The Vaults, Southsea — Restaurant in Portsmouth

I booked a private room for my daughters 18th birthday. The whole experience was absolutely disgraceful. The first telephone contact was with a young woman whose manner was atrocious, her opening statement of, "are you aware you owe £150 for the room" was combative and rude. Unfortunately things went from bad to worse. At 3pm on the day of the party, I was told anyone under 18 would have to leave at 9pm due to liscensing. When I tried to discuss with the manager he blamed the miscommunication on my friend,. I QUOTE, "not my fault if she didnt tell you"! I have since reviewed all email communication, no mention of under 18 policy, Despite the fact I made it clear it was an 18th. Before the party even started I was stopped at the door by security demanding ID for all in the group and who they were in relation to me. There will be a separate complaint about the security staff. The bar was booked to start at 7.30 and was not ready. I was told the policy for bar staff was no phones, I paid for a member of staff and watched her on her phone all night, I have photographic evidence. There were allegations of one of the party doing a drug deal outside and refused entry back into the venue. The young man involved offered to empty his pockets and to be searched, he was still refused entry. There were a number of witnesses to this yet the rude arrogant manager lied to my face saying the young man had refused to turn out his pockets. He had not been involved in any illegal behaviour. Aforementioned bar staff made allegations about my daughter and her friends using drugs in the bathroom, they did not. Security were heavy handed bullying and seemed to be on a power trip, rechecking IDs at 9.30, intimidating guests. The promised music system did not work because they did not have the right adaptors. Mixers for drinks were flat. Tried to discuss the issues with the manager who is one of the rudest most offencive people I have ever had the displeasure to meet. Tried again the following day to resolve but he never returned my calls. What shoulf have been a happy family event was turned into THE worst social night I have ever had in a venue. Fullers brewery have an establishment that seems to promote bullying, rudeness and...

wow. what a shame for such a lovely-looking venue. the one star is for the lovely blonde girl who served us - well doing for being the single friendly member of staff in the entire place. we came during a fairly quiet afternoon for some drinks and a meal. from the off the staff were unfriendly and every time i asked a question either looked at me like i was crazy for expecting them to do their job (i.e asking them to wipe the table and i was simply handed the wet cloth myself!!!) or would continue their discussions before answering / continued to shout at each other across the pub floor whilst taking my order. nobody seemed to have any idea what was and wasn’t on the menu, and just had the worst attitude as responses. fair enough if it was an extremely busy period and i was being unreasonable, but as someone who works as front of house i think i would probably be fired if i demonstrated the attitude i received. moving onto the quality of the food - which could’ve been a saving grace, but was in fact the last nail in the coffin for this venue. it was overpriced, which wouldn’t have mattered too much if it was outstanding, but we weren’t even able to finish. the pizza’s are essentially tortilla-thin bases that are overly floury and have some too much thick tomato purée slapped on top. chicken wings weren’t awful and the portion size was good, but once you got past the few resting on top the ones at the bottom of the bowl were cold and gelatinous, much like packet ones from the supermarket. and you can’t really mess some hummus and flatbread on a plate, but praise for making that look presentable at least. drinks were fine - but it’s a pub. no bonus points for that. overall i would avoid this place like the plague, and i’m sad we wasted our...

This is a brilliant location to get together with friends and family! There are so many different areas and you can section off one of them if you want to have a private function including the little outdoor terrace. The staff were very polite and helpful and I have been to a lot of other bars which could learn something from the manners of the staff here. Massive respect to them. The only thing I would say as that we found the music to be very cheesy and not to the taste of anyone in our group and the venue got a little noisy at times with the post football crowd and then a table who were loudly and drunkenly singing along to the music but the venue is quite large so we managed to move ourselves to another more tucked away large table. We ate pizza there and it was great quality pizza although with not a lot of topping so I wouldn't make a beeline to go there for the food. It was ok as a pre-drink stomach liner. We were able to put the birthday cake we brought with us in the fridge in the kitchen which was great but when we came to cut the cake there were no plates or forks available because of a private function onsite which was a shame. However plastic boxes were kindly provided for us to box up the leftovers. It is unclear if it is possible to hire the venue and have a DJ there. They do have a disabled toilet. There is also craft beer available there. The bottle of presecco we had there was ok. I took the photos towards the back end of the evening when most...