TGI Fridays - Castleford — Restaurant in Wakefield

Worst experience of my life at this chain. Already had a booking so waiting to be seen and seated at our table wasn't an issue given it being half term for kids. Over hearing the staff though, they were saying, "The kitchen's really busy." "They're struggling." Didn't bode well. So onto the order... me and my wife ordered the 2 for 1 cocktails so 2 each. The passion fruit martini was dreadful. I barely finished my own and could only drink half of hers. It was nowhere near tasting anything like passion fruit. The drink left a horrible acrid chemical taste at the back of our throats. The other cocktail we ordered was a bubblegum fizzy daiquiri, that was palatable but far too sweet and sickly.

Had to order a regular coke to swill that out and even then the coke tasted watered down, very off.

Starters: Mozzarella dippers, fine. Was warm at least. Calamari, no longer the 'ring' shape, but some weird looking malformed nugget thing. Without even the courtesy of a lemon wedge..

Main: Friday glazed burger with cheese. By the time the server had served it and left, 5 mins later it had gone stone cold. I suspect it and the side of garlic and cheese we had, were sat unattended under the warming lamps for far too long before the ultimate ribs were ready to go with the rest of the order. The garlic bread cheese had fused together and by the time they'd been brought out. Resembling some weird abstract art piece. Back to the burger, along with being stone cold the patty was not juicy and mouthwatering but dry and tasteless.

Ultimate pork ribs full rack. At least this main was warm and stayed warm whilst eating. Unfortunately the ribs resembled something you'd buy from a supermarket, where its vac sealed and you'd stick it in the oven for 25mins... at least that'd be worth the money you pay for.

So bearing in mind all the above... as we tried to eat our food, we had the passion fruit cocktail under-the-sink-chemical after taste in the back of our throats throughout.

As a couple, for the above orders, we paid £110. What a joke. Could have gone to five guys or Nandos for half that cost round the corner.

While all business have had to raise prices due to inflation etc etc then you at least still need to be consistent, which this particular TGI chain has utterly failed to do.

I'll make sure no one in my immediate friend/family circle ever attends this place...

Never again. From walking in we were regretting the decision to eat here the smell was awful very greasy smell to the whole restaurant. So our server seemed fab very chatty and friendly taking our drinks order. They took 15-20 minutes to arrive. Starters arrived and they also took some time we asked for cutlery to eat our starters we were told to bare with them whilst they went to search their words for some forks, knives weren’t a problem just forks. We also asked for a couple of side plates for our starters the server came back after 10 minutes and apologised as she had to find some clean ones! Then the starter was pretty spicy I got the attention of a server and ordered more drinks but again 15-20 minutes later after chasing them the drinks arrived at this point there was less than 15 people including our party of four. Our mains arrived and one of our party ordered something with their signature slaw… my word it was so dry and looked like it had been under the heat lamp for the whole of the day it was flagged up to the server and he said oh sorry yeah it does look bad I’ll go grab you some more… leaving the plate with the awful looking/tasting slaw! Brought a pan of slaw again not much better so we just cracked on there was no point to this at all! Anyway the toilets wow just wow they were vile there was toilet roll literally all over the floor and most of the toilets were blocked! There some manky signs instructing people how to flush the toilet that were all tatty! Just disgusting. I asked for the bill and then to speak to the manager who tried justifying the table not being set, lack of cutlery & crockery, staff taking time to bring drinks/food and the state of the presentation of the food by being under staffed…. I said why did they let us in as a walk in if they weren’t geared up for the footfall of 15 people in the restaurant. We got nearly half the price off our bill still a kick in throat of spending £75 a load of rubbish food and absolutely abysmal service in a scruffy restaurant. Unfortunately no pictures taken as we were just so dumbfounded by it all. Will 100% not...

Went lastnight. We drove from Hull as my husband really fancied TGI's. Honestly wish we hadnt bothered. I dont know if our server was new or just didnt care because he didnt seem to know much and wasnt really bothered about anything. He honestly just seemed bored to be there.

On the kids menu it said to ask the server for a choice of juices. My 3 year old wanted fresh orange juice so I asked if the juices were fresh or cordial. He replied with "Im not sure", he didnt bother going to check and just stood there staring at me. Luckily another waitress called over that they could do fresh orange.

We got served our food and was given no cutlery. I thought someone would come over with some but ended up having to call a member of staff over to ask for some. My chips were luke warm at best so I sent my meal back and it came back luke warm again. Ordered the sesame seeded chicken. No sesame seeds in it. When I mentioned it the waiter just shrugged and said "we dont have any sesame seeds so nowt I can do". If I had been made aware of this Id have ordered something else. We ordered our 3 year old a hotdog with cheese and it came without cheese. To which I had to ask another waitress about. Our server walked by asked how our meal was and I said "not great" and he didnt even stop walking just said "ok" over his shoulder and walked off. I noticed there was a manager and asked our server if he was a manager and he responded "yeah" and was about to walk off. I had to call him back and ask him to get him for me. Lewis was amazing, was very apologetic and did refund us half of our bill but to be honest it put a downer on the whole night. Looking from some of the other reviews seems we were the only ones let down with bad service. The place wasnt even that busy probably just under half full. The staff seem more interested in rushing serving people so they can chat and socialise with each other. I really hate complaining as Ive worked in hospitality before and understand it can be a hard job but for the money they charge you expect to have a decent meal with...