"Been to this branch many many times over the last 5 10 years and this last visit was the worst. The manager in charge on that evening was actually almost annoyed with us for everything we bought to her attention. 5 adults and 2 kids sat down to eat around 4pm/430pm on a Tuesday evening, all of a sudden lights went down completely dark we asked them to put lights back up, after all its not valentines night, there are only 3 other tables which are a mixed group of friends and we would like to see what we are eating. Manager said welll my area manager told me we need to dim the lights to make it romantic and if they drive by and see its bright i will get in trouble!! have you ever heard of such nonsense!! We alerted her to the fact there are only 3 other tables and clearly none are having a romantic meal and we cannot eat like this, she said ok i will put it up but soon i will put it down again or i will get in trouble..... When the starters came, i was sharing the chicken liver pate with my father. He had a few mouthfuls and said to me take some, as i looked over to the plate i saw a huge black long hair mixed throughout the chutney that came with the pate. I almost threw up, i got up walked over to closest waitress and said we cannot eat this there is a huge hair in it look. No immediate apology and no visit from staff to ask what shall we do. We ordered another after some discussion on our table BUT without the chutney. To be honest if it was just myself and husband, kids we would have got up and left at that point but i didnt want to cause more upset to the already tense atmosphere in this restaurant. The meals came, then a few sweets for a couple of us. The bill is requested and arrives and i have already informed them of my 2for1 meerkat meals code which i have given them and that i want the bill to reflect the issue tonight. £3 off is what they gave us! I told the member of staff closes to us, i am not happy with this and almost insulted us by taking such a low amount. The manager lady comes over, is there a problem? yes what is it then???!!! I said yes, you gave us £3 off for that disgusting problem and its insulting,you are lucky we didnt leave. She said well i have to explain all these discounts to my area manager, i said all these discounts are not a 'gesture of goodwill ' this is what we are due based on our code and should not be part of what you are doing to deal with this situation. I told her i wish i took a photo of the hair before sending back and maybe the area manager would be happier!!! i told her its un fair, she took £10 off in total. We paid and left, with no tip either, something we never do. I have escalated this problem to head office today as their online feedback form is actually not working convenient timing) but the whole experience annoyed us. £115 we paid in total its not a huge amount but its the principle and they way the manager dealt with is, was very rude, insulting and unprofessional. She event went as far as saying 'the chutney comes ready made, we cant control what we find in it ' i said i couldn 't care less where it was made, that huge long hair is your problem. The rest of the staff i have to say were not rude."
