The Roundstone, East Preston

The Roundstone run by Whitbread is one of our local pubs and restaurants, which my family and I have been patronising for the past four years.

We have often experienced problems, mainly related to kitchen service but in the past this has always been dealt with in a professional and courteous way by the Manager at the time. Unfortunately, after our experience last week, this happy situation has come to an end.

As someone who runs their own business, I don�t get many opportunities to enjoy a meal out with my family, especially during the week. However, as it was my birthday, we thought we would walk to the Roundstone with our 3 year old son for a quick meal.

We ordered our meal and drinks and were delighted when our starters arrived promptly, we actually laughed that everything we ordered was available and maybe the Roundstone had got their act together. We relaxed and enjoyed these, then sat waiting in the garden for our main courses to arrive, our son particularly hungry and keen to get his dinner. Coming up for an hour after we finished our starters, our main courses had still not arrived and our son was in tears. I enquired at the counter, where the member of staff apologised, explained there had been a mix-up in the kitchen and that our food would be with us in 5-10 minutes. Over twenty minutes later, it was now too cold to sit outside so we moved inside and I returned to the counter to inform the staff of our move and tell them that they needed to get some food on our table within 2 minutes or we would be leaving. When I returned to our table, our son had climbed under the table trying to snuggle down to sleep.

In a few minutes �Jamie�, the alleged �Manager� came (empty handed) to our table and here is our conversation:

Jamie: Are you waiting for food?

Me: Yes, that is an understatement.

Jamie: It will be another 10 to 15 minutes.

Me: That is unacceptable; our son has been crying for his dinner and is now trying to sleep under the table. We will be leaving.

Jamie: It will only be 10-15 minutes.

Me: I don�t believe you, we are leaving.

Jamie: OK, that�s fine.

As you can see, there was not even the hint of a forthcoming apology or concern for either ours or our sons discomfort or inconvenience caused. There was no attempt to make good the situation or to bring us something even small to eat. There was also no explanation of why we had been subjected to this failure of service. He just said �OK, that�s fine�, and turned his back on us.

Leaving my partner to get our now clearly distressed son into his buggy, I followed Jamie and his irritating attitude to the kitchen and explained clearly and calmly that �OK, that�s fine�, is not the correct response to a customer who has simply sat in a restaurant waiting for food that his kitchen had failed to deliver. His reply was, �That�s OK�! I told him to stop being ridiculous, of course it is not �OK�. Just to confirm that he really couldn�t care less his reply was �yes, OK�.

This is just part of the letter of complaint I have sent to Whitbread and await their reply, which I will update here. In the meantime, I wouldn't recommend anyone to use this establishment, unless they like going hungry, being insulted and told to get out if they complain of course!

The only reason they get a 2 is that it could be so much better and the bar staff are trying so hard to do a good job under incompetent management.

22 Jun 2010 13:09