The Engine Room — Restaurant in Sunderland

Been to see Taylormania yesterday (29th Dec 2024) thought staying in one venue would be better & booked a table for myself & my 11 yr old Niece. Menu was extremely limited - especially since Niece is vegetarian & does not like the texture of meat substitutes - so asked for Children's menu. Niece ordered a Margarita pizza £7 & a portion of chunky chips £4.50 & I ordered the Engine burger £16.50 & paid an extra £1 to upgrade from skinny fries to chunky chips. The meals arrived & the pizza was a cheap frozen pizza (similar to the first frozen pizzas you could buy in the 70s - if you're not that old think of something akin to supermarket saver/basic frozen pizza 4 for £1!) The burger wasn't much better a thick tasteless lump of processed grizzle (Mcdonalds burgers are better than this offering!) - for the £16.50 price tag it should've been proper beef - I was expecting something along the lines of a freshly prepared smash burger. When asked if our food was ok - I told the server that I was not happy, I did not finish my burger & explained why. She spoke to her manager & came back to say the bill would be discounted - upon receiving the bill (which should have been £35.50) it had been discounted by the grand sum of £3.55!! & I was informed that I was not charged for a coffee I ordered also. What makes matters worse is after we had left we were made aware that the venue were cooking proper log fire pizzas outside! (A chef came from the outside venue into the place we were just leaving & proceeded to the kitchen & returned carrying fresh dough on a bakers tray. Why on earth were we served the frozen "crap" when their chefs were making far superior ones for a few pounds more? - had it looked like it was operating when we arrived we would've opted for that but the venue looked closed down & half dismantled as if it had stopped trading. My first experience of the venue has not been a good one & I will not return to...

We booked in at 6pm for 3 people, thinking we had plenty of time for a relaxed meal before the theatre at 7.30pm; how wrong we were! It took 45 minutes from ordering to get our starter, which unfortunately we feel was very overpriced for what it was, and had to ask the server twice to bring the main as soon as they could, as it was now 7.10pm and we were anxious we'd miss the start of the show!

When our mains arrived, all three dishes were over salted and quality far below what we would expect for the price. We ordered a rare steak which looked more like well done, the peppercorn sauce was inedible as it tasted like a whole tub of salt was spilled into it, same for the vegetables and chips. The other two dishes were average.

By the time we had paid our bill, which we had to ask for in advance for fear of missing our theatre show (over £100 for 2 sharing starters and 3 very average main dishes) it was 7.25pm. We had been there for almost a full 90 minutes and had to rush every step of the way. We could understand if there were lots of diners, but there really wasn't. There were plenty of staff, and we could only see another one or possibly two tables with food.

If time was on our side (which it should have been) we would have sent the main courses back, or at least raised an issue with the manager, as the food really wasn't great, however we were so anxious to get to the theatre on time that we just paid our bill and left.

We left feeling deflated, stressed, and all 3 of us had indigestion from having to rush our food!

We won't be visiting again unfortunately, which is a shame. Our advice would be to avoid...

Nice bar but manager needs to learn a lesson in customer relations. We went in here on Saturday 2nd March and sat at a vacant table. A young staff member kept hovering around and then accused us of taking the reserved sign off the table and then proceeded to ask where we were hiding it. After explaining over 4 times there had been no sign on the table we asked to speak to the manager. He walked passed us 3 times so we asked if we could have a word. Big mistake as he was the most arrogant, condescending and rude little man with a big ego I've ever came across. He would not listen and said his staff hadn't said anything of the sort. After 10 minutes of pointless discussion we asked him to view the cctv footage to prove there had been no sign on the table, surprisingly he refused. It was then that a couple behind us intervened to back us up, he even ignored them until the male told him he had a bad attitude. I asked for the owners name and address, to which he apologised. I said no not accepting it and he gave me a bit paper with contact details. I said this isn't finished I'm contacting the owners to which he said that I was threatening him and should leave. This is the same man who pointed at my son telling him to sit down in a threatening manner. We also have now got 4 witnesses who are willing to come forward but pointless as won't be going back in plenty of better bars. This little man would argue with a coat hanger in...