The Hub on Verulam Restaurant, Bar & Events Venue St Albans — Restaurant in St Albans

Absolutely SHOCKING. The only reason I’m giving one star is down to the hostesses who greeted us, everything else in this place needs working on!

We had booked a table for brunch at 11:45 although running late we called to inform the venue. Fine with that they said there is no issues but they needed the table back at 1:30 which worked for me and my wife.

Arriving at 11:55 and placing the order at 12:02 the waitress who clearly was not in the best of moods and having a bad day, rolled her eyes when we ask would it be possible to eat from the brunch menu rather then the set lunch menu. Thinking only being 2 minutes late and calling in advise this would be not an issue, however clearly not as the kitchen said no.

Having already gotten relaxed in our seat we decided to just have coffee and make the most of our booking. Although I found it weird that the venue turned down a food cover considering no one else was sitting in the restaurant or arriving until we left at 12:50 so around £35-£45 lost?

Although we were provide some entertainment while reading our papers and drinking our coffee as the management decided to have a meeting with our waitress next to our table advising her that she was unable to take her allocated holiday during December and that she would need to do so in January. There was various negotiations on what could be done right in front of us where I feel it might have been best to do this off the floor or in the managers office. I can see why she was in a bad mood now!

With one coffee down and no one asking if we wanted anything else me and my wife decided to go to Brad and Dills for our food.

In conclusion, a note to the owner. I think your staff need to go on a training course for their customer service as it seems this has definitely not happened. Secondly you management might consider being more managerial and taking personal discussions off the floor and do this in a more private area.

Regrettably this is my first time to the Hub and I can say will be the last and only time I will be...

Visited here last night for the Christmas showing of ELF at The Box. As St Albans resident's we’d seen The Hub open and were waiting for the right film listing for our first visit. We had high expectations, which went down hill from the moment we stepped in.

The showing was due to start at 7.30pm (as detailed in the email), so we arrived early and were inside the screen by 7.15pm. We were disappointed as the film had already started (15 minutes early) and people were sat in our seats. To cause the least fuss we sat on the end of the back row. It was super annoying as a constant stream of people came into the screening late, which meant it was disrupted on numerous occasions.

The worst part was the noise from outside of the screening door. The private room upstairs had obviously been hired out and was full of about 10 women. They were laughing and chatting the whole night with the door to that room open, meaning I could pretty much hear everything that was being said. Staff serving the screen should have noticed this and made sure the door was kept closed or the screening room speakers were turned up.

To top it off, we ordered a few cocktails which I thought were way overpriced for what they were. I had the Aphrodite’s Kiss which was £13.50 and around 70% ice. We’ve been to the Everyman Barnet and never paid more than £9/£10 for a great cocktail, so definitely wouldn’t bother with them if I ever visited again - way too expensive for the area. It was annoying that the QR code didn’t show what was within the cocktails either. You had to guess and hope you got...

This has got to be the worst dining experience I ever had.

The service was awful. We waited 15 minutes to order and our drinks took over 40 minutes to arrive after chasing the waitress twice. We had finished our starters and our mains took a further 20minutes and by this point our drinks were only arriving.

However, what was the worst part about this experience is that after eating the Tuna tartare starter I immediately developed an intense rash across my whole body, my face went swollen and I was having difficulty breathing. We left our mains half touched as we needed to get home and seek medical assistance.

Let me be clear, I am not allergic to anything. Having spoken to 111 services they advised me that this is likely scombroid poisoning which is caused by Tuna being stored at the wrong temperature and thus resulting in a build up of histamine. The symptoms lasted for several hours.

Despite my partner calling the restaurant to tell them about what happened and to warn them about the issue with the tuna so as to prevent them causing harm to other customers, the manager took zero responsibility and simply said that their tuna is all fine and there were no other issues that day. We were told the manager would be calling us back every 30min to check up on me but after that call we did not hear from him again.

Truly awful and risk to health. Avoid...