Frankie & Benny's — Restaurant in Tameside

Went for breakfast on my birthday in a group of 10. They managed to get us all together on a table, which was great. Everyone's food arrived at once which was also good. The food was average, the portion size and the overall quality have dropped significantly since before the pandemic, fruit pancakes with smaller pancakes and 8 pieces of fruit for example and flora margarine for the toast instead of butter 😱 I get that times are hard but yuck! Generally, everyone had something to eat and the full English breakfasts were OK if you ordered additional sides. The service was lovely, the waiter was wonderful and put up with a lot with 10 of us. However, as we had paid and were getting ready to go, some officious nasty little manager person came stomping over to tell us to get out because other people had booked the table... yes, we get it, we are just a commodity to him, but he could have had just a tiny amount of civility, and it would have been fine. All in all, a little sad, pancakes at Frankie and Benny's has been my birthday treat for many, many years, but this year will be the last. The food is the lower end of average, and overpriced as a result, I know they are having money issues as a brand, but this...

We were warmly greeted by Alex who immediately informed us that he was running the place solo so there would be a bit of a wait. It was really good to get this update and set expectations. Because of this I ordered through the app which was really easy to use.

Alex ran around like a mad thing taking everyone else's order, making drinks and bringing food to the tables!

The chef seemed to be running solo as well. Our food did take a while to come and unfortunately my mum's meal was cold but the chef was so polite and helpful and redid a new one for her. I appreciated this when he was already so busy.

All our food (including mum's fresh one) was really tasty, generous and nicely presented. The pancakes were particularly bouncy and I loved them 🥞

The Biscoff milkshake went down a treat.

The young lady who served us later (I believe she'd been held up which is why she was late and Alex was on his own) was really lovely and checked on us a few times.

I can see that the staffing issue caused the small issues which is why I've still given a 5* because it was a really good experience overall. I'd definitely come back.

(TasteCard is...

The standard of food has gone really down we've given them so many chances and I think todays experience was the last. They are really trying hard to be Vegan inclusive but my gosh do they have a way to go. I ordered the garlic bread with vegan cheese, it arrived dripping in oil with no cheese. We blotted off the grease and thought fine, it's not a huge issue we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. My main arrived (vegan burger) and the burger itself had been over defrosted so it was hard in places and then cooked for far far too long, it looked like a hockey puc. Inedible isn't a word I use often but it was horrendous. I then had to wait for 10 mins to send it back because nobody had bothered to check on us. By this point my husband had practically finished his meal so it was pointless ordering something else. The waitress spoke to the manager and told me not to worry they'd removed it from the bill. Like she was doing me a favour that he'd authorised for that to happen. Horrendous. We used to really enjoy coming here but I'd genuinely rather go to McDonalds, at least their food standards...