The waitress serving us was friendly enough but didn’t make much effort to engage in conversation or recognise the booking notes I put about my partners birthday.

The afternoon tea arrived and the food was not good. The bread felt stale and the food did not taste fresh at all. We ordered the vegetarian afternoon tea and had asked that it was definitely vegetarian as we had a chicken sandwich which was not advertised on the online menu. A man who I assume was the manager came over and very rudely told us it was “fake turkey”, our waitress then came over and showed us the quorn packet and reassured us it was vegetarian and asked if it was okay, a much better response than the rude manager before her.

We then continued to eat our afternoon tea but honestly it was hard to eat, as mentioned the sandwiches were stale and so were the cakes. For the price I was deeply disappointed so much so that I asked for the bill very quickly even though most of the food was uneaten. We were given the bill and I paid without even being asked if we had enjoyed the food, if we wanted to take it away or if there was an issue. This was shocking, the bar was empty and therefore there was no excuse for poor customer service.

I will never come back again and I am very disappointed that my partners birthday was ruined by...

The vibe felt off as soon as we walked in. Two members of staff looked directly at us while we waited to be seated, but carried on chatting to their colleagues rather than acknowledging us. Eventually, we were seated at the bar, where the barman asked if we’d been given menus (we hadn’t). He then asked a blonde staff member - Alice, I think—to bring us some. She rolled her eyes and did so reluctantly, which we later realised was because her shift was ending. Regardless, that’s not a professional look in front of customers. When my partner placed the menu on the bar, the barman asked us to remove it in a passive-aggressive way. It wasn’t clear why he couldn’t have just moved it himself, but the way he said it came across as unnecessarily rude and uncomfortable. The drinks were fine, but overpriced and nothing memorable. The real issue came later: my husband left early, and as he was walking out, a staff member actually chased him down and demanded payment. He tried to explain that I was settling the bill, but was treated as though he was lying and pressured to pay on the spot. He messaged me afterwards to let me know, which meant I didn’t need to pay again but by that point, the damage was done. I left feeling humiliated and unwelcome. The atmosphere was neither friendly nor inclusive, and unfortunately we won’t...