I bring to your attention without any hesitation whatsoever of the entire total dissatisfaction of service that my party of three experienced at the above restaurant which we visited on Saturday 21st May last, which lasted from 7.10pm until the time we left at 9.20pm.

Arriving and being greeted we were informed that we would have a short 5 minute wait for a table to be available. Given we were seated within the time advised we was impressed, but from that point forthwith everything to ruin a special evening commenced.

Having given us a few minutes to settle our waiter took our order for three drinks, together with the meal order for both starters and main course.
After waiting at the table for at least 20 minutes the waiter returned to our table with an apology to the effect that the "Kitchen" had " Lost Our Order" therefore the waiter took our total order again.
Following the repeated order to the waiter it was some 15 minutes approximately from then that the first of the three drinks arrived, one cup of tea. The remaining two outstanding drinks from the Bar had still not arrived by the time our one member had completely drunk their cup of tea. The outstanding two drinks arrived some 25 minutes after they had been ordered.

Approximately 40 minutes later and still not having received our starter course the waiter attended out table and asked if we would like any further drinks, at this point a further cup of tea was ordered and when this was delivered to the table within a reasonable waiting time.
The disgraceful state of the inside of the cup was then pointed out to the waiter who promptly changed it, at this point I would ask is the cleanliness of the crockery not checked before passing on to the customer?

After approximately 45 minutes of placing our 2nd order with the waiter we received our 1st course (starters).
Having completed the 1st course and the crockery having been cleared from the table we was anticipating our main course would quickly be with us, but how wrong we were to think that!
It was now about 8.35pm when the waiter came to our table and made comment to us that he knew we had been waiting some time and it would be with us shortly, as a matter of interest he also made this comment to a couple sitting adjacent to us as well.

/ Still waiting
Still waiting at 9.10pm, yes 9.10pm for our main course the waiter was approached and informed that unless our food was delivered to the table within 10 minutes we would require our bill to be made up on what we have had so far as we were not prepared to wait any longer.
Need I say that after waiting for 10 minutes to elapse the food did not arrive and we were not even approached by any member of staff to give us any assurances as to our food arriving and therefore being very dissatisfied and indeed very hungry indeed a request was made for our bill to be made up. At this point the Manager was brought to us by our waiter who in turn simply said three words "sorry about that" this statement in our opinion was delivered with no sincerity at all or even in an apologetic manner it came across to us all as just a "Run of the Mill" statement and consequently we made settlement and left very, very dissatisfied customers indeed.

My observations from other customers within our area would suggest that possibly you will receive additional letters of complaint if they feel as angered and very annoyed on the service we received as we do given we were not the only group to have taken the action of leaving the restaurant having waited a very excessive amount of time waiting to receive their main course.

I would say that if the restaurant on the night were suffering from staff shortages or if there were a problem with the equipment within the kitchen area that contributed to the delays we experienced then should it not have been proper and correct and indeed good customer practice and further more a morale responsibly to have at least notified us at the time we was first greeted at the restaurant of the possible long delays instead of seating us to our table and then ruining our very special evening.

Needless to say our experience encountered will now lead us to be very concerned indeed as to entering your chain of restaurants in the future, as we do not want our evenings spoilt by what appears to be total incompetence to provide good customer service by your team at the Basildon Restaurant.