Las Iguanas - Southampton — Restaurant in Southampton

I booked dinner and drinks for my sister-in law's hen do. Half the group arrived early and the other half 10 minutes late due to a taxi issue. When the second half arrived, the other girls already had a drink each and the waiter came straight over to take our food and drinks order. While we were waiting for our food, two guests ordered drinks with the waiter as we had table service for drinks as well but this seemed to take a while. I went up to the bar to order my drink as I thought that would be easier and to ask where the drinks were that my friends had ordered. I was waiting at the bar for at least 10 minutes before I was served and there were only two people being served already when I went up. The whole time I was waiting, there were two cocktails just sat on the bar and I wondered if they were my friends, but I didn't know what drink one friend had ordered so thought it could've been somebody else's. I also couldn't get the attention of the bar staff. When I got served, I ordered my drink and asked about the other drinks to which the staff didn't seem to know if they'd been ordered through table service but it turned out those were my friends drinks so they'd just been at the bar for about 15 minutes. The person at the bar did say if they taste watered down then they'd make fresh ones. Both girls said they tasted fine but one had definitely lightened in colour where the ice had melted. By this point our food still hadn't arrived, so we tried to get the attention of one member of staff to ask if our food was good to be ready soon but he was on his phone so didn't notice us. Soon after this we saw our food being loaded onto the trolley but we'd waited about an hour for our food to arrive. Once it was served, one guest received the wrong meal so they took it back to the kitchen and prepared the right one. This meant that the girl was waiting for hers while everyone else was eating. She didn't receive her meal until 10 minutes before we had to leave as we had something else booked afterwards. She ended up having to rush her food and not finish it because she then didn't really want it anymore. The waiter automatically took this meal off the bill but not the service charge so we had to ask for the service charge to be taken off as well because we weren't happy with it. They did this for us but there wasn't really an apology. We left feeling quite deflated and all you want is to have a good time, especially on a hen do, but even the bride felt quite stressed which is certainly not what you want! We were seated down the end and just felt like we'd been forgotten about and I wouldn't say it was overly busy for a Saturday. At least the food and cocktails tasted nice though but it's a shame about the service and how slow the staff seem to be as 2 hours for a meal should've been...

Not the best visit to Las Iguanas. I've been to a few around the country and had a lovely time and exceptional service but the one in Southampton left us disappointed.

We started by waiting at the front desk to be seated and was ignored for the first 5 minutes of waiting. A waitress then said that someone would be with us in a minute. We were sat down and not offered drinks or anything right away. We then waited for our waitress to come take our order. Ordered 2 cocktails (both the same) and a jug of water, along with 2 sunshine salads. The salads came out before our drinks and we had were half way through our meals before the drinks arrived. We were offered iced cold glasses for the water when the waitress took our order, yet when they came, the glasses were not cold. If it wasn't offered we wouldn't have thought twice about it, but why offer it if you don't have it. We had to then ask our waitress for our drinks as we could see them sat at the bar for a good 5 minutes. We didn't get a check back on the food as the only time the waitress came to the table during eating our food, was when we asked for our drinks. The salad had lovely flavours but was let down by the dry chicken. Then to top it off, we asked for the bill and presented a gift card. When getting the bill there was the optional 10% service charge, if we had of had some sort of service, we would have paid it, but when the service was so poor, no apology for the drinks being late, the server having no interest in serving us and couldn't crack a smile, I do not see why it would be deserved to get a tip. So, we asked for it to be removed. She then questioned us on the remaining amount on the bill. Doing the maths 2x pina colada- £12 2x sunshine salad £30 2x added chicken £8. £5 service charge Minus the £30 gift card leaves £20 to pay once you remove the service charge. She then in a less than polite way tried to say the service charge would be £2.50 once you take away the gift card. We explained that it is a gift card, not a discount voucher, so has no impact on the service charge. You could see She was unhappy with this, then said sulkily, oh I was just trying to understand. Took the payment then walked off. No thank you, I get that they would be annoyed about not getting the service charge, but its not compulsory and if you want a tip, work for it. And having an attitude doesn't compliment the job role. I worked as a waitress for 8 years, I get the pressures but I also know that you have to actually provide a pleasant service to earn a tip. Being sat between two raucous tables didn't help the already loud atmosphere and generally didn't contribute to a pleasant experience. I would probably avoid going back to this branch based off...

Went in, ordered my food, waited for 45 mins, got told it'll be another 15 mins, cancelled my order and left. Last night, me and my sister visited Southampton for one night as we had tickets to a show. To make an evening of the occasion, we wanted to go out for a nice meal before the show. We decided to go to Las Iguanas as we knew we enjoyed their food in our home city. We also run a food blog account and were looking forward to getting some content for our Instagram page. We sat down and ordered some tap water for the table and our meals. We were only ordering main courses as we only had about an hour until we would have to go to our show. Around 20 minutes after we ordered, another table of 2 arrived and ordered. Their meals arrived around 10 minutes after ordering, which we thought was odd as we were also a table of 2 and had arrived/ordered well before them. Shortly after, (so around 45 mins after we placed our order), we asked the waitress how long our meals would take. She asked the kitchen and returned saying "it'll be another 10-15 mins as there's a bit of a wait on food". Considering other tables were being served their meals in a reasonable amount of time, and the restaurant was half empty, I beg to differ! We told the waitress we don't have 15 minutes as we've got a show to go to so asked if it can be quicker. She walked off to "find out" and we never saw her again. We then approached another waiter and asked him if it's too late to cancel our order, and he said he'd "find out". He didn't even ask WHY we wanted to cancel. We didn't receive any confirmation that this had been done, but we couldn't wait any longer, so we put our coats on and hurried along to our show. We managed to pop into the nearby Co-op to grab "dinner" which was a bottle of water and some sausage rolls!! We then had to wait until after the 3 hour show to have a decent warm meal (a takeaway pizza) at about 10:30pm in our hotel room. If that's not a disaster of a night away, I don't know what is. Overall, an apology would've been appreciated, perhaps a free bowl of nachos... ANYTHING to make us feel like we are valued customers would have improved our experience but NOPE nothing. There was no communication and the staff should've been more aware of us as a table who had been sat with tap water for that length of time, without us having to raise the alarm bells An hour of our lives wasted. If zero stars was an option, that's what I...