Having never been to Frankie & Benny's before, I was excited about going there. It was for a work's meal, so we had to pre-book our table (for a Sunday) and pre-order our meals, which were 3 courses.
Inside, the atmophere was a great old New York style circa 1950s, with its wooden tables, black and white photos and background music. Inside, on the left was a nice bar, where you could sit and wait for friends, with a nice cocktail in hand.
I'd ordered the Chunky Tomato Soup, Chicken Penne, and Vanilla Cheesecake. When my starter - the tomato soup came to the table, it was cold, but I thought nothing of it, seeing as it was busy. My colleagues had ordered garlic pizza bread, which was somewhat cold as well.
For the main meal, my pasta was lovely, albeit very soft and overdone (very much like schooldinner pasta). My friends had the New York Chicken, and from their reactions with their knife and forks, it looked pretty tough and resembled a lump of charcoal. A vegetarian friend had the vegetarian pizza, but found a large chunk of sausage in it, as well as a piece of salami. Suffice to say, as a long-term vegetarian, she felt sick and couldn't eat anymore.
When asking the waitress to replace the pizza, she seemed very nonchalent and uncaring. On disappearing to 'consult her manager' she came back with the option of a complimenary glass of wine. This seemed very unhelpful considering, the vegetarian friend had to drive, felt sick, and just wanted a replacement and maybe a little apology?
Dessert came soon after. The vanilla cheesecake was lovely, but covered in some strange pink goo which frankly tasted salty, and rather odd. Then I found a long blonde hair in my cheesecake (couldn't have been mine, since mine is short and black). At which I said to the waitress, who asked Is everything ok? I'm really sorry, but I've found a hair in my pudding. All I got was the reply Oh, maybe you can eat around it? Which I don't think anyone would do, right?
At the beginning of my meal, I had ordered 1 drink - a glass of diet coke. When the waitress who 'seemed' helpful came back to ask for more drinks, we all asked for various cocktails and drinks. After waiting an hour (after finishing 2 courses), we re-ordered our drinks with the same waitress - nothing. 2 hrs and 20 minutes in, I went to the bar to order a drink (as I was dying from thirst) at which I was told, as I was eating at a table, I would need to order it with the waitress!
Not pleased, since I was willing to pay for my drink straight away, I ordered another drink - coffee this time. We waited another 20 minutes-still nothing. So we asked for the bill, which came with the price of the drinks we'd ordered but never received! In which, we had to complain, and the drinks had been taken off.
However, management did little to assure the quality of the food (burnt chicken, hair in cheesecake, cold soup, meat in a strictly vegetarian meal), and were unhelpful and seemed to be rather rude, even though we had been patient and not once raised our voices. Still saying please and thank yous, despite gritting our teeth and bearing it.
So this has put me off ever visiting Frankie and Benny's again. It's probably a very nice place, but the service and the mistakes they made are health and safety risks, which aren't really forgiveable. In fact might even be grounds to pursue with Hygiene Standards. read more