The Beach Club Bar and Restaurant Portsmouth — Restaurant in Portsmouth

Note; I've had to edit this review down as it wouldn't let me rant as much as I wanted! So no paragraphs and not the whole story... I have often walked by here and thought about going in but have been put off by the prices that seemed somewhat steep for the offerings, my friend said the same. Never the less, my friend now has a taste card and that allows you 2 for 1 on main meals, so what normally seems quite steep then becomes reasonable. We had 3 kids in tow. Kids meals are £7, which for a main, dessert and drink didn't seem too bad. Two children had hot dog and chips, the third chicken nuggets and chips. With this was their choice of Orange and Apple juices. With very little vegetarian choice, I chose Magherita pizza (£9) My friend went for the chicken breast burger (£12). I could have liked a veggie burger option but there was not one. We had a 'large' Americano each, coming in at quite a hefty £3.50 each for not a particularly large size cup. The kids meals were a decent size and the chips were very nice. My son had a couple of bites and put it down, said he didn't want anymore, he wasn't hungry. He's not keen on chips so hadn't had any of them. I asked him to eat more and his reply was that he didn't like it. My eldest munched her way happily through the chips then took one bite of her hotdog and said it tasted horrible. Very unlike her to be fussy. My friend's grandson had some chips and tried the nuggets and said the batter tasted disgusting. My pizza was burnt all aroud the edge. I cut away the edges as I'm not one to make a fuss and set about eating the rest, providing my friend with a slice to try. I had imagined that the pizza would be very tasty. It wasn't. It had plenty of cheese, just not much flavour. My friend agreed. I loaded it with salt and pepper. My friend said the brioche bun tasted so sweet and decided not to eat it. The chicken, was very tough and like rubber. Our waiter came along and asked if everything was okay with our food. My friend pointed out the issues, he apologised and said he'd just charge for chips for the kids. Meals done, all that remained was the desserts for the kids. While waiting, my friend took the kids to the toilet. In that time, the vanilla ice cream arrived for my son and strawberry jellies for the other two. I was surprised to see the jelly in pouches, like the sort you'd find fruit purrees in the supermarket for infants. I then went to the toilet and when I returned, my friend's face was of a look of dismay. My son's ice cream had a hair in it! We were told it couldn't possibly be their staff. In the end, the manager said we shouldn't pay. We manage been regulars to this place as locals if it was of better standard. Such a shame. A couple of other things to note... The toilets are very run down and whilst not filthy, they certainly aren't inviting. Plastic straws were given to the children in their drinks. Seems unnecessary as they are very able to drink from a cup without....

This is my third visit in the last few years, and this is the first time my expectations were far from reached (the previous two times were great!!). We came in on Sunday, and the service was decidedly average, the food was even worse.

We ordered two cocktails to start, I ordered a sunset margarita and was given a tequila sunrise type of drink, not a marg. Looking at the bar, there seems to be heavy use of syrups/pre-batches, so far from special on the cocktail front.

As for starters, we ordered the truffle mac n cheese and the garlic flatbread, with added mozzarella. Both were flawless!

The two tables we were sat between, were left with dirty plates and glasses for almost 30 minutes after guests had left. The restaurant was barely 20% filled, but tables were being turned very slowly. One of our servers, as pleasant as they were, took a cigarette break in their car, parked 10 feet from the restaurant in full view of customers, whilst we sat surrounded by dirty tables.

As for mains, pretty horrendous! My partner ordered the vegetarian roast (£17), which was mostly dry and bland. I ordered the TBC Beast burger for a cool £20.50, and with the extensive listed ingredients, was expecting something brilliant! It was far from it. After initially being served the wrong burger (the base burger on the menu), I received the correct one, which wasn't much bigger. The patty was dry and overcooked, the fennel rubbed pork belly was bland and modestly portioned for something that would cost £5 to add to a standard burger, the fried beef steak on top was miniscule, impossible to bite through, grisly and dry. The bacon however, was gorgeous, as was the bun.

Midway through my meal, I went to the bar to order a glass of Rioja Blanco, the manager(?) at the bar, pulled out a visibly streaky, wet, warm glass, fresh from the glasswasher, and served the wine in that. I know that's a minor detail but??? Come on??

Overall, our impression of the restaurant, with plenty of staff, but plenty of dirty tables to match, poor food and average service, implied that whoever is running this place, has stopped caring - probably stopped training their team, too. I visited a restaurant entirely unrecognisable from the one I've frequented over the past few years - one I've been raving about, to whoever is looking for good food with a view in Southsea. I sincerely hope it picks up, and some kind of overhaul is made soon, Southsea's food scene has been picking up post-COVID, it'd be a damn shame if a gem like The Beach Club was left in the dust, due to complacency and negligence from those...

My honest experience of this places was actually really good and I definitely enjoyed it! Pretty views and the food was absolutely delicious! However the service wasn’t too great for how amazing everything else was. The lady with blonde highlighted hair who was hosting had a terrible attitude and definitely didn’t feel like a warm welcome. We had asked for seats inside because of how cold it was and was quickly denied rudely and told we had to sit outside anyways because of the lack of space, which was totally fair and we didn’t complain however, there are definitely ways you can speak to people especially when working in a professional environment and when we want to spend money at this place. We did infact sit outside however it was absolutely freezing despite the rather immaculate view! We later had asked to move back inside if there was an empty table, which a young lady with dark brown hair had been able to sort out for us which was amazing! However I had seen her asking for permission from the same lady who had denied us at the very start and it looked as if she was annoyed we was asking again and couldn’t be bothered to deal with it even though I was very polite and even said sorry about asking again. We ended up enjoying our amazing food and cocktails inside away from the cold and honestly apart from that had a great experience! Wish I knew the ladies names as there where defo some superstars working that day apart from one unfortunately. I also know how it was working in hospitality so didn’t want to be that annoying customer and understood that probably through the day the blonde lady might have become abit tired but even so I definitely didn’t feel a warm welcome from her at all and she didn’t seem professional! However will defo come back to enjoy the food and atmosphere!! Was absolutely lush!! Need the kitchen staff at my...