Mothers slam historic pub after children in restaurant were ‘told to turn iPads down’

Two furious mothers have criticised a historic pub after claiming they were told to turn down their children’s iPads during Sunday lunch.

The group, made up of six adults and four young children, were eating at Sam’s Chop House in Manchester city centre when staff told them to turn down the volume on their devices.

The women took to TripAdvisor to vent their frustration, giving the pub two scathing one-star reviews, accusing it of not being child-friendly.

In a letter to the travel website, they explained that they only needed the iPads because the restaurant did not offer entertainment for children and did not have a children’s menu.

Two furious mothers have criticised Sam’s Chop House in Manchester city centre after their children were asked to turn down their iPads while they had Sunday lunch

The mothers added that their less than satisfactory experience began upon arrival when “rude” staff told them they were not allowed to take their strollers into the restaurant, but once inside they found that there were only two highchairs available when they needed four, the Evening news from Manchester.

In her review, Heidi S expressed her disapproval: ‘I don’t normally write reviews but I am shocked by the disgusting service we received yesterday. We came to Manchester to visit family and went to what we thought was a nice restaurant for a roast dinner.’

She continued: ‘We had four young children and were told that strollers were not allowed in restaurants. That was no problem, we wanted high chairs for them to eat their dinner anyway.

“When we got to the table we asked for the high chairs but they said they only had two! I had to put one of my children in the stroller,” she added.

Although Heidi thought the roast dinner was presented ‘wonderfully’, she was equally disappointed with the quality of the food and the lack of options available.

‘There was no children’s menu so my children couldn’t eat! The roast dinner was awful! Looks delicious, great presentation but I might as well go to Tesco and eat raw veg off the shelf because that’s exactly what it was, RAW!

The group, consisting of six adults and four young children, were dining at Sam’s Chop House in Manchester city centre when staff told them to turn down the volume on their gadgets

“The beef was good but only had two small slices. One roasted potato that was actually a boiled potato,” she expressed her frustration.

Heidi described the customer service as ‘terrible’, claiming that one member of staff ‘asked us to turn my children’s devices down even though they weren’t being noisy at all! We had to entertain them with iPads because the restaurant didn’t have anything for children to do like normal restaurants, not even menus for them!’

And the cost of the meal was also a cause for concern for the mother, ‘£20.00 for a roast? I would have rather gone to Toby Carvery for half the price and a much more decent roast than the awful meal they call a Sunday roast,’ she said.

‘Their target audience and preferred audience are absolutely posh people who come WITHOUT CHILDREN and drink wine from the £100 bottle.’

According to Heidi, the group felt “very uncomfortable” and warned other families to avoid the restaurant “at all costs.”

Joanne S. also gave her opinion in the form of a review of her own: ‘I had booked a table for six adults and four children for Sunday lunch and the first problem was that they only had two high chairs.

‘The second problem was that the rude staff told us that the children had to turn down their tablet. They said that there were other customers, because these customers were talking louder.

‘The third problem was that they didn’t take into account the needs of children. They couldn’t even make mashed potatoes, so the children didn’t eat anything.’

She added that one adult in the group was so “disgusted” and “shocked” by the staff’s attitude that they decided not to eat either.

Joanne S. summarised that the group ‘didn’t feel welcome’ and that the roast dinner ‘wasn’t even worth the money’.

Sam’s Chop House and Mr Thomas’s Chop House on Cross Street are both operated by the Victorian Chop House Company.

Pub boss Roger Ward ‘held his hands up’ and admitted some things didn’t go to plan on the day the mothers visited.

He noted, “We do try, if we’ve done something wrong, we try to make it right. We take all complaints seriously and really try to do something about it.”

“We didn’t execute that change optimally, but we did make important steps on all the points they raised. We thank the customers for reporting it.”

Ward explained that on the day of their visit there were ‘a huge number of children’ visiting their two pubs in Manchester.

He explained that this had caused a shortage of highchairs, as two were being repaired and two were still being used by the other restaurant.

He added: ‘Eventually the problem was solved.’

Regarding the children’s menu, Ward stressed that it is a child-friendly pub and that they offer smaller portions of adult meals rather than a specific children’s menu.

He explained that the Chop House doesn’t buy frozen meals for kids, but offers smaller versions of “real food” prepared for adults.

“I don’t know if we communicated that well that day,” Ward said.

The manager concluded, “I always apologize when people have a bad experience and find a way to make it right. That’s the only way to run a restaurant these days because we live and die by the experiences people have. I don’t believe offense is the best defense, we can always learn from things we do wrong.”

“If you want to eat with your children in a nice environment, we want to be that. We are child-friendly and dog-friendly. It’s not a fancy restaurant, but we strive to be a nice place where children and dogs are welcome.”