Love Balti — Restaurant in St Helens

Avoid if you're a larger group. We were a party of 15 people celebrating a 30th birthday. We booked a table for 7.30pm but when we arrived at the restaurant we were told we would have to wait for "10 minutes" whilst they "cleared the table". We all waited outside in the cold. After 25 minutes a couple of us went in to check what was going on, as we could see that the people on our assigned table had no intentions of moving and were leisurely enjoying their drinks (and nipping outside for the occasional smoke!). Again, we were told that they just had to clean the table - not that people were still on it!

We were finally seated at pushing 8.30pm! Unacceptable when you had a booking for 7.30pm.

It took another 30 minutes for the first round of drinks to arrive and we were still waiting on food after 2 hours! When the food did arrive we were missing one meal (steak) and when it finally arrived everyone else was 2/3 through finishing their food.

What really irks me is that there were no proper apologies from the management and no offer of any compensation. I appreciate that the food was on a 50% offer but that offer was for everyone - even those who received good service. After pushing, they eventually said they would give us popadoms free - wow, 70p each!

It was 11pm before we got out after it taking an age to split the bill - the waiter did not have a clue and we had to literally talk him through it but he seemed so distracted.

Such a shame that a birthday meal was ruined by applaulingly...

EDIT

I am very very happy to re-review The Green Olive. This time we ate in, and with a party of 22! Everything I mentioned in my previous review has been fixed. The food was out of this world and the staff, especially the female waitress (her name escapes me at the moment) were 100% on point, super friendly and very very helpful. As I mentioned above, we was a party of 22, so unfortunately we couldn't get everyone at the same table but this did not take away from the experience and from our reason for being there, to celebrate a something within the family. I have rated the atmosphere as a 4 because for the life of me, I can't remember if there was any type of music being played or not but the restaurant was packed (unlike in my original review) and the noise of happy customers was very clear. We will 100% be going back and we have since recommended The Green Olive to pretty much anyone who's asked us about nice restaurants 😁

Great job guys 👏👏👏

Got ourselves a takeaway, never been here before. The food was nice but we was missing some of the order so had to do a couple trips which meant the food we did have was then cold when we ate it. Staff were very distant, almost couldn't be bothered. We didn't eat in but kinda glad we didn't as there was zero atmosphere. Place was empty so wasn't even any noise from customers chatting and laughing etc.

Wasn't overly impressed with the...

One to miss if you're a larger group!

Our large table had a booking and upon arrival we were told that the table before us hadn't finished and admitted they hadn't informed them of when they needed to be finished.

Over 45 minutes in the freezing cold we were made to wait with no apologies or anything from the management.

When we were finally seated, the poor service shone through. We waited ages for any drinks to show up and despite ordering as a table, one of the drinks turned up long before the rest. I can only assume they ran out of glasses or forgot?

Even after finally getting to order our food, the wait continued with no apologies or updates. Over two hours had passed since our booking time before (and a good hour after sitting down!) we finally received our food. I can't comment on the quality of the food as by the time we ate, I was starving and didn't have any time to actually taste it.

Finally, splitting the bill was an absolute palaver and it felt like the staff had never been asked this before. When asked if we enjoyed the food, explaining our frustration at the delay and the long drive home, we were offered a complimentary alcoholic drink....

I appreciate we were a big table but I really can't...