Two furious mothers have slammed a historic pub after claiming they were told to turn off their children’s iPads while they had Sunday lunch.
The group, consisting of six adults and four young children, were dining at Sam’s Chop House in Manchester city centre when they were reportedly told by staff to turn down their headphones.
The women took their frustration to TripAdvisor, slamming the pub with two scathing one-star reviews and accusing it of not being child-friendly.
Writing to the travel site, they explained that the only reason they needed the iPads was because the restaurant did not offer any entertainment for younger guests and had no children’s menu.
Two furious mothers have slammed Sam’s Chop House in Manchester city centre after their children were told to turn off their iPads while they were having Sunday lunch.
The mother added that her unsatisfying experience began upon arrival when “rude” staff informed them that they could not bring their strollers into the restaurant, but once inside, they found that there were only two high chairs available when they needed four, the report said. Manchester Evening News.
In her review, Heidi S. expressed her disapproval: “I don’t usually write reviews but I am appalled by the appalling service we received yesterday. We came to Manchester to visit family and went to a restaurant that looked nice for a roast dinner.”
She continued: ‘We were with four small children and were told that strollers were not allowed in the restaurant. This was not a problem, we wanted high chairs anyway so they could eat their dinner.
“When we got to the table we asked for high chairs and they told us they only had two. I had to put one of my children in his stroller,” she added.
Although she thought the roast was “excellent in presentation”, Heidi was equally disappointed with the quality of the food and the apparent lack of options available.
‘There was no children’s menu so my children couldn’t eat. The roast was awful. It looks delicious, the presentation is great but I might as well go to Tesco and eat raw vegetables off the shelves because that’s exactly what they were – RAW!’
The group, consisting of six adults and four young children, were dining at Sam’s Chop House in Manchester city centre when staff told them to turn down the volume on their devices.
“The meat was good, but there were only two small slices. A baked potato that was basically a boiled potato,” he vented.
Heidi described the customer service as “horrendous” and claimed that one member of staff “asked us to turn down the volume on my kids’ devices, even though they weren’t making any noise at all! We had to entertain them with iPads because the restaurant didn’t offer anything for kids to do like regular restaurants do – not even food menus for them!”
And the cost of the meal was also a cause for concern for the mother: “£20 for a roast? I would rather have gone to Toby Carvery for half the price and a much more decent roast than the awful meal they call a Sunday roast,” she said.
‘Their target audience and preferred audience is definitely posh people who come WITHOUT KIDS and drink wine from £100 bottles.’
According to Heidi, the group felt “very uncomfortable” and warned other families to avoid the restaurant “at all costs.”
Joanne S also added her opinion with her own review, saying: ‘I booked a table for six adults and four children for Sunday lunch and the first problem was that they only had two high chairs.
‘The second problem was that the rude staff told us that the children should turn off their tablets saying that there were other customers inside, considering that these customers were talking louder.
‘The third problem was that they didn’t take care of the children and they couldn’t even make puree, so the children ended up not eating.’
She added that one adult in the group was so “disgusted” and “shocked” by the staff’s attitude that he decided not to eat either.
Joanne S summed up that the group “didn’t feel welcome” and that the roast dinner “wasn’t even worth it”.
Sam’s Chop House and Mr Thomas’s Chop House on Cross Street are both run by the Victorian Chop House Company.
Pub boss Roger Ward has “held his hands up” and admitted that some things did not go according to plan on the day the mums visited.
He commented: “We try. If something doesn’t go well, we try to fix it. We take all complaints seriously and try to improve.”
“We didn’t handle that shift in the best possible way, but we have taken significant action on all the issues raised to us and we thank customers for raising them.”
Ward said that on the date of his visit there were “an enormously high number of children” visiting his two pubs in Manchester.
He explained that as a result of this there was a shortage of high chairs because two were being repaired and two more were being used by the other restaurant.
He added: “In the end, that problem was solved.”
On the issue of the children’s menu, Ward insisted that they are a child-friendly pub and offer smaller portions of adult meals rather than a specific children’s menu.
She explained that Chop House does not buy frozen meals for children, but instead offers smaller versions of cooked “real food” for adults.
“I don’t know if we communicated that well that day,” Ward said.
The manager concluded: “I always apologize if people have a bad experience and look for a way to make amends. That’s the only way to run a restaurant these days because we live and die by people’s experiences. I don’t think attack is the best way to defend yourself, we can always learn from the things we do wrong.”
‘If you want to take your kids for a walk in a nice environment, we always want to be that place, we are kid and dog friendly, it’s not a fancy restaurant, but we strive to be a nice place where kids and dogs are welcome.’