"I came with my friends after a day spent wedding dress shopping and we had a really frustrating experience. My friend has a number of allergies and since we didn 't know what time we would be finished with the appointments, we chose this venue as she has 'dropped in ' before and they have been able to easily accommodate her. After being greeted and seated by a lovely, young waitress we were then approached by a much ruder member of staff who was immediately defensive and started to complain that she didn 't want a lawsuit on her hands as the business was privately owned and couldn 't afford it . We explained that our friend has eaten here before and the waitress said because of the commercial kitchen, they don 't have the facilities to offer us ANYTHING. The menu states that everything is freshly prepared and they are happy to cater for special requirements so this really shouldn 't have been an issue. We asked why the menu says this and she sharply said we are but you didn 't give us notice did you . We then explained that our friend has walked in before and been able to eat and her response was well its the same chef and he 's not said that to me . She was extremely rude and was more worried about a lawsuit than customer service. She even started talking about why McDonald 's cups say Hot because they were sued and said one person ruins it for the rest ....in other words she wasn 't going to let us eat because she didn 't want a lawsuit. We even suggested simple dishes that our friend could eat (jacket potato, chicken salad, pasta) and again, she blamed the commercial kitchen and said we can 't guarantee they 'll be no cross-contamination ....so if you have allergies don 't eat here! What she didn 't know, is that we have worked in the industry for a number of years and we know exactly how commercial kitchens work. This should not have been a problem. She also kept mentioning that they had a private party for 43 people that the chefs had to prioritise. Our custom was obviously not as important. She even shrugged and said well I close in 20 minutes anyway . If this were the case why were we seated and given menus in the first place? After this awful experience, we had to ask for the bill which she slapped on our table. Now, had this happened where we work, we would have at least offered the coffees as complimentary (as we only ordered them because we thought we would be eating). Not the point but it would have been a nice gesture after such a bad experience. Unfortunately we didn 't get the name of the waitress who was rude, unhelpful and extremely unprofessional. We all stayed very calm and were simply asking why nothing could be offered when theres plenty of simple dishes our friend could eat (the younger, nicer waitress actually offered us scones, so this waitress was just being unreasonable) but this waitress spoke to us quite aggressively to the point where other tables were looking. You don 't expect to be treated this way because one of your party has allergies. Appalling service. Will not be back. Would not recommend. Avoid if you have allergies."
