The Glost House — Restaurant in Stoke-on-Trent

For the present response of the owners to bad feedback, I suggest you read the 'News/Blog' page of this businesses website, as it is rather illuminating and explains the owners attitude to customers better than any review.

I have been recommending the Glost House to many, since it opened. Yes it isn't the cheapest. And the portion sizes are not great. But it is a nice place, a place you can take family, in-laws and aunties. Think of the heritage I insisted. Oddly enough people have stopped saying 'thanks for the great recommendation!' like they used to. How curious.

I visited with some friends, and by the gods was it disorganised. Yes having a small bundle of hungry children isn't the most suitable situation, and probably a bit annoying, but we had to ask twice for everything. My friend was somewhat surprised that an exotic dish such as 'salad' was unavailable. I would hesitate to mention that any friendliness from the staff was in short supply, but the previous blog post mentioned that I shouldn't expect friendly service, in case of a staff member might have been recently bereaved. Or just having a bad day. As a counterpoint to that particular post, is that I rarely leave bad reviews. You have to be really bad. So this one star review, my first ever, is a real watershed moment.

The main crux of the matter was a simple cake that they forgot. Or gave it to another table. Or gave it to a passing crow. Don't really care particularly, but it was pretty disorganised, so surely asking the gentleman in charge would solve the issue. Instead he requested that we not return, as the serving staff claimed that they had given it to us. He implied that we were trying to get free cake. He said he trusted his waiting staff over us. The disorganised and clearly poorly managed waiting staff.

Well my cake stealing days are well behind me, if they ever did exist. But it does explain a lot. A bad manager or owner sets the tone for a business, and this gentleman clearly needs to take a long hard look at his customer service skills, throw them into a skip, attach that skip to a rocket and blast them into the sun.

If this is unacceptable to him, I would recommend he finds a career he enjoys and allows his distaste for the public to shine through, like being a traffic warden or recalcitrant bouncer in a rough pub.

If you are reading this review looking for a recommendation, there are many other great places that may not have as much avocado or 'heritage', but you will have a warm welcome in Longton pretty much everywhere else. And they may even give you the cake you ordered and paid...

Firstly, the "bad" things, because i'm detail focused and a nit-picky bugger. ◇ my breakfast mushrooms were more fried than I would personally cook them. ◇ the (very cool looking) tables are semi-porous iron and presumably hard to clean residue off of, the epoxy coating it a teeny bit sticky for my clammy skin. (How abhorrent! /s)

So I rolled my sleeves up for the little tack on the table and I'll ask for softer mushrooms next time.

Positives? MANY. ◇ The owner is very transparent about the realities of being a business owner. ◇ The place is as beautiful as stoke-on-trent can be, the building should be on greeting cards. ◇ Big portions, genuine doorstop toast, biggest menu item (breakfast on toast) is £9.25 and the average item is ~£6. Affordable and very filling. ◇ Nice staff, good atmosphere, inoffensive quiet music covers any awkward silence when it's not busy, good for socially awkward people. ◇ It's 30 seconds speedwalk away from longton market and as close to tescos front door as the nearest costa (and my GF says the coffee is better!) ◇ fresh indoor design, tables have good space to walk between, ◇ tasty cakes! I had an easter mini-egg chocolate orange cheesecake and my GF had Tiffin.

And it may be a little TMI, but theres a tiny urinal squeezed between the stall and right next to the sink which makes the mens toilet feel smaller than it should. The womens and disabled toilets (which have female hygene products!) Have comfortable space for a single occupant but the mens seems a little too cramped to attempt to accomodate two people at once.

Overall, if you find yourself low on breakfast/caffeine in longton between 9am and 3.30pm with costa money and wouldn't mind sitting in a traditional stoke painting then I think you have to go there.

If you don't like all the boarded up windows on the shut down local businesses, nothing to do in longton, and all the big franchises permeating the outside everywhere then support this local social space and read their website too (it's...

I have been a customer at The Glost House since it opened. I visited today on my Birthday with my family for breakfast. There were four of us. My husband and adult children. We were met with hostility and a sigh when asking for a table. The manager was plain rude She gestured towards a table with a reserved sign saying we could have it but must be finished by 12.30. This was at 10.45 am. We were only coming for breakfast! When we sat down she tossed the reserved sign in to the top of the booth. Whilst the food was very nice. The cappuccino came a close second to dishwater. There is an old saying’ if you can’t smile, don’t open a shop!’ Not a great start to my birthday. You have lost customers. You are not the only...