Portico Lounge — Restaurant in Wales

I'm not in the habit of leaving poor reviews for anybody really but I was so disappointed with the service and then the plethora of deflections by the lady at the bar today that I felt it was necessary.

I ordered two pieces of toast, two Cumberland sausages and an egg. When my food arrived it was missing a piece of toast and the egg looked very small, as though some of the white had been chopped away. I let the gentleman who was walking around know and in fairness he was very polite and ordered me another piece of toast and agreed the egg was small and so ordered another free of charge. Problem solved? Well, no, not exactly. I waited for five minutes and my extra toast and egg were taking a while so I had to make do with making a smaller toasty by cutting the one toast in half and placing the egg I already had with one sausage. Another ten minutes passed and by this point the sausage I had left was stone cold. I eventually got fed up and asked the lady who was making the coffees if she could find out where my food was. She checked the machine and the food was ready and sitting upstairs and so she went to get the food. Obviously the sausage was not nice at all at this stage and the egg had clearly been sitting as the yolk had hardened. I ate my second piece of toast and egg with a cold sausage attached. I was needless to say not pleased with the service.

On leaving I decided to have a word at the counter. Its not my style to leave reviews online without having talked to the staff. The young lady I talked to unfortunately wasn't exactly on side. First she advised me that as there were other customers before me when the second half of my food had been ordered and that was why my food was so long. I advised I'd already paid for the meal and had it delivered minus the toast I'd already paid for and the egg was also small to which she pulled a doubtful face. I advised the gentleman had agreed and that's why the egg was replaced but I'd had to eat my breakfast in two half's fifteen minutes apart. She then advised me that she'd heard the monitor ping "coincidentally" as I'd asked for my food which was simply not true. I was stood right next to the lady when she checked for my food and perhaps she had not heard it I don't know but it did not ping whilst I asked about it or while she checked. Regardless of whether it pinged or not, when this lady told me it had been missed because they don't have the staff to "just stand at the machine all day" I did start to doubt that this lady understood how runnish my breakfast had felt. Honestly, I just wanted to feed back how having paid for my meal already but having it served in two half's was not a great experience. The lady proceeded to tell me that I should have handed the whole meal back including my partners and waited for the whole thing to be redone, which according to her original remark regarding me having to wait behind other customers would have meant I'd have been waiting quite some time. Whilst there was an apology eventually it came across very back handedly. All the while it felt like that sort of poor service was not really a big deal, was justified by poor excuses to some degree my fault as well as theirs as I'd not handed my meals back. I've worked in the customer service sector myself and having a customer stand and reason back and forth with the establishment over the quality of service is just not acceptable when the service was obviously not the way that establishment would hopefully intend for it to be.

In the end I was advised if it ever happened again that I should hand the entire meal back (again including my partners - so just snatch that from under their nose too) because seemingly just getting me a quick piece of toast and an extra egg is not an option. If I had been a staff member I would have simply got word to the chef that the customer had already had their breakfast with food missing and so prioritising their missing food was important. The other customers would not have been effected by a three minute delay to get my food to my plate...

26/04/22 I'm a regular at Portico and love it and the staff, unfortunately tonight was a complete let down. If it was my 1st experience here I would have given a 2* but I don't want to tar the place knowing how good it usually is. We were made aware that it was a different chef to usual- someone from a different branch- I suggest he's either retrained or not asked to help there again. Firstly my friends chips came out cold, cheesy garlic bread cold with hardly any cheese. An order was sent through for halloumi fries, but sent out was chorizo and beans. These were sorted by front of house staff no problem. The clanger- I ordered chicken and avocado salad without onion or bacon with a side of calamari. I can't stand raw onion and have made a lifestyle choice not to eat pork. I had to wait a very long time and when it did finally come out It came out with both onion and bacon. As I was then in a rush, I had to remove it myself. I'm sorry, but I have a complete dislike of onions (and what if I had allergies?) and for ethical reasons refuse to eat pork but pretty sure I ate some before even realising. I know that ours was not the only issue this evening. Front of house were clearly struggling with the complete incompetence of this chef but I have to say the front of house were spot on as usual. So the 4* is because I don't want to tar this place, but the review is to hopefully get seen and the chef to be retrained or not asked...

My partner is coeliac and not one, but TWO staff members mistakenly gave him a gluten-containing product. First the staff member on the bar when he ordered, my partner checked everything he'd ordered was safe, which the staff member assured him that he was. Secondly the server who delivered the oreo milkshake assured us that the biscuits on it were gluten free. It was only when I questioned the server repeatedly and asked her to double check the allergen list that the gluten was identified. Thankfully my partner didn't eat any. But he could have been seriously ill, and if someone with an anaphylactic allergy had experienced this then they could have died. Normally the Lounges are our #1 restaurant when eating out due to their diligence with coeliac dietary requirements. Unfortunately this has led us to put a lot of trust in the servers, and my partner was about to eat his milkshake before I questioned the server as his level of trust in the Lounges is high enough that he was willing to take her at her word.

We will continue to eat at the Lounges chain as they have been brilliant every other time we've eaten at one of them. However it would be good if Portico Lounge could confirm that ALL staff at Portico Lounge will be required to undergo allergy refresher training, and that junior staff will be supervised by managers with more in depth...