The Coastguard Inn, St Margarets Bay

A very disappointing experience. We arrived at 1:15pm on a Sunday and asked for a table for 7 people. We were told to come back at 2pm and there would be a table for us. We went for a walk and came back at 2, then waited outside in the January cold for another 20 mins. We were told they were out of a few items and that there wasn't a huge choice for the kids. We were grateful for the heads up and said as long as there were chips, the kids would be fine. We were told - Yes, there were chips. We were allowed to take a table for 4 to get the kids out of the cold and whilst we waited for a big table to finish up. We ordered a round of drinks and moved to the larger table - a 6 seater, so we squeezed an extra chair on the end.

The waitress (and as we found out later, duty manager) came to take our order and when we tried to order chips for the kids, she said they couldn't have chips on their own, only with something from the starter menu (patatas bravas and chips, anyone?). She also told us that we couldn't have 7 seats at the table and that we'd have to split across the two tables... We pointed out that we'd requested a table for 7 right from the start and then she rather rudely said we should have booked! Enough was enough - we decided to leave at that point. The 3 kids (4, 8 & 11) were hungry so we decided to leave our 5 soft drinks and 2 pints of beer. We agreed amongst ourselves that we would be happy to pay for the 5 soft drinks, which had been mostly polished off, but the beers were virtually full pints and nobody was in the mood to neck them.

A big argument ensued whereupon said waitress denied saying we could have a table for 7 and that the kids could have chips. She was as rude as hell. No customer services skills at all, happy to have a slanging match in the middle of the restaurant area in front of other customers, some of whom followed us to the car park to tell us that she'd behaved outrageously. One of the least child-friendly places we've ever been to. They might as well have said: Children Not Welcome! At least that would have been more honest. NOT TO BE RECOMMENDED.

30 Jan 2012 01:30