Toby Carvery Caerphilly — Restaurant in Wales

Avoid this place like the plague! Partner and son spent 15 minutes queueing for food whilst I seen to the youngest and kept him entertained. Come to my turn to queue & I'm also waiting 15 minutes (to be expected, its sunday) so fair enough yeah?

It's the queue of people for the empty gravy bowls that caught me off guard, as me and a queue of 10+ people stood and stared at our plates as our hot food grew colder and colder. Politely asked staff if they could replenish the gravy as I worked out no one had managed to approach the oblivious members of staff yet. Roll on another good 10 minutes of waiting for gravy and the server brings out what can only be described as a bowl of tinted water 🤢 the consistency was no thicker than water & it was quite obvious it had been rushed to deal with the growing queue of waiting people!

Whst happened next was the icing on the cake. After my very patient; yet growing wait of 25 minutes - I decided I wasn't happy to pour a ladle of said "tinted boiled water" over my food and just call it a day (last time we went it cost us over £60 - I wanted a decent plate of food for my money!) So I asked a passing member of staff if they could sort it out as it wasn't thick enough to be classed as gravy and I didn't believe anyone would be happy. He informed me that "there's nothing wrong with it, that's company standard that! I'll make sure they do the next one thicker though" which to me translated to "Yeah its runny, but I'm not guna do anything about it cause I don't get paid enough". At this point I had lost my patience as I watched my partner and children literally FINISH their meals as I'm still stood, which was quite upsetting as it was a "family meal". At this point I called "Bullshit" as well as saying u didn't believe he was right, and that any other time I attend Toby Carvery it's more so a case of "one lump or two" than the later 😅

Well if he did... the man literally pulled and SNATCHED my now cold plate of food out of my hands & pointed to the door shouting me to get out! Luckily I know how to act in public and chose not to shout back, gathered my family and quietly left.

How that man maintains a job working with members of the public is ludicrous. Obviously Toby Carbery's standards have slipped significantly, & obviously thats not just with the gravy scenario; but across the whole board.

Please don't go there expecting to be spoken to kindly and respectfully. There are a few lovely young serving girls that are so polite, just Unfortunately this "man" will also be there - hes now the reason why me and all my friends and family have chosen to boycott TC Caerphilly

EDIT

Seems I can't reply I thought I'd edit to add that I was at polite and respectful with every member of staff I encountered. The unhelpful response I recieved was again met with a polite attempt to further ask for the issue to be resolved. I don't believe it to #bekind to physically snatch something out of someone else's hand. Assault is in no way a professional manner and I urge you to readdress your response and also check your cameras before you embarrass yourselves any further. Some basic training in customer service and de-escalation skills could have very much prevented any physical action that was taken by your members of staff. Again, I respect my personal choice to not be touched by others, a boundary that your staff member felt they were able to break. There...

Bizarrely incompetent staff seemingly oblivious to their surroundings or functions. We kept looking for hidden cameras the visit was so surreal.

On arrival, having booked, the manager checked our details saw our booking then said he'd just be a moment. Ten minutes later (the restaurant had plenty of empty tables) there was no sign of him. After a further 5 minutes he reappeared wandering aimlessly with two coffees and a glass of red. When he offered to show us to our table I said "good job we booked - would hate to think how long you'd make us stand in the doorway otherwise!" he didn't seem to care...

In credit to the manager he did tip us off that a booking of 35 people was about to go the carvery. We rushed up - just to find nobody there serving...

Finally lost the plot at the point when our two desserts arrived (one apple pie, one billionaire's slice with cream) and the waitress proceeded to fetch and bring only one spoon. I sat there bemused as the other staff were too busy doing nothing (except the manager who was wandering around secretly filming/taking photos for some bizarre reason) wondering how anyone would assume a spoon wouldn't be needed.

Eventually got up and asked for a spoon at the bar. The lady staffing the bar tasked one of the roaming chefs (assume he was a chef as he was wearing whites and spent some time watching the vegetables earlier in the evening) with finding me a spoon. Said chef then said excitedly "What sort of spoon would you like?" Before pointing at my partner's spoon and saying "ooh one like that is it. I'll sort that for you buddy!". He then brought me a soup spoon.

We then paid at the bar for an easier escape than trying to interact with the waiting staff - the lady on bar duty was working very hard doing everyone else's job by the time we left.

On arrival there was piles of dirty plates stuck on every surface. On exit, despite very little going on for the staff to do, these piles were continuing to fester. I wonder if the half drunk pint on the table outside will be there frozen in...

My experience here was absolutely disgusting. I have anorexia so eating out is something I find really hard to do but my husband suggested going for a roast to which he said if I felt comfortable he would ask for somewhere quiet to sit in the restaurant away from any members of the public so that I didn’t feel confined and pressured as I get very stressed if people are loud around me when I eat. Anyway, the first member of staff was brilliant and sat us literally where no one else was so before more people could arrive we quickly went up to get our food and eat while it was quiet as essentially just the two of us. I was about 4 mouth fulls into my meal and I heard a member of staff behind me start to talk very loudly and use a lot of swear words when speaking to another colleague, at this point I was starting to become very stressed but my husband was talking to me to distract me. This soon stopped working as I loudly heard her say “omg I came on my period last night and there was blood all over my sheets” to which point my husband very respectfully went over to them and asked them to keep the noise down as I was very stressed and to be honest we didn’t want to hear about her “period” when we are eating our food. She looked at my husband with the most disgusting face and didn’t say anything and proceeded to look us up and down and whisper to her colleague and laugh. Being anorexic I stopped eating my food as I had gotten so stressed, I started to panic and just wanted to leave. That night I spent the whole car ride home crying as if you are or know anyone who has an eating disorder you would know how hard it is for us to eat let alone brave going to a restaurant. People who work in restaurants especially should know to not be loud and swear and talk about quite disgusting topics around anyone, let alone people who struggle with eating. We will not be coming here again. Staff are so rude and very inconsiderate to customers. You don’t know what people are going through or struggling with so just be kind...