Palm Court Pavilion — Restaurant in Worthing

:: A Kind Gift Ruined by Terrible Management ::

This afternoon my parents arrived for an afternoon tea with a gifted pre-paid voucher. They were seated by the door and because there was a cold draft they asked to move. This request was greeted with eye rolls and reluctant huffing. After being moved (there were empty seats, so the reluctance was not a matter of space) they were left waiting a very long time for service. Finally, they were approached by serving staff and after a brief conversation were told to provide the gift voucher. My father informed them that he only had a picture of the voucher, which was purchased online by a friend and couldn’t give them the original paper voucher. The member of staff informed my dad that they flat-out wouldn’t accept the picture, even though it showed the individual voucher number. The date and time had been pre booked and the only people to turn up for that booking were my parents who arrived at the correct time, on the correct day. This clearly didn’t seem to matter. After a frustrating exchange my dad asked to see the manager, who offered no apology, no compromise, and wouldn’t accept even speaking to the person who purchased the voucher. The manager, lacking any care, or compassion wouldn’t accept the picture of the voucher and again rudely insisted on seeing the physical paper voucher (which my father had already explained he did not have and could not provide). She then denied service and without another word walked off leaving my parents confused, uncomfortable and stunned by the managers intransigence. Not wanting to stay any longer, they got up and left out without a single member of staff looking at them or offering any words or explanation. My parents were really looking forward to a rare afternoon out and a lovely afternoon tea; instead they were left upset, embarrassed and the voucher unfortunately been a waste of money!

I find this total lack of basic service, absolutely shocking - and this situation could easily have been avoided. It doesn’t matter how many 5 star reviews you get if there’s a chance you end up being treated like this. I would not recommend this establishment and the manager should be...

We booked a table in advance for 2:30pm. Upon arrival the restaurant was not ready to serve customers for cream tea as they were still serving lunch. We were eventually shown to a table at 3:20pm, unfortunately this table was in the far corner of the marquee which was not wheelchair accessible even though this had been stated on the booking and was clearly visible upon greeting us. Another 10 mins went by before we were shown to a table which was slightly more accessible however I use the term accessible very loosely. After sitting at the table we asked for some tap water as there was quite a wait for the cream tea. This took a while to arrive. Another 10 mins passed before we were eventually served with cups of tea, of which they were all served with cows milk even though they had been informed that one member if our party is vegan and allergic to dairy. After this we eventually received our food around an 1 hour and 20 mins after the original booking time. Some of the sandwiches were missing, and the bread tasted stale. The scones looked like they had been bought from a supermarket and microwaved, they were rock solid and slightly warm in the middle. Upon raising these issues with staff, we were greeted with a rather rude attitude from the waiters. They said someone will be over to sort it out, and another 10 mins passed, at this point we raised the issue again to another waiter who was then interrupted by the original waiter who said ‘i’ve told you someone will be on their way’. At this point we spoke to the manager who said ‘what would you like me to do about it’ in a rather rude tone, I then informed him that we would not be staying to finish the food and he tried to charge me 50% of the bill. I stated to him that for the terrible service we had received that he’s already had a £30 deposit and would not be receiving any more. Overall they wanted to charged us £17.50 per person for 6 people for what was a sorry excuse for an afternoon tea. This was really disappointing as it was for my mum’s 50th birthday. Safe to say we will never be attending this...

Had a company social at this establishment and it felt stingy. We were given tokens to redeem drinks but only allowed to get small, bottled beer or a small can of soft drink but not draught beer which is just sad. The food was prepared in such a way that people had to go through various tents to get from hog roast section to salads, the food was cold anyway and did not carry enough flavour. The staff were extremely nice, but overall, not a great setup. I can only expect the dance section to be equally awkward as the dance floor has enough space for about half the people here. With the table setup half the people are left standing too. For some reason they decided to setup tables using double tables meaning u get awful lot of table space to put your paper plate with cold jog roast and pint beer u had to pay for £6 instead of setting up more seating area.

EDIT: following owner response

My review given directly to the company is separate to this review, which focuses on things you had control over either directly or indirectly.

Direct control: layout of the establishment food court layout of the sitting area how food is kept hot how food is sourced (supplier), therefore taste setup of the dance floor

indirect control: serving proper draught

A client comes to you and has a request, then you need to judge it against the overall experience. If they came to you with five hundred people and believed it was ok to cram them into the dance area, you would say yes, because that is what the client wants?

If a client comes and says we will offer our employees only courtesy drink at the entrance, you could say "How about draught also?"

You should expect that all these people might leave a review and tailor experience to get 5-star reviews.

Let me know if these (somehow) were not within your control and I'll gladly remove/...