The Herringbone — Restaurant in Scotland

We came to The Herringbone for one drink on Friday evening after a long day of travelling up to visit family in North Berwick. The bar service was excellent, we chatted to the bartenders who gave us friendly service and good recommendations. We then bumped into some familiar faces and felt very welcomed back to the town and spent a lovely hour there, sitting and chatting.

However, just before leaving, we went to the toilet and were met with the manager, who looked as if she was a customer just washing her hands at first. She looked us up and down and made some extremely hostile comments to us. She threatened to call the police because we had shared a cubicle, despite there being no policy about this and certainly not one visible to customers.

This came completely out of the blue, we'd had lovely conversations with the other staff members previous to this, and had no interaction with her before this. As two young women, we wondered if she often made comments like this to other customers in similar scenarios and if she would have felt as comfortable threatening older women who presented differently.

We have been to the Herringbone many times and have always had a good experience, but this has put us off returning as we were made to feel extremely uncomfortable. We were considering staying for another drink, but then felt too anxious to stay.

At this time, we are debating reporting this to higher management.

Overall, the staff and establishment are wonderful, however, her comments and behaviour created such a hostile and unwelcoming environment that completely changed our experience. We are very...

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I

ve given two stars for the service from the lovely young waitress who was polite and helpful. However, having in insufficient amount of merlot to give you 250 mls, necessitating me having only 175ms (which was all they had left) indicates bad house keeping/ stock control! For a main course I ordered a spinach and lentil dal, only to be given a dish which primarliy comprised of potatoes surrounded by minimal lentils and a couple of leafs of spinach! When I asked the (?) male owner/ head waiter where on the menu it stated potatoes, he replied that potatoes are an essential staple in a dal dish!! in my 62 years, I

ve eaten thousands of dal dishes in the UK and all over the world, and potatoes have never been used as a ingredient (not even in Ireland) lol!! Whats more, my partner makes many Indian dishes at home, and none of the many dal recipes he uses have potatoes as an ingredient. When I suggested they should perhaps call the dish a lentil, spinach and potato dal to allow customers to make an informed choice, the (?) owner/ head waiter looked most disgruntled. Although he reluctantly allowed me to choose something else from the menu instead, at no time did he apologise for the name of the dish being misleading, and me having to wait at least another 20 minutes for an alternative (mediocre) chickpea dish to arrive. Particularly since I know it must be hard work running a restaurant, I endeavour to give good reviews where possible, but other than the lovely service from the young waitress, unfortunately I find it very difficult to say anything positive about my dining experience here due...

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I visited Herringbone North Berwick today for my birthday, I pre booked and was very excited to visit after such a wonderful experience at the Goldenacre branch. We waited a long time for a high chair for my nephew, then we waited a long time for a drinks order to be taken. When we were eventually approached, we were asked for our food order before our drinks. The food arrived, the steak burger looked really sad and there was nothing “steak” about it. It seemed like a typical ground beef burger, it was tough with hard bits throughout, and the chips were cold. The sweet potato chickpea burger was tasteless and so cold that I asked the staff if it was meant to be this way, to which they said the dish was supposed to be hot. They offered a replacement, but I was half way through the one I had so I kept it rather than waste more food. I did not finish the meal as it was so unenjoyable. We were charged the full amount regardless. We travelled from Edinburgh specifically to visit the newly refurbished Herringbone but we will definitely not be returning. I will however be back to the Goldenacre branch and I will leave a 5 star...

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