Pesto at the Axe & Compass — Restaurant in Rugby

Me and my partners family visited yesterday for his Nans birthday meal and the service was absolutely awful! The waiter who was an older gentleman compared to the other young waiters and waitresses was so rude. Firstly he didn’t clear our old drinks from the table when he brought us new ones over leaving us with hardly any room on the table and with it being tapas you would expect the basic service especially considering that six of us were seated on a round table and there’s loads of dishes to come out. Secondly, one of us had a concern about a dish as the pasta was really burnt and way too spicy - although it states spicy on the menu this dish was inedible due to the amount of chilli flakes and pepper that had been added (we’ve ordered this dish in the past and it’s never looked or tasted like this). We brought this up to the waiter and his reply shocked me if I’m honest. He stated that the menu states it’s spicy and that he had it for his lunch and it was fine. Baring in mind this was said to us in a really rude and confrontational manner. He then proceeded to say that many customers had ordered that dish today and non of them had a problem with it or complained. To me this is irrelevant as it doesn’t matter if no one else has complained but it matters that there is something not right about this specific dish that was served at our table. I thought it was disgusting that he never offered an apology or to re-make the dish. He even could have recommended something different on the menu but he didn’t and his response was plain rude. We ordered a lot of dishes yesterday and there was an issue with just one and there was no resolution made. We didn’t argue this at the time as we really didn’t want confrontation at a birthday meal. Lastly, after we were finished we were seated for a good 25-30minutes before anyone came over to clean our table and the same waiter looked over at our table a few times and continued to ignore us. After a long wait and then all the staff talking at the bar and behind us in a group (ignoring our table) he then instructed a younger waitress to come and deal with it. We still had to be the ones to ask for the bill and this resulted in us having to go up to the bar area and asking the bar staff if we can pay due to how long the waiters and waitresses were making us wait! Just too add, we were never asked if this food was ok or if we needed anything else during our meal and we had to deal with a group of staff talking about our table and constant staring from the bar area when they were talking in their group. The rest of the food was lovely but unfortunately due to the staff members complete ignorance I definitely won’t be returning to this restaurant and the manager needs to address these customer service issues with...

The food itself was OK. It was a busy Sunday evening so can appreciate staff had their hands full, but we had a few issues that left us not wanting to come back:

Half our food came out in drips and drabs across the span of 25 mins from first dish to last. I was the unlucky one in the group, only getting most of my dishes when everyone else had finished eating and the first wave of food was cold by then. (This was one course for 6 people).

We asked for dessert menus, were given 2 cards between 6 people. 20 minutes passed and no staff came to actually take our order despite trying to wave them and catch the eyes of staff walking by.

I eventually got up to the bar and just asked for the bill, even though we did actually want puddings/coffees we knew it wasn't going to happen and we'd been there for about 2 hours at that point for just 1 course.

We were given the bill but again no one came to take payment, so we walked to the bar to pay.

The staff were friendly enough, but the place just seemed understaffed (a full restaurant and we could only see one bloke making drinks at the bar) and not managed correctly as we had perhaps 4 different people serve us across the evening. Not a huge deal from a customer perspective, but there didn't seem to be a system in place and it was perhaps the reason why no one took responsibility for our table or returned to help us when we wanted to order more food/pay.

The staff also had to take orders on a tiny notepad. Again not a huge deal from a customer POV, but given it's a fairly popular/busy Tapas restaurant - orders can get big with each person ordering 3+ dishes. Perhaps an updated POS system with tablets would solve the issues of missing dishes - like we had, and the...

Great food. Pity about the service! Ordered a basket of bread. Came as 3 different varieties of bread, 2 small pieces of each variety. The bread was cold like it had been defrosting or had just out of the fridge. Told a waitress about it. She stated "we serve our bread cold". I said if it was room temperature it wouldnt be an issue but this is really cold bread! She then felt the piece of bread I had been eating and said "Oh yes it is very cold". She went off with the rest of the basket of bread and the piece in her hand and came back with the basket. The rest of the bread had been warmed through and was then quite ok. But she never replaced the bit she had been handling...so I ended up with just 2 small bits of bread!! The main courses were just dumped on the table by a young lad who rushed out of the kitchen and back in. Had to grab his attention when he brought out food for the table next to us to ask for salt and pepper as there was none on the table. Had 3 small plates of food each - I had Bruscetta, calamari and a salmon farfelle. They were really well cooked and tasty. When our server came to ask how the food was I mentioned the cold bread and she just shrugged. Same when the manager came over with the bill and asked if everything was ok. No apology from any of the 3 people it was mentioned to. Why even ask if the food was ok if you dont want to know! Would go again as the food was good but the service was really not upto a...