The Cove

Appalling service - we couldn't believe it. I dont often go out of my way to leave negative reviews unless its blown my mind, which in this case our experience has. We turned up (a family of 7 adults and 1 baby) looking forward to some pizza and asked for a table for 7. We were told to wait upstairs at the bar. After waiting for 15 mins and being taken downstairs to a table that barely fit us all in the corner where your head knocks the picture frames and you can barely move, we asked for the Pizza menu before being told they only serve Pizza upstairs. We wish we were informed of this 15 minutes ago when we arrived. One of our family is gluten intolerant so ideally 6 of us wanted pizza and one wanted food from the "downstairs" menu. We were told this isnt possible. We asked if we can carry the pizza/other food up/downstairs ourselves after ordering and again told no we cannot (out of principal more than anything else). If we wanted to have pizza, we would have to wait upstairs for 2 tables to become free, and split the family up to eat in 2 groups. Firstly, we thought the fact upstairs food cant go down and downstairs food cant go up is ridiculous, even if we offered to carry it ourselves. Secondly, more annoyingly is no one informed us of this upon our arrival. After we bit the bullet and decided to eat downstairs to accommodate the gluten-free member of our family, we were told we must pay up-front before all the food arrives ?! I asked if this is normal process for everyone to which we were told yes (we did not believe this). We bit the bullet again and paid upfront. When ordering, we asked if we can swap the salad in one of the mains with a few chips, we were told yes. When the bill came for us to pay up-front, theyd added an extra £4.99 charge for these additional chips which they said we could swap for salad instead. This then took another 5-10mins trying to resolve before someone who thinks they're a competent manager came over and said the waitress was wrong for saying we could swap, but agreed to "throw in a few chips" anyway. We were also told we have 2 options, "pay upfront or leave". This was also quite shocking and strange as we'd already agreed (begrudgingly) to pay upfront 10 mins ago, so clearly there is very poor communication going on behind the scenes amongst staff. When the food all finally arrived, it was ok. Not great, not bad, ok. As we were finishing our meals, i spotted the table infront of us paying for their bill as they were finishing up and leaving, so clearly this isnt normal process to pay upfront, and they clearly didnt trust us and thought 7 adults would do a runner with a baby and a pram or something.... Worst customer service, attitude and communication I've experienced in a restaurant in years, maybe ever. Never going there again. Going by other reviews, it seems ownership has changed and people seem to have similar complaints: Stupid upstairs pizza policy Poor communication Rude management.

Really good for coeliacs! They had gluten free bread, burger buns and pizza dough and also fried the (gluten free) chips in their own fryer. The food was delicious, I really couldn’t recommend it enough! Had mussels with gf bread and fries and it was brill