The Coastguard Inn, St Margarets Bay

the most disappointing family restaurant day out I have ever had, having made the effort to reach The Coastguard passing many fine restaurant on the way we were shown to our table by a less then happy waitress.

I was with my wife and 9 year old son who is both polite and well manned. The restaurant at the time only had 4 other persons in it and we proceeded to order drinks and view the menu, we was not asked or offered a child's menu which is quite strange for a restaurant of this type.

Both me and my wife proceeded to order our starters and main but when it came to ordering for our son who had decided he would be happy with just some plan chips as there was not a child menu I was told by the waitress ( who seamed to be in charge) that they would/ could not do a single portion of chips for him and that I would have to a smaller portion of a adult main for him if he wanted chips........

I explained that he only wanted a small portion of chips but was again told NO, By this time things were getting a bit strange ,so to end the matter I told the less then helpful waitress that I would order and pay for a full child's size meal. ( I was never told or shown a price list so wonder how the price would have been worked out) but I ONLY wanted the chips delivered to the table and that the restaurant could keep the fish I was about to pay for... in my mind I expected her say something along the lines of " I see what I can do " but instead to my shook she took the order and went off, at first me and my wife sat there a bit confused as to what had just happened.... I did think of getting my own back by not giving a tip at the end, but the more we thought about it, the more we felt unhappy, it was clear we was not going to enjoy the meal.

I called the same head waitress over and informed her that we wished to cancel our meal and just pay for our drinks, again I expected some kind of 'sorry we could not help more' but instead I get 'ok'

We had to wait for the drinks bills whist feeling less then welcome and left without so much of a sorry or good bye from any of the staff.

Being the first time ever I have had to cancel a meal I found the whole 15 mins quite strange...... however the good news is we went to the new restaurant which we had passed on the way down and was welcomed with smiles and good service and had a very pleasant lunch indeed.

I think the Coastguard needs to look at how it greets and treats it's customers in a time when business's need to bend a bit to stay in business, I will not be going there again and I will tell my friends not to also.

2 Nov 2011 06:46