I came here on a visit to see my boyfriend in Southampton. We took a trip to Portsmouth and decided to do some shopping at Gunwharf Quays. The shops were great and around lunchtime I insisted we eat here, to my boyfriend's dismay as it was about a 30-35 minute wait on a Sunday afternoon. It was very crowded in front of the hostess stand, but we did our time and were seated towards the back of the restaurant, near the stairs to the second-level seating.
After being seated, it was as if no one saw us. It was a very small section, and the waitress assigned to it completely overlooked us and continued to assist the large family next to us and the booth behind us. We waited for a good 15 minutes, as she HOPEFULLY did not see our gestures and "excuse me's" to get her attention, otherwise we were being ignored. No one came to us to take our drinks order or even say that they'll be right with us. We grew impatient and my boyfriend got up to ask the manager walking around if someone can assist us. He said "oh, has your server not gotten your order yet?" and my boyfriend replied that we didn't even know who our actual server was (we assumed it was assigned to the woman serving the tables around us, even people who were seated long after us, and it was). He said someone would come over to us, and it was another 20 minutes before she actually came. By that time we already had our drink, appetizer, and orders ready. She took them all and got our calamari appetizer after about 25 minutes. It was mediocre, I couldn't completely tell you if it was good or not because we were starving by that time. The time to get our food after that wasn't bad, about 10-15 minutes. I ordered the spaghetti & meatballs and my boyfriend went with the carbonara. I'm not even sorry to say it tasted like a microwaved, preservative-filled muck. Not to be rude at all, but it was just terrible. I thought maybe it was just my batch, but my boyfriend's wasn't any better. I'm both American and Italian, and as one reviewer put it--yes, it was a disgrace!
All the while no one came to check on us once or refill our drinks at all. We'd have to get up and ask a busser for a refill of water (not even for a refill of his soda or my lemonade). The next we saw of anyone was when our waitress came over to get our plates and asked if we wanted dessert. Of course, we declined the offer to see the dessert menu and she handed us the check immediately. Again, she left and we waited that final, grueling 15 minutes before my boyfriend got up to hand it to her whilst she was at a waitress register. She followed him back with a pin pad and whilst he was entering his card and info she actually made conversation with us (convenient she was being personable at the time to tip). As an American, I don't expect too much from waiters and waitresses here as they don't work for tips, but I've never really run into an establishment where it lacked so much customer service. Should have listened to my boyfriend in the first place, we wasted so much time (two and a half HOURS) and couldn't wait to get out of there. For once, he was right! read more