The Con Club — Restaurant in Trafford

This is a copy of an email I sent to the restaurant following my first (and last) visit to the establishment. The contents are self explanatory.

Wed, May 29, 5:35 PM to info

Dear Sir/Madam

On Bank Holiday Monday (27th May 2019) my Husband, our Son and I dined at the restaurant.

Our reservation was under my name (Karen Andrews) at 2pm and we sat at table 8 I believe.

It was our first visit to the restaurant and our initial impressions were very good.

We liked the decor and the atmosphere.

Our main server was a lovely young girl from the Czech Republic who was polite, professional, helpful and friendly.

We were impressed with the wide choice of food and drinks available which were reasonably priced.

All our food was presented beautifully and tasted delicious.

My friend only drank still water as he is tee total. I enjoyed my couple of glasses of Prosecco and my Son was very happy with his craft ale.

The only sour note that I am writing to complain about is the other server who attended our table. I do not know her name. I would describe her as late 40's, sun-tanned, dark hair and blue eyes with an air of authority about her. This server was polite, but very matter of fact with no warmth or pleasantness about her. This server took our dessert order. My Son opted for Mango Sorbet which was very tasty. My friend had the American style pancakes with Peanut Butter and Jelly. I had the Pancakes with Blueberries and Nutella. All of which tasted very yummy. My friend couldn't actually decide which Pancakes to have so we asked the server if he could have some of the third Pancake choice (Maple Syrup and Bacon) in a little ramekin and offered to pay extra. The server abruptly replied (quote) "You won't need it" (unquote) and walked off. We do not feel that our request was unreasonable and we were upset and disappointed at the rudeness of the server.

My Son said (quote) "I was giving this place a 9 until just now and because of her its dropped to an 8" (unquote).

My friend said (quote) "That's just put a dampener on my day. I was looking forward to coming back but that server has just ruined it for me" (unquote).

We have no more to add at this time.

We just wanted to inform you of the situation so you can deal with it as you see fit.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of further assistance.

Yours...

I had a couple of hours to kill by myself in Altrincham. The market was too busy, so I thought I'd try the Con Club.

It's an attractive venue, and a Sunday roast sounded good. As nice as the restaurant looks, I found it quite noisy. If I was with someone, I think I'd struggle to hear them without them raising their voice. Not a major issue but worth noting.

I ordered roast lamb, but it seemed to be roast beef that I was given. I like beef, so it didn't seem worth complaining about.

What I did have a problem with was that it cost £18.50 for one of the smallest roast dinners I have ever been served. You get a nice big Yorkshire pudding which pads out the plate and probably costs a couple of pence to make. Below that are a couple of slices of nice meat, then below that a tiny portion of veg, including one roast potato and a small piece of broccoli.

As disappointing as the portion size was, the food itself was nice.

Unfortunately, the company then have the audacity to add a 15% service charge on too. I dislike this trend at the best of times, but I'd pay 7.5% or 10% without too much of an issue. 15%, on the other hand, is absolutely ridiculous. I was only there for about 30 mins. All they did was bring me one beer and a plate of food. I then had to awkwardly tell them to remove the service fee. Surely a company charging a premium price for their food can also afford to pay their staff a decent wage in the...

We had booked a table at this venue for drinks for a special hen party. It was actually incredibly difficult to book and required multiple un-replied to emails but in the end we got confirmation. When we arrived at the time we had booked (with an email confirming this as such) we were told his iPad showed it was booked for half an hour earlier so they’d given our table away. The man at the service desk was incredibly rude to us, didn’t even look at the email we were showing for confirmation, didn’t apologise at all that it was clearly their fault, was confrontational, unprofessional and exceptionally rude despite us remaining calm and being incredibly polite about the situation. He eventually said we could go upstairs to see if there were any spare tables but thought it unlikely for a party of 12. At this point the hen was visibly upset and disappointed and he continued to be rude and confrontational and so obviously we chose to leave and go to Kennedy’s Irish bar down the road which in the end was incredibly fun and would now recommend there over here any day! We are a group of well-mannered, easy going and professional girls and all agreed afterwards we have never ever been treated in such a rude and confrontational manner and were all shocked and hurt but tried not to let it ruin our night that we’d planned...