Balkerne Gate Table Table — Restaurant in Tendring

Sadly, not a good experience for my son’s birthday breakfast, rude manager and we won’t be returning.

We made a booking around two weeks ahead.On arrival we were seated by the manager who told us “take a seat and I’ll send someone over”. Our order for hot food was taken, scrambled eggs and mushrooms for one person, a round of bacon for two others. This is a restaurant where you have to order hot food but you have to go to the buffet to get your own toast, so it’s always a bit tricky to time it right. After 10/15 mins, those of us waiting for hot food went to get toast. 40 mins later, we asked the manager why we hadn’t received our cooked food as it had been nearly an hour since ordering. The manager said she had told everyone she seated that there would be around 45 min wait - we explained she didn’t tell us that. If we had known, we would have been understanding and wouldn’t have queried it. The manager apologised for not telling us about the wait, but then said “if I walked into a restaurant and saw how busy it was, I would know there would be a wait”. Extremely rude response, it is not down to the customer to gauge how many people need serving before them and how long they will wait. When we showed surprise she was turning the issue on us, she said “I’m not standing here arguing with you so what do you want me to do.” We said we’d like to have the hot food if it was going to be available soon. The manager said she would go check on the food and it then came out immediately. Unfortunately the eggs and mushrooms were lukewarm and not edible - not sure why, unless they were ready in the kitchen for a while?

When I went to pay, I explained that I wasn’t happy to pay for one of the hot breakfasts as it was too cold to eat - the lady at the till (who originally took our order) said we didn’t have to pay for any of the breakfast as we’d waited so long.

The restaurant appears to be understaffed, the lady taking orders was rushing around, doing a good job. There was a long queue of customers waiting to be seated as we left, and the only other staff we saw was one young lad occasionally clearing tables.

It was pretty chaotic around the buffet due to the set up, eg confusion over where the milk is for the cereal as it’s round the corner with the coffee machine. The set up doesn’t flow well but it’s been that way for years. We have eaten in this Table Table numerous times, but it would be improved if it were set out as other Premier Inn restaurants we’ve eaten in - a full hot and cold buffet, not part order, part buffet.

I appreciate the gesture of not taking payment for our breakfast due to the unexplained wait time, but the rudeness of the manager has made us reluctant to return...

To start with I have given the review 1 star as you can not give it any less, but believe me it should be a minus 5, it’s Got to be the worst experience we have ever encountered in a restaurant, this meal was to celebrate my wifes birthday with our daughter and grandchildren. We arrived on time, and were seated, we than waited 30 minutes for our drinks, when they did arrive they were wrong, so they had to start again, the first two meals arrived 50 minutes after we ordered, they looked like they had been under a hot plate as the food was dry and the juice from the meat was stuck to the plate, the other meals came so slowly the last meal came out when we had nearly finished the first meal, we had a waitress who was stomping around the restaurant as there was so many complaints about the service and the food. We were only offered one drink which was the first one, they then had the audacity to ask us if we would like a dessert, we politely reused. We paid the bill and I spoke to the duty manger expressing our disappointment at the whole experience, he said thank you for not making this public and he would call me by the following Tuesday. However, there was no call from anyone, so we wrote to their complaints department, expressing our disappointment in our experience, they replied via automated mail stating once they had reviewed the matter they would respond in seven days, but again we have had no response from the company. We can only advise you on our experience at the restaurant and the customer service, but there are others which have had the same appalling experience at this restaurant. Advice, do...

I've been eating here regularly for ages now, but after a brief exchange with a new young female greeter (didn't get her name), I've now been banned for life. I came to eat this morning and found a temporary sign stuck to the door, stating that they were only taking cash payments. I went to a cashpoint and returned around twenty minutes later, only to be told that they couldn't take cash payments. The greeter told me that the sign was still on the door from yesterday , so on my way out, I took it down, admittedly a bit huffily (I didn't know anyone was watching!), taking the time to remove all sellotape so as not to leave a mess, and put it in the bin, lest anyone else should have time wasted by misinformation. The lady, short and wearing glasses, strode out and told me I was very very rude to take the now-obsolete and misleading sign down, and that I was to never return. Banned, at 51years old! To be fair, I've been using the restaurant for ages because I love it. The food is good value and the staff are wonderful....until I happened across the hysterical new young woman. I think her reaction was excessive. Just be careful. If she can ban you for life for removing, then ethically disposing of a piece of obsolete paper sellotaped to a door, imagine what she could do if you did something actually 'very very rude!' Doesn't bear thinking about.😳

Maybe just...