Widnes - Ryan Review

Ryan's picture
How Helpful?: 
No votes yet
Author: 
Number of Visits: 
This was my first visit
How Busy?: 
A few tables occupied
Date of Last Visit: 
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Time of Day: 
Weekday Dinner
Rating: 
4 / 5
Friendliness of Staff: 
4 (Good stuff. Very polite)
Speed of Service: 
5 (Under 5 mins - I had only just got back with my cutlery and sauce)
Quality of Food: 
3 (Average - just as you would expect)
Decoration & Cleanliness: 
4 (Very clean, newly furnished, impressive artwork and lighting)
Comments - Stand out in our monthly competition! What did you eat? Unique aspects? Parking/transport tips?: 

In St. Helens for the day - so what a great opportunity for a slight detour to the newest opened branch in Widnes! It's located in the newly opened "The Hive" leisure park, with a Superbowl, Reel Cinema and Frankie and Benny's in the same patch, with hundreds of free parking spaces right outside.

There's some outside seating available at the front of the branch - maybe 8 tables or so, with a further 35 tables or so inside. With it being a new build my expectations were high! It's a semi-circular shape, with the full length windows forming the flat edge. There is a good mixture of tables/chair and booth seating on both your left and right sides from when you enter. The two side walls (well, the left and right curves either side of the till/cooking area) have lots of wooden beams in the wall (vertically) with small canvas prints set within them. Band in the middle (mainly over the booth seating) in the ceiling is a very large oval cut out with plenty of lighting too. The lampshades could have perhaps been a little more interesting as they are just plain beige and standard shapes - but it does mean it's very bright at least. The toilets were spotlessly clean too with a large/long granite wash basin instead of individual sinks - but not sure why the basin is so low! :-)

I arrived at about 5:15pm and there were a handful of tables taken, so no time to wait for a table, or to order - and the food came in four minutes! The staff who served on the till were all very pleasant and were making general chit chat with other customers too. There was also a table of 6 employees on their break/starting shift and there seems to be a real good atmos between them and throughout.

The food was a mixed bag sadly. One half of my chicken was cooked really well - succulent and hot - but then the breast was very dry indeed. The skin was hard and the breast meat could not be eaten without smothering it in sauce - it was so dry. The chips and rice were nice and a good sized portion. I guess overall it averages out to a "3" sadly...

Overall, a nice visit!

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