Toby Carvery Willingdon Drove

A wonderful place for a quick 'fill it up' or a cozy evening meal. the cheapest restaurant in the united kingdom, when it comes to a full spread with the choice of carvery options, where they even mix and fit their meat. for the professed herbivore or dedicated vegetarian, there is even a delicious cornucopia of fresh seasonal vegetables never less than six fresh vegetables of the season, plus the traditional 3 types of kartoffels, carrots, pastas, etc. and for those who are in need: we are happy to say that licensed service animals are warmly received in advance, but recommended for those who are in need: great lunch and nice dinner. they can even enjoy a traditional full english brekkie at most toby locations in the UK!

26 minutes soon advised and was asked to wait what we did. but tables very dirty and not from past peoples lunch, dirty tellers, uneaten eating and chaos around. a chef in white was at the end to clean the tables. extremely slow service from our waitresses who have never given as much as their names or have shown us where something was or even has explained to us that sharpened us. it seems to be a very general lack of personal. but in the words, we had a very good meal, much meat hot vegs etc.

We arrived for the meal at Toby to celebrate my grand daughters birthday {her choice} .We had our drink orders taken but not brought to the table for some time.We then went to the carvery to get our meal,no sign of anyone serving after a wait a man came through to serve, choice of meat put on plate and handed the plate holding the plate in our napkin in case plate hot choice of veg etc put on plate very limited gravy available or sauces no one around to ask for refills of these . On returning to table and putting the plate on the table was the first time I touched the actual plate to find it felt dirty with hard dried on dirt to the underside of plate on passing a comment to my daughter and grand daughter they also said their plates felt dirty which in turn meant we did not enjoy the food wondering if the actual plate tops had been clean before the food had been put on it. We did have a pudding each which seemed fine. At no time when we were sitting eating our main meal did the waitress ask if everything was ok. We did not leave a tip and was disappointed with the service the cleanness of the Toby on this visit.

Refused to accept booking due to a head office arranged training session for the evening, so closed ; even though the website still showed them as open!! Unacceptable !!

This topped to be my worst dining experience in my life. The whole experience was appalling. Carvery was disgusting. Service non existent. Manager a poor excuse of a person. Some staff were VERY rude. Toilets were disgusting. Never ever going back. Will be reporting my experience to Mitchell Butlers direct. More so as they embarrassed me I used to be a manager for Toby Restaurants many years ago and what I experienced would result in summary dismissal for the manager and all employees in my day.