I've visited Dragons (as it is affectionately called between friends and family local to the area) frequently and over several years. Its a regular place to go for birthdays if you're a bit low on £, and usually you get what you pay for.
Dragons consists of two parts, a buffet and a serviced area. The buffet is much more preferable in my experience- more people go for it, as its cheaper, contains more items and you can go up as many times as you like for a plate refill! The serviced area is more expensive (well, it would be!) but lacks the greasiness that the buffet area is infamously renowned for.
So, its positive points are: its cheap, its cheerful, popular for teenage parties- and I've even seen a few hen nights start there. Overall, a positive social gathering place. Even if the food does suck.
However, the negatives are that the food is either overpriced or waaay too greasy (or both); the labels on food can sometimes leave you slightly puzzled, and there have been occasions where they've placed a food platter under the wrong label; the wait service often appears highly stressed; if you spend more than an hour there the door is mentioned bluntly and repetitively until you start moving for it; and finally every time I've gone, I've done some mental addition, and somehow (even counting in a more than generous tip, when were were mostly left unattended during our time there) every party I've been to has been charged more than we originally thought, leading to awkward scrabbling for spare change in everyones pockets and resentful muttering about either shoddy mental math skills or ridiculous pricing (usually the latter).
It could be said that, however much we dislike the service, the unpleasant way we're treated like nothing more than a process for getting into our wallets and purses rather than at least pretending that we're valued customers- there is a humbling arrogance that comes with the place, and its a popular venue for mostly skint late-teenagers to swipe a bit of money off their parents and be a bit socially independent of said parents.
Also, they do lunch buffets for those who just can keep away from destroying their figures, & early evening is great for stuffing fat and junk into kids- and, well, its probably better than ol' Mackie D's.
but so is radioactive waste, IMO. read more