Frankie & Benny's — Restaurant in Plymouth

We were celebrating a 30th birthday, with six people in our party, including a child and a baby, and had reserved a table for 5:45 PM.

Upon arrival just before our reservation time, we were informed that no suitable table was available to accommodate a high chair. We were given the option to either wait 30-45 minutes or sit in a booth, which meant our 1-year-old would have to sit on the seat. This proved to be a challenge, as she was restless and wanted to crawl around, making the experience stressful from the outset.

We placed our order at 6:10 PM and were told our food would arrive within 20 minutes, which we understood given how busy the restaurant was. However, our drinks didn't arrive until 6:40 PM, and they were incorrect, so we had to send them back. When we finally received the corrected drinks at 7:00 PM, they had been sitting at the bar since the incorrect order was returned, so the ice had melted, resulting in watered-down drinks.

At this point, we still hadn't received any food. We politely asked a member of staff to provide an update, and 20 minutes later, a manager informed us that the ticket machine was broken, and our order hadn't gone through. While we appreciate that technical issues can occur, it was highly disappointing that this was not communicated to us sooner.

By 7:45 PM, after having waited for over an hour and a half without receiving any food and with incorrect drinks, we made the decision to leave. The whole situation was frustrating, particularly as we had young children who were tired and hungry. We left the restaurant feeling dissatisfied, upset, and hungry.

Unfortunately, this experience has left us with no desire to return, and we will not be recommending this restaurant to friends or family.

I hope you can take this feedback into consideration and look into improving the service for future guests. We would appreciate a response to address...

The stars are for the front of house staff, but a really poor dining experience. Good at welcoming, seating and getting initial drinks order, but that's where it went downhill. No milkshakes, all out due to less deliveries over the festive period. Starter, same again.

Can someone please get this branch to mark Christmas and New Year onto their calendar. They are on exactly the same date every year. There is simply no excuse for such poor stock control, it smacks of contempt for the customer. At the very least tell the customer before they get the menu that items x,y,z are out and apologise, giving you a chance to walk out before going through the process. I dread to think how much else was out of stock it seems that this branch is so poorly managed. Next, my wife and daughter used the toilets. Ladies toilets closed, marked out of order. Disabled toilet door lock broken. Daughter used ladies toilets, and found them to be working, just uncleaned and pretty messy. Not a good indicator on general hygiene standards. The wall and pictures next to our table were covered in milkshake spray (6 feet up, quite impressive) and food. When our alternative starter turned up, it was followed under 30 seconds later by our main courses with a new waitress. When we said that we had just got the starters, the waitress asked if we wanted the mains left, and then took them away. My wife then spent the next 15 minutes worrying that the mains would be kept under a heat lamp and that we would have to complain again. Luckily our original waitress told us that that was not their policy, they would be made fresh, which proved to be true. Unfortunately, one of our plates was dirty and one of the mains was lukewarm at best. The staff changed the plate and had the pasta remade. I have to say, the food was tasty and good value, and as said before, the staff were great. Note to management - Standards...

So we went here after the cinema because it was quiet so expected a short wait. Sunday lunch time, summer holidays. Shown to our table we were told a lot of things were off the menu. We were first served by a young girl who took our drinks order around 1.50pm. She returned 15 minutes later and took our food order. All fine. Our food takes about 40 minutes to come out, then my vegetarian daughters came wrong. She ordered a tomato pasta, she got meat spaghetti bolognaise. So they changed it, all fine. The children get free desserts with their meals so we waited and waited to order them. We ordered their 3 and 2 for the adults. Waited another half an hour. They came out wrong or missing. They has forgotten to order any adult desserts so once they did they had sold out. We were served by 3 different people, each one not knowing what the others had done. Received our bill, very quickly after being in there 2 hours for basic food. Advised the waitress the food was fine but the service was shocking. People were complaining all around us. So she gets the manager. His attitude was absolutely disgusting. He said because of the poor service he would take the desserts off. We didn't even get the desserts because they'd sold out. He didn't seem to grasp the fact he told us he was discounting something we never had. So he snatched the bill out of our hands and stomped off. He was rude and disgusting. One of the girls said his name was heath or something like that. They seemed to not want to tell us! The people next to us said he was vile to act the way he did, especially in front of my 3 young children. He's a disgrace. We didn't ask for any money off, we were happy to pay, for what we actually had. There was no need to act the way he did. So basically bad service, ok food if they actually have it in stock, terrible terrible management/manager. DO NOT GO...