I rarely if ever leave reviews. Maybe 1 or 2 ever. And I have noticed in general that restaurants have really struggled to meet service and quality standards since the pandemic, so I am willing to let quite a bit slide. But yesterday’s visit to the Royal Oak on Strandherd was just something else, here is summary.
Was taking my young daughter out for dinner and they had a kids eat free sign for Tuesdays so decided to give them another try despite mediocre food and service in the past at this restaurant….
-waited at front door and nobody came to seat us so we eventually went in and found a table (no big deal!)
-table was dirty and clearly not cleaned and when bartender came over we had to ask her to clean it
-to be fair to her it seemed like she was the only one working the entire restaurant (5:00 pm on Tuesday so place was not busy but still)
-ordered a beer and it came to table warm
-asked for some recommendations on food and she recommended a few items, I ordered one of them, buffalo chicken wrap, my 7 yr old daughter ordered fish n chips off the kids menu
-buffalo wrap was not very good, did not taste fresh, luke warm at best, dry
-my daughter’s portion size was very small even for a kids meal, just 2 small fish sticks and a small number of fries
-daughter kept complaining to me that she could not bite into her fish or even break it with her hands since it was too crunchy lol…..I eventually looked closer and broke her fish stick in half and it was essentially hollow. They had either put little to no fish in the breading or overcooked it so bad that the fish had dried up and disappeared LOL
-I pointed this out to waitress and she seemed receptive – said wow that is super weird, could you leave it for the cooks to see? And then said well at least it was free. To be fair I don’t think she meant to come across as dismissive but…..the fact that they were running a promo that day was really besides the point. Bad food is bad food. Yikes.
-no cutlery was provided, no napkins, and no wipes
– I used some wipes in the car for my daughter and had to feed daughter again when we got home
My daughter appeared to take the whole thing somewhat in stride. The sign outside said “excellent food” and as we left she said “well I guess they have excellent people but not excellent food”. She also said that the place was not really Royal at all. Honesty from a child! All this to say, can’t really blame the bartender who appeared to be without help, but this was a truly awful experience, regardless of whether the kids meal was free! Also I would note that the prices are quite high at this place considering how poor the food quality is.
