The best restaurants serving British food in Forest Blaby East Midlands

Waited to get a table ( place empty) the Waiter sat there on his mobile and ignorant of who walked in. Tables sticky and chairs stained and dirty. Menu had tomato sauce over it. Bananas black and soggy. No decaf tea or coffee available. Awful place

Being our local, favourite and ‘Goto Pub’, rather than cook we decided to go for a nice meal having been many times this year. However, the usual customer experience we are used to had vanished and replaced with the worst Customer Service we have encountered for a very long time. On entering the pub, our reception was less than welcoming. We wondered if the person seating people was having a bad day. We were shown to our table and ordered food/drinks in a timely manner. When the food arrived, we asked for a new salt pot as ours was damp and no salt was coming out. The dark haired girl serving us said, ‘Well if you unscrew the top you can get to the salt that way’, and abruptly walked off. We asked again and were told, ‘Well they are all like that’ and again abruptly walked off. Annoyed by this, I went up to the dark haired girl at the till who was showing a new girl how things are done and told her she can have her faulty salt pot, and her customer service was appalling. Ten minutes later and at the end of our meal she appeared with a little dish with salt in it, we think trying to make a point. Even more annoying and rude. We finished our meal almost immediately, paid (was asked if we would like to leave a tip – I did think of a few choice words), and left Next day, I cancelled our Christmas Day booking that we were looking forward to, with a lame excuse ‘ Having to Work’ as there was not enough space to enter this review. It means that I will lose my deposit (I doubt the Red Cow will read this and refund it), but we cannot risk having our Christmas Day ruined by awful customer service again. I also strongly begrudge spending £300 on Christmas Day at such an unwelcoming place. We will now take our business elsewhere. I do hope the owners of this establishment read this as we were so upset, annoyed and let down. I wish I could give it less than 1 out of 5.

We called into Starbucks on the north side of the M1 at Leicester Forest East and ordered a sausage sandwich and two medium cups of tea. As they were being made I noticed that the tea bags were being put into paper cups. I said “if those are for me please put them in proper cups not paper takeaway cups”. When they were ready the assistant, who I now know was Olivia, put them on the counter and said “ if you want indoors you have to say, you’ve been charged for takeaway” there then followed an exchange when she said that it’s a takeaway cafe. I said you don’t have a sign to say that. There are tables and chairs in a discrete area for Starbucks and why did nobody ask if I wanted takeaway. It’s a cafe! No she said, it’s your responsibility to tell us. I considered her tone as though she was a schoolteacher telling a child off. She was not only forceful in her tone but also stating what seems illogical. Surely a cafe that also does takeaway and has any sense of customer service should ask the customer what their choice is. Clearly, she seems to think differently . At no time did she offer to repay the difference in price. It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Whether I’m using Starbucks or any other retail outlet, I expect the assistants to be customer centric. If customers are as unimportant to a business as Olivia seems to think, I’ll think twice about using them again. I will get my drinks from a burger outlet next time. Olivia is in the wrong job unless she is truly representative of Starbucks customer service. My previous visits to various Starbucks cafe’s leads me to think that their assistants don’t think as she does. I wonder if it’s because she works in a motorway service station where thousands of people call in every day and generally have low expectations of the service they get.