Giraffe

I was pretty excited that there was a Giraffe opening in Swindon… even better that it is right next to Tesco so we could do our shopping after having dinner. When they opened, I told Mr. Snarky we had to go. I have a thing for their Farmers Market Burrito. I’m not a vegetarian, but this meat-​less burrito is pretty good. When we visited the first time, we knew that there were probably still some glitches to be worked out, but we went anyway. We had a delayed starter, but we still would have given the visit four stars. In fact, even though you could tell our waitress was new, possibly even new to the restaurant business, she was so lovely.
Fast forward a couple weeks and our experience was not so great. In fact, I apologized to Mr. Snarky for suggesting it. We arrived and were seated promptly, but after that, the service became slower. It was some time before our waitress came over to take our drink order and I noticed that drinks were piling up at the bar as none of the waitresses seemed to be paying attention. When the waitress took our food order, she didn’t seem to know the menu as Mr. Snarky ordered the steak and she assumed he wanted the steak sandwich. After he cleared things up, she still didn’t ask him what side he wanted or how he wanted his steak cooked. He got in that he would like Mash before she darted off.
We had ordered the potstickers to share as a starter. You know that moment when you have been chatting and all of a sudden you realize that you are still without food after a considerable amount of time… well we realized that and shortly after we realized it, it looked like our waitress realized it as well. She had a word with the manager and the manager came over. She acknowledged the wait and said that our starter would be out in two minutes. She also offered to get us more drinks, which I just wanted a refill of tap water and Mr. Snarky was still drinking his Diet Coke.
The potstickers showed up and we began to dig in. I bit into one and noticed that the center was cold. I put that one down and cut open another one. The center was cold. By this time, Mr. Snarky had noticed it as well. While I appreciate that they wanted to get our starter out to us quickly, I think it was more disappointing that the food was not cooked and had to be sent back. The manager apologized and while I don’t think she meant to say this, she did say, «This isn’t the first time this has happened.» So now we were a bit worried. We opted to skip the starter and go straight to our mains.
There was also a delay in getting our mains. I guess I would have thought that maybe the staff would have been a bit more diligent to correct the issue with the same table, but we got to watch a couple who had come in after us, receive their mains and finish before us. That said, the couple had a word with the manager as they had some complaints about their meal as well. When food arrived, one of the dishes was incorrect. When Mr. Snarky’s steak came out… it was quite disappointing. There was a small, wilted pile of rocket, a small portion of mash, and a steak that had been cooked well done… perhaps a bit past the point of well done. He ate it, but we may have wandered into the Tesco Express after for a snack/​dessert. My enchilada was ok… if you have had authentic Mexican food, you will know that this wasn’t really an enchilada, more like a burrito bake. It was ok for what it was, but it was quite dry and mostly rice. The salad on the side was nice, but didn’t seem to have any relation to the Enchilada.
When our waitress cleared our table she was very apologetic and said that they had taken the starter off of our bill as well as one of our drinks. While Mr. Snarky was not impressed with that, I figured at least they had acknowledged the problems and were trying to make amends. We also were a little insulted by the addition of the optional gratuity charge, so I paid in cash, but the exact amount, less the gratuity charge.
I know it is a new place, but Giraffe isn’t new. While I know that glitches happen, I guess I would have thought a chain of this size would have figured it out by now.