In a world where us Brits are good at complaining I want to sing the praises about Frankie & Benny’s after myself, Daddy E and Roo had a brilliant breakfast out there the other week and got first class customer service.
I had been lucky enough to win a £30 breakfast voucher on a competition organised by My Family Club and had decided that we would use the said voucher to treat the family to the luxury of breakfast out the week that the new Disney Pixar movie Brave came on general release in the UK.
So having booked tickets online to see Brave last Wednesday we trekked over to Tamworth which has our nearest cinema and Frankie & Benny’s restaurant and arrived at just after 10:15. We were greeted by a really friendly manager who showed us quickly to a nice spacious booth rather than table and chairs as this was easier for Roo to sit at. First brownie point.
We were provided with menus and after explaining to Roo that she could have pancakes for breakfast – cue wide grin of excited child – we all opted for something different. Roo had buttermilk pancakes with red berries and vanilla ice cream, I had buttermilk pancakes with crispy bacon and maple syrup (clearly withdrawal symptoms from our Florida trip earlier in June) and Daddy E went for the full blow with triple stack pancakes, three eggs and bacon.
We ordered extras of hash browns, mushrooms, jam and toast (as a fail safe for Roo in case pancakes were a disaster), two cups of tea and a coffee for Daddy E. The tea’s arrived quickly and it was lovely that they had put Roo’s in a tiny china cup which was really easy for her to pick up and made her feel very grown up.
Meals arrived and they smelt and looked delicious. We all tucked straight in the meals were hot, tasty and a real treat compared to our usual Weetabix and toast. Admittedly, our mushrooms were forgotten and there was no jam for the toast but the portions were huge we didn’t honestly need them.
Halfway through the meal Roo began to cough and I patted her on the back. I didn’t panic as she’s always been pretty good with her food and gag reflex. She began to put her fingers in her mouth and pulled out a piece of plastic about 1.5 inches long and what looked like the corner of a bacon packet. Obviously I was horrified and this put a bit of a dampner on the meal and Roo got a bit wary about eating the rest of her dinner.
I popped out at this point to do the usual bathroom run with Roo before we went into the movie and left Daddy E to deal with the bill and the plastic incident. When we returned to the table the manager who had greeted us and sat us to table was talking to Daddy E. He like us was mortified about the plastic in Roo’s dinner – obviously the implications of her actually choking on the plastic were not lost on him and he quickly took Roo’s meal off the menu. That was a lovely gesture and I didn’t expect much more as we’d had a very nice apology.
However, then we went to pay with our voucher which was to the value of £30. The manager advised us not to pay with this because with Roo’s meal taken off breakfast only came to £18 and they don’t give change in vouchers. Whilst this annoyed me slightly because out of choice we wouldn’t have come out for an £18 breakfast as this is a luxury we can’t afford on a whim I could see where he was coming from – it would though be better if Frankie & Benny’s changed their policy on using vouchers as I am sure this has caught people out.
The good service though continued when the friendly manager, who’s name I didn’t get, deducted yet another meal off the bill bringing our total spend down to just £12.
Throughout the entire meal we felt comfortable, we were welcomed into the restaurant, the kids puzzle pack and games that Roo got given amused her and we’d taken our usual mix of toys to keep her busy – namely her iPad and she sat good as gold through the meal. It was definitely a family atmosphere and the Frankie & Benny’s staff are geared towards families and throw in nice little touches such as the child size cups for their tea.
We would definitely go back again for another family meal – in fact we will be as we’ve still got our £30 voucher to spend! Top marks Frankie & Benny’s for excellent customer service.
Plus if you visit their website at the moment kids eat FREE when any adult meal is purchased from the breakfast menu.
I dont get this post. Didnt sound like a ‘great’ breakfast. Maybe disappointing? And i dont see why you couldnt use voucher? Even if no change could be given, i would not want to pay if the outing had been intended to be virtually free :-/ confused
Hi Karen – definitely not a dissapointing experience for us. Albeit not being able to use the voucher for what should have been a free meal was annoying but this comes diwn to the T&C’s of use not being printed on the voucher not the actual stance by the manager. He went out of his way to rectify our issues and dealt well with our complaint and if we had used the voucher we’d have lost out by £15+ do he was in essence making sure we got full value of the voucher. We had a lovely breakfast, I’ve been nervous about eating out with Roo before now – but on this basis would go back to a Frankie & Benny’s again.