The Dirty Onion and Yardbird — Restaurant in Town Parks

If I could rate this 0 I would. I have tried to pass on my feedback multiple times without having to leave a negative review online, however my complaints have went unanswered (despite 3 attempts of contacting them).

There are far better places to go in Belfast - give Yardird a miss!!!!

I have copied below my email to upper management. To summarise, our food was cold, no one checked on us and the manager was extremely rude to us.

Upon arrival we waited to be seated for around 5 minutes, as 3 members of staff continued to walk past us without acknowledging our presence. At times these members of staff appeared to be doing nothing and chatting to one another. Upon eventually being acknowledged, a male member of staff, who we later discovered was the manager, approached us saying “hello” and we explained we had a booking. He told us to wait 2 minutes so that he could push 2 tables together for us. He came back after doing so and pointed to the back of the room and told us to “go down there” to our table without accompanying us to seat us.

We waited around 10-15 minutes before being approached again by a member of staff. The female member of staff took our food order, however we had to ask to order drinks as no one had came to do so yet. She explained our food would be a 20 minute wait as we had ordered ribs. (I must add this female member of staff was very pleasant). (I must also add we witnessed another table having to wave down a member of staff to place their order as they also were not approached for a considerable period of time).

After 30 minutes our food arrived at our table, the manager handed us our plates into our hands and set chips on the table that we had not ordered. My mother explained we had not ordered these chips and he told us to keep them anyway.

All of our food was cold, chips, wings, ribs - all of it. Had a member of staff came to the table to check how our food was we could have told them this and asked for it to be heated, however no one came to check on us. There was around a half rack of ribs left, some wings and a lot of chips. We had no choice but to eat this as we were all very hungry and could not wait any longer as we had a show to attend.

My mother called over the friendly waitress to ask for our bill and politely asked if she could have discount off our bill as all of our food was cold. The waitress politely explained that she would get the manager for us.

The manager approached our table and was immediately very defensive. His first line was “you said the food was cold but you ate it all.” No apology or asking what our feedback was. My mother asked was he saying we were lying? He said he held the plate and it almost burned him, to which my sister asked well if it was so warm then why did you place it in our hands rather than on the table?

I expressed that I was disappointed by his reaction to our feedback and that I found the customer service to be less than satisfactory. He said we should have told someone the food was cold but I explained that no member of staff approached our table to check on us.

We were not rude in our attempts to provide him with feedback, however he was extremely defensive, dismissive and rude. When my mother looked at the bill she noticed we were charged for the additional chip that we did not order and that he told us to keep, as aforementioned. He was defensive about this again and told us it comes with the ribs so we would be charged. My mother explained that he told us to keep this chip and he then took it off the bill.

This is just a brief overview of our experience at Yardbird. I have never felt the need to complain like this before at any establishment I have dined at but I hope this highlights to you the disappointment I have felt in the experience we had.

To experience this from any member of staff is terrible, never mind a manager. We were out as a family to enjoy a nice meal and attend a show afterwards but this ruined our whole night as he left us feeling...

GROUP BOOKINGS WARNING! AVOID Never experienced such dreadful customer service trying to resolve an issue where we had a table booked for 24 people (noted on the booking as a stag do) and our group were refused, but then charged a £240 (£10 per head) no show fee. The majority of the party were sat upstairs waiting to dine, whilst the door staff refused the stag as he was in (sensible!) fancy dress. He went back to their hotel to change into a shirt and jeans, but upon trying to join the rest of the stag party, was then refused for being ‘too intoxicated’. This was simply untrue. The door staff followed our group to the next door establishment but they saw no problem and served our large party all evening where we ate and drank and enjoyed the live music happily. We have since discovered they charged our party a no show fee, despite it being them that refused service unfairly. Upon complaining via Open Table and directly, the staff and General Manager at The Dirty Onion/Yardbird dealt with the situation appallingly. The General Manager did say that he is not inclined to provide any refund to our party as it was a booking for 24 people. Had it been only a table of 2-4 people, he suggested it would be a different matter. We do not see how this makes any difference to the situation and furthers our point that it was an unreasonable refusal. If he is willing to refund for a smaller table under the same circumstances, surely there should be no argument for our party? I refuse to accept that they lost out on takings following this as they do accept walk ins anyway, and are an extremely busy establishment, and clearly were not worried about refusing a party of this size (or the promise of a negative review). Such a shame as we have dined here previously and enjoyed the food and atmosphere, but absolutely will not be returning. We will be taking things further as they have taken such a substantial sum from us (via the holding card in case of a no show) despite it being their decision to refuse service...

Ok so it’s not typical Irish food but it’s great for a pint of Guinness. It’s the only place I’ve ever been when they tap the pint on the bar when it’s two thirds full. I really liked the ambiance of the bar and busy ( for a Monday evening ) restaurant called Yarbird.

The menu is predominantly chicken and pork. No sirloin, rib eyes or burgers are cooked here. Loaded fries, wings, ribs, dips and either half or quarter portions of freshly roasted chicken. The open kitchen is busy with cooks and servers go back and forth there and greet the guests.

Star of the show is the delightful Jasmine. She meanders effortlessly through the restaurant, does meet & greet, controls the booking system and brings your meals to the table. She’s one of the hardest working staff members I’ve ever seen. An absolute credit to the restaurant. I ordered the ribs and wings combo with a side.

They were brought to me ten minutes later with a fresh pint of Guinness. The sweet potato fries were fine as were the ribs. However the wings were below par. Elephant & Castle in Dublin served the best wings I’ve ever tasted. These were nowhere near as good. Desert was a brownie with three toppings. This also was average. Great place to eat though, live music downstairs...