Giggling Squid - Tunbridge Wells — Restaurant in Tunbridge Wells

We went here for my 26th birthday and the service was ridiculous. I submitted a complaint directly to them online in February and still have no reply. We didn't want to complain on the night because we didn't want that to be my birthday memory.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a gormless teenage staff member. There was no welcoming introduction. All the staff were young with gormless expressions. Whenever we asked for something they responded urghhhhhhh...

The one staff member who was older was the one who made the most mistakes! First, we weren't offered a vegan menu, which was available. We had to ask for it. We weren't offered a drink, we had to call them back over. One drink was wrong, we ordered a gin and lemonade, not a gin and tonic.

Then our mains turned up which were totally wrong and given a dish we didn't order. We tried to explain this to the teen waiter repeatedly but it was like talking to a brick wall. She just stared at us and said urghhhh.

Finally the older waitress came and took it away. We then realised we had no side plates so asked for those. The pad Thai was the most bland thing ever.

The older waitress asked if we'd like another drink. I ordered the same again, a tonic with lime cordial. I don't drink alcohol due to medical reasons causing heart palpitations or worse. I got given a gin and tonic (apparently that's the default). I almost drank it before realising and could have spent my night in a&e. Great birthday! We told the staff who were not concerned at all, showed no interest. They took away my glass and just left me with the tonic bottle. No one brought a new glass, let alone one with cordial as ordered. We waited for so long but I was gasping by this point so I downed my water glass and used that for the tonic.

To top it all off - the waitress then comes and pours water into my glass of fizzy tonic..... at this point we were just laughing. I know these are loads of small mistakes but it all adds up to a faulty towers look that had us corpsing with laughter at how poor it was by the end. No response from the company complaint has added insult to injury.

We skipped dessert and got out of there as soon as possible. We paid over £100 for that meal that nearly caused me to go to hospital as well as just generally being terrible. What an awful birthday and what adds to the terrible customer service is that they haven't even replied to our complaint. So I have to resort to leaving this review.

We will never be coming back. Overpriced. Bland. Terrible service. No consideration for...

Went here with all my family for my 29th birthday last week, what a shame it was. I’m sad to write this as we had a great time here a few years before that, however this time it was really bad.

1.) The staff were not good. First girl that served us seemed like it was here first day, and was totally inexperienced on taking orders Ect, it took forever. She then went into bring out 2 of the drinks totally wrong. Wrong beer, wrong wine Ect.

Our service was then taken over by a girl that seemed to be in charge, maybe 28 years old. The first thing which totally shocked me was the fact that she was aggressively chewing gum the entire time she was serving us and taking our orders, with her mouth open too! Totally disgusting and very unprofessional to chew gum serving customers, we all thought she was eating food while service to start with! Very wrong.

She also seems extremely miserable the entire time. No even a glimpse of happiness or a tiny smile when serving us, could clearly see it was my birthday and we spent around £400 there! No gratitude for our custom or general politeness at all. Such a shame. Is it really that hard to engage with your customs even a tiny bit, and not make it so obvious you hate your job and don’t want to be there. It really impacts our experience as customers!

2.) The food was just so average. As I say, last time we came the food was good, this time, totally average. Maybe we picked the wrong dishes, but it was just so so average it was painful, and not cheap either!

3.) The toilets are disgusting and smell like they are NEVER cleaned. Someone really needs to sort them out.

We will never be returning here. I hope you read this review and be warned about this place. I’m a professional undercover shopper that has reviewed 100s of places. This happened to be a random visit with my family but I’ve ended up having to do a full report due to how bad our experience was.

Sort it out...

We've used Giggling Squid for years and have noticed the standards getting steadily worse. From ordering online and waiting an hour, to hairs in our food which we've always given the benefit of the doubt to them. (These things can happen) However, our last two visits to the restaurant have also been poor. The staff are disinterested, obnoxious and unhelpful. We were told today that there were no tables available despite the restaurant being literally empty. (Seemed strange but fair enough). The majority of the staff were congregated around the front desk chatting and we were an inconvenience. We were told it would be an hour and a half at least for a table so we left and went across the road. An hour later we walked past and the restaurant was still empty and the staff were still chatting! Further to this we had tried to order online today but their website was not accepting orders. We will not be visiting this place again and when we add up the poor service, hairs in food, waiting for an hour, cold food it makes me wonder why we bothered at all! It's not as if its cheap. Final word, employ staff who have basic social skills and can be bothered to be polite...