As mentioned on my previous blog, we had a hard time finding a restaurant/pub in Stratford that had an available table that night. Most of them were already fully booked days in advance because of the popular #EatOutToHelpOut scheme. It was only The Keys that had an availability among all the other food establishments that we’ve called and I realized that it was the very same pub that I’ve contacted a few days prior on Facebook to reserve a table and they didn’t bother replying back. That should’ve been my first sign of what’s about to happen.
We arrived at The Keys at 7:30pm and we stood by the door for about 20 minutes before someone assisted us to our table. We could see that they were very busy so we didn’t mind waiting at all, thinking about it now we should have taken that as our second sign and ran to the nearest Mc Donald’s instead.
I was already hungry when we arrived and seeing how busy they were, I ordered our food together with our drinks as soon as we sat at their beautiful outdoor seating area. I didn’t even wait for them to bring us the menu as I’ve just checked it on their website. I ordered a platter of chicken wings, onion rings and some fries for us to share while the husband who was luckily not very hungry at the time just ordered a chicken caesar salad.
As we were waiting, I could see the chaos of their service. Some people will be seated and will wait for a long time to be given a menu or their drink orders to be taken – some of them actually left without having been served by anyone.
Some people will get their food after waiting for a long time (you can tell because they get way too excited when their food arrives) only to realize that the staff hasn’t given them any cutlery so they’ll have to wait a little bit longer to start eating.
There was a couple sitting opposite our table who looked miserable and when their main courses arrived, they had to return it back to the kitchen and the manager had to talk to them for quite some time to rectify whatever it was that they were complaining about.
Seeing all these around me, I knew not to expect anything good to come out from their kitchen but even if I was already mentally prepared for something bad – I was still disappointed. It was worst than what I thought. LOL.
Our food was served past 9:30pm which meant we’ve been waiting for almost two hours. When it arrived, the chicken wings were burnt. It literally tasted like charcoal. Lol. I was too hungry to be bothered so I ate half of it just to have something in my stomach as none of the restaurants around were open anymore – not even the Mc Donald’s nearby. The onion rings and fries were both ok though, thankfully.
One of the staff asked how our food was (so nice of him to ask lol) and I said, “it’s burnt but I can’t be bothered because I’m too hungry” and his reply to me was “ok, no problem!” LOL
He came back after a few minutes though asking how he could make it up to me, if I want to have any other food or free drinks? I said no, while I appreciated their offer but I literally couldn’t stay there any longer and I just wanted to go back to our hotel to sleep my sorrows away.
Our bill came and they have removed the chicken wings from it, again I appreciated this but it’s not about getting something for free. It’s about eating something good when you’re hungry and not waiting for that long of a time.
So if you’re headed to Stratford, maybe you should avoid The Keys but seeing all the positive reviews on their Facebook page and Google, I think we just visited them on a bad night. How unlucky for us. That or maybe those positive reviews were fake. Lol.
The Keys
6 Ely St, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 6LW
We paid a total of £25.00 with the burnt food discount as well as #EatOutToHelpOut scheme.
