bellaitalia.co.uk

I will NEVER return to Bella Italia…

I will NEVER return to Bella Italia after tonight! I left the place in tears. We went to Bella Italia in Bletchley next to MK Stadium, where we’ve been multiple times before. We went to celebrate our eldest son’s A Level results and there were 11 of us in total. We were going to use Tesco Clubcard vouchers and had exchanged them all for this meal specifically as we don’t go out to eat often due to my health problems. Unfortunately our waitress wasn’t great from the start, but I remained polite and friendly. Almost every drink we ordered was apparently out of stock, I then took my daughter to the womens toilets and there was no toilet roll at all. The food was ok, my pizza was dry but the dessert was nice. They forgot one of the desserts and the waitress wasn’t apologetic when she finally brought it out. She also never offered us any other drinks, so we spent almost 3 hours there and only had one drink. My husband went up to the bar a couple of times to ask for some water as we weren’t offered any. I’m coeliac and told her this and she didn’t give me an allergen aware sign like she gave to the people on the table next to us. When we went to pay, we mentioned the Clubcard vouchers to her and she said because we were a table of 11 we couldn’t use the vouchers. She was incredibly rude and condescending. I questioned this as we’re a large family and have used the vouchers often as we don’t really use them anywhere else. She told me it’s in the terms and conditions and that I should’ve read them and that I should’ve told her when we arrived and she would’ve told us we couldn’t use them. She was incredibly unsympathetic and heartless. My husband told her he would have to transfer the money to my bank as he didn’t have his bank card with him. The waitress decided to stand almost right behind my husband and was hovering over him while he was doing his online banking transaction. My son who’s autistic then pushed his chair out to get up to go to the toilet. He didn’t realise she was right behind him so the chair hit her and instead of her realising she was far too close, she was rude to our son and stayed where she was. I ended up in floods of tears as I felt it had completely ruined what was meant to be a lovely celebratory evening for us and now our son feels guilty for suggesting we go to this particular Bella Italia. But we’ve never had any issues there before this. The waitress decided to glare at us with an evil grin as we walked off. I feel like she enjoyed it to be honest, which is just evil and nasty. I never want to return to this place and until they employ some nicer, more professional staff I will be advising others to go elsewhere. We spent £300 and they took a £30 service charge, which I would’ve asked to be removed if I wasn’t so upset. I wish I could’ve recorded how rude the waitress was. Her name was Natalie I believe, according to our receipt. Now I remember, when we arrived and were seated, the light above me was flashing constantly, which could cause an epileptic fit for someone who has epilepsy. Flashing lights bring on migraines for me and my mum, so I asked the waitress if it could please be turned off and she said she would try to dim it. I thanked her and even thanked her again when she came over to take our drinks order (the only drinks order). But I did notice that her and another waitress were looking at me and whispering as they sorted the light out and I did feel a bit uncomfortable but brushed it off at the time. But by the end of the night of course I realised that she seemed to either have it in for me, or just wasn’t a nice person. Either way, it didn’t feel nice and I had been nothing but polite and friendly towards her. I’m sure the manager could have come over and sorted it and hopefully spoken to us like we aren’t a piece of dirt on the bottom of their shoe. Anyway, as I say, we will never ever return and it’s an incredible shame.

Date of experience: Aug 20, 2024