Slug & Lettuce - Friar Street Reading — Restaurant in Reading

I had to share this as I have had no joy from the Manager at Slug and Lettuce Friar Street Reading. And I have given one star as I could not otherwise warn others but would not even give them that. We had eaten at this place in August last year (2023) and my daughter loved the food and ambience. Being vegetarian, there was a great selection. She immediately decided that she wanted to book for her 18th birthday in September with her friends for an early dinner. She spoke with a waitress and they said that would be OK. Just to clarify She asked as her friends were 17 years old and she was turning 18 years. The waitress explained that if the left by 8.30pm, it would be fine as it was a Saturday night. That was all fine. The following day all friends confirmed, I booked a pent house apartment and all friend went for a weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Once all was booked, my daughter booked the restaurant for 6.30pm and once again was told they would need to leave by 8.30pm. I also called the venue to dou ke check as i knew the rest of the girls were 17 bit once again was told it was fine as long as they vacated by 8.30pm. All was confirmed. I celebrate my daughters birthday with a bang every year and had booked lots of activities for the weekend, items had been ordered from everywhere for the girls. So, the big day came, Saturday 23rd September, my daughter called the restaurant and advised them that they were running 15 mins late. They said it was fine. The girls enjoyed their day activities, got dressed up and went in the special car organised. On arrival there were two security/bouncers outside, a man and a woman. The girls were treated very badly by the male staff, almost frightened as he was yelling at them. And would not allow them entry for dinner. My daughter asked to speak to the manager but was denied that. He started waving them away aggressively. This was five young girls, going out like this, on there own for the first time and the male staff member was very scary for them. After trying to get in for ages, he yelled at them and my daughter called me crying herself sick. I tried to call but being a Saturday night, obviously there was no response. I left numerous messages but no response from the Manager at the venue. I have been trying to get some compensation for them ruining my daughters birthday as after that the five girls went around Reading looking for a venue to eat but ended up having Domino's takeaway back at the apartment. The deputy Manager has been very helpful and had promised that the girls could go for lunch one day as compensation but he needed the manager to agree. To this date, and after numerous calls, the Manager has not even bothered to call, email or get in touch. Apparently the CCTV was checked and I wasn't told anything different and if you were defending your staff as it did not happen, surely you would call me to question what I had raised. NOTHING! This does need to be investigated further and the Manager should have the common decency to call the customer back but NOTHING. PLEASE PLEASE don't book a special event here at this venue as you or yours may be disappointed too. My daughter birthday was ruined and it isn't going...

I have had two really awful experiences at this slug and lettuce across the last few months. Truly awful service.

First time I visited was in august, cocktails took over 40 minutes to arrive at our table after ordering, I had to go up to ask where they were.

Second time was on Saturday for their “cowboy” themed bottomless. The only thing cowboy about this experience was the plastic hats on the table. The booking stated we would get a free shot on arrival, we did not, and it took about 30 minutes for anyone to even come over and take our first order. After placing our first order, it did not arrive, instead we saw the waiter looking confused & he just left what looked like our drinks at another random table who had already had their drinks arrive. We ordered again, the same thing happened. We eventually got our first round in, food came, it was cold. We were constantly waiting crazy amounts of time for drinks to arrive or be ordered. I went up to ask what was going on and the excuse was “we are just really busy”. We complained again and the lady told of another table for accepting our drinks. Once we paid we had really had enough and decided to move on somewhere else, although that was very quickly ruined. We were called and asked to go back as the payment “didn’t go through”. Myself and my friend who was on crutches had to walk all the way back to make payment again and was told the payment we made would bounce, at this point our night was ruined and we just decided to go home. The payment did infact go out the next day, along with the second payment we had made. So our truly awful bottomless brunch has now cost £208. It was very difficult to get hold of anyone here and once my friend did we were told the refund would be difficult to do as it appears we paid for someone else’s brunch? How is this our fault?! Awaiting a response now from head office but this was a truly awful experience, be super careful at this slug and lettuce!!

My friend had called and spoke to a manager multiple times now, it’s been 10 days and we are still waiting for the refund for the payment that was taken for another table to be processed. I will not...

Disappointed by this slug and lettuce, doesn’t seem like they can handle the Saturday night rush… we walked in and it initially took a while for a waiter to approach us so we could give our booking and they didn’t seem to have a table ready for us (even though we booked a fair while in advance) but this didn’t bother us too much. We had a £20 deposit so went to order some shots at the bar and after waiting at one end of the bar for around 10 minutes with staff acknowledging we were there, we were told we cannot queue this end and had to go to the other end of the bar :/. When it came to ordering more drinks and food we decided to use the app. We initially ordered a meal and 2 cocktails each. After about 50 minutes we decided to order 2 more cocktails because we knew we would drink them and assumed if the first order took so long we wanted to order our seconds to arrive when we finished our first. Before either set of drinks came out, the food arrived for 3 of us, however took another half an hour for our other friends to come out (plus a bottle of ketchup I’d asked for when the first set of food arrived…). Then our second set of drinks arrived…before the first set that we ordered… After about 5 minutes, the first set of cocktails that I ordered arrived, but none for my other friends. They waited probably around 10/15 more minutes before going up to the bar to ask where they were. The lady behind the bar wasn’t too happy and complained that we were lying and trying to get free drinks out of them, and used the excuse that 6 people had called in sick which I understand makes the Saturday night rush hard but this was not our fault! We were given presecco to apologise but not the cocktails that we had ordered. We left promptly after that because we didn’t want to waste more money on cocktails that wouldn’t arrive! Such a shame because the atmosphere is lovely and the majority of staff are great. Would definitely recommend the riverside slug and lettuce...