Rollercoaster Restaurant — Restaurant in Staffordshire Moorlands

In theory, fun and quirky dining experience. In reality, doesn't work great.

If I was reviewing this purely on the front of house staff it would be 5 stars. If it wasn't for the staff it would've been 2.

Basically the way this place works (clearly explained to us at the start). You are given a tablet to order on, you sit on 1 of 3 crescent shaped tables that surround a central island where food is deposited. Each crescent is labelled with seat numbers, so in our case we had seats 1, 2, 3, and 4. To our left was a table with seat numbers 5 to 8, and to our right was a table with seats 9 to 12. So when you order you choose which seat number you're ordering for and place the order on the tablet. This was all explained to us at the start and our server Dani demonstrated on the tablet, she then left it with us with seat 1 pre-selected. It was also explained to us that the food would come down the rollercoaster in numbered pod's so anything marked 1 to 4 would be ours. Dani also informed us that food will come out as it's made so basically don't order starters at the same time as mains as they may come together. Also as food comes out as it's made, all our tables food may not come out together, but if there's too much of a delay between dishes just let her know and she'll chase it with the kitchen. All the food will arrive at the end of the rollercoaster on the central rotating table.

The problems started when the diners on our left obviously hadn't listened when they sat down. So when they were left with a tablet with seat 5 pre-selected they ordered some food, then when the next person started their ordering and had to choose the next seat, they just chose seat 2 (one of our seats) for everyone else. This meant that there was some confusion when food started coming down as we kept collecting the dishes marked with 2 only to find out none of it was ours. It also turned out that the table next to us had taken one of our starters. We chased up our missing starter with our server Dani. She obviously understood what had happened and said she'd prioritize it with the kitchen to get a replacement sent out.

When the food comes to your table it travels down a rollercoaster track in small pods and a single meal may arrive in multiple pods. Some of the issues we had apart from the table next to us being Muppets were.

Pods would arrive with no markers on to say which seat it was for.

We had to chase our missing starter 3 times before Dani was able to get the kitchen to sort it.

We knew that the meals may not arrive at the same time but we did at least expected all components from a single meal to arrive together. One of our meals was breaded BBQ chicken goujons with chips and onion rings. Chicken came out, but no chips or onion rings.

We ended up having to chase the missing sides and eventually 2 lots of each side arrived independently.

A shame about the food service as it's a good place to eat and the FOH staff were great. But the execution is a bit off.

It would make more sense to have the tablets set to allocated seat numbers to avoid confusion. Rather than allowing anyone to order against any seat number. Also food needs to be marked properly no one wants complete strangers opening and examining their dinner to figure out who's it is. Even if meals don't arrive together a complete meal should arrive at once not bits at a time. Having your chicken arrive but then waiting 10 minutes for chips to arrive is not on.

Food when it did arrive was nice enough, could've been a little bit hotter but otherwise ok. Dani and other members of the team did what they could to make sure we left happy, and the general front of house service was...

My husband and I were really excited to try the roller coaster restaurant during our trip to Alton Towers. First of all, the open hours are not made clear- we tried visiting at 2 PM on our first day at the park and were told by staff the restaurant was closed until dinner which was fully booked. We were told then the restaurant would open for lunch Sunday at noon. We got in the queue right at 12 Sunday. There was no staff to manage the queue or to answer questions, except for a man who would occasionally appear at the door and look our at us. When someone else in the queue went inside and asked one of the restaurant staff how long the wait would be, she said she didn't know. After 45 minutes, we got inside and showed to a table. Our server tried showing us how to order and where the allergy menu was but the tablet was broken. She fetched us another tablet, and even during the instructions it wasn't cooperating, though she said just to keep trying it. We eventually got it working (with issues, such as the back to menu button not working and being unable to exit the "mains" screen) and ordered two drinks, starters, and mains. I got my bottle of coke quickly, but unfortunately that was the only thing we received. After about 20 minutes of watching other tables receive all their food, we called over a staff member and asked after our order (which itself was strangely difficult as the staff seemed to be preoccupied standing around talking to each other at the till when not avoiding eye contact with customers...). She said she'd put the order in as a "VIP order". About 5 minutes later, my husband for his starter and main. Still no drink (which seemed odd as the bartender seemed to also be standing around or working on side work) and I still hadn't received my food. We'd been waiting for 45 minutes at this point and asked again. After we'd waited an hour, nothing else had come and we decided to leave. The staff member at the till didn't know how to remove the items we hadn't received and seemed rather lost and had to get someone else, who was eventually able to remove the lost items. We were still charged full price for the food we did receive, which came late and only after asking, and was of poor quality. We didn't get any apology or compensation and left hungry and disappointed after a total of over 2 hours (queuing and waiting for food).

This experience was particularly disappointing as one of the main reasons we opted for the roller coaster restaurant was its one of 3 food places in the park that has gluten free options besides chips, and I never got the gluten free food. I guess next time I'll just...

I wouldn’t call my experience at the Rollercoaster restaurant negative, but I would most definitely say it was disappointing. For such an original/fun restaurant idea, the food was a let down and needs refining, for the price they are willing to charge for such simple menu items. My partner got the Honey BBQ chicken strips with garlic/chilli fries, which he loved. They didn’t come with the fresh chilli and spring onions that it contains on the menu. It cost £15.95, at least finish garnishing the meal before sending it out, considering it flew out only about 10 minutes after the order was placed. My meal was the biggest disappointment of the experience. On the menu, I was promised lemongrass and sweet chilli marinated salmon with rice, spring onion and a cucumber and coriander yoghurt; what I received was a half portion of dry salmon covered in store bought chilli sauce, microwaved and unseasoned long grain rice, 4-5 bits of spring onion. There was no sign of anything lemon in this dish and it was also £15.95. I have had better and cheaper salmon elsewhere. I understand that we were paying for the experience, but the only experience is the food coming down on the tracks. Food needs to be drastically improved if you are going charge those sort of prices for such small portions. It’s not a very easy experience if you are not familiar with how the restaurant functions. The waitress however did explain the process to us, unfortunately like the food it was very rushed and we only caught half of the information. However, with the right amount of brain cells, it quite simple to work out after having a fiddle around. We did inform the lovely blonde team member on the tills (sorry we didn’t catch your name) about our queries and she did give us complimentary drinks as an apology. Overall, Pros: Good concept, variety of food, fast service. Cons: Food quality is a bit hit or miss, you might receive your mains before your drinks and a lot of staff just hanging around...