Giggling Squid - Harpenden — Restaurant in St Albans

I visited the Harpenden branch for lunch this afternoon.

As a regular at the Windsor location, I was interested in experiencing this restaurant again while passing through on a bank holiday. Upon arrival, I noted that the establishment was entirely empty.

I approached the staff member and politely inquired whether the menu was halal. Although her initial response was civil, the situation quickly deteriorated. The staff member proceeded to condescendingly instruct me to “walk back to the door” and informed me that “tables here are by reservation”, despite the restaurant being completely vacant.

I found this approach not only unwelcoming but also entirely unnecessary. It is concerning if a customer’s appearance: a young Asian man wearing a jumper, tracksuit bottoms, carrying a laptop and headphones leads to a presumption of being undeserving of service.

Such judgmental attitudes have no place in a professional hospitality environment.

I informed the staff member that her manner was rude and chose to leave immediately. This is not the standard of service I have come to expect from this brand. I am deeply disappointed by this experience.

I strongly recommend that the staff member in question receives additional training in customer service, awareness, and professionalism. It is imperative that all personnel treat every customer with respect, regardless of their attire or perceived background.

Prejudices should not influence the quality of service provided. This incident has significantly impacted my perception of the Harpenden branch, and I hope management will address these...

We had dinner tonight at the Giggling squid, my partner, my disabled mother and her partner.

Our reservation was for 6pm and my partner and I arrived, early, first. We were directed upstairs initially to which I reminded them my mother was disabled and would not be able to make it upstairs.

This created consternation for the waiting staff who told us they would struggle to find a table downstairs, despite us having a reservation and the restaurant being half empty.

Before we eventually sat down the duty manager ushered me over to her to say we were lucky they could accommodate us and that we must inform them in the future of our needs. I told her my mum's partner made the reservation, and I was sure he would have mentioned this. She ignored this and continued to lecture me in an extremely patronising and rude way.

We took our seats and my mum and partner arrived shortly after. He told me that he had actually taken the effort to walk all the way (rather than phone) to the restaurant days beforehand to make the reservation and speak to the manager who had insisted a table she could access and which would be near the disabled toilet would be no problem at all...

I strongly urge the Giggling squid to do two things:

1. Take extra care with reservations which are made by or for disabled patrons.
2. Encourage their staff to not be rude and condescending to paying customers, especially when their own hopeless processes are at fault.

The food was fine, not nearly the best Thai food we've tried, everything was a bit too sweet. Very expensive for what it is. Atmosphere OK, service...

I had attended this restaurant on 2 separate occasions and both times had a pleasant experience, however on my third visit it was awful. The booking was made about a month in advance, on the day I called the restaurant to advise I would be taking a cake for a special occasion and wanted to leave this with them when I arrived as it was a surprise, they were polite on the phone so I didn’t think anymore of it. When I arrived I realised I would have to walk with the cake and risk the rest of our group seeing it, I called again but then happened to see a gentleman exit the back of the restaurant and I explained my dilemma he assured me he worked for GS and would be fine and called to a member of the team. The person that came out was so rude and dismissive, grabbed the cake from me to the point I had to say please be careful!! We then handed her a candle, she rudely said we won’t allow sparklers, I said it’s not, it’s a candle. She took it and didn’t respond and walked back inside. It ruined my experience and my day actually! I then had to approach a waitress once we were seated to explain what had happened and all of the staff in the restaurant glanced over smiling, the waitress apologised on behalf of the person that ruined our experience but the damage was done. No contact from a manager or even a goodwill gesture. Food wasn’t overly great on this visit either, I personally would never return however the people that were in our group were non the wiser to the whole fiasco. Thankfully! The only positive from...