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We visited the new Coast to Coast restaurant in the Stevenage Leisure Park on a weekday evening during half term. For those who frequent the leisure park, you will have no doubt seen the transformation of the previous oriental restaurant that previously occupied the building, for those of us who are less frequent visitors – what a transformation, gone is the whole clinical fast food self-service environment, the entrance has moved, the interior is no longer plain and clinical, it is warm & cosy and does genuinely look similar to the typical American bar you’d see on TV or in a film.
Customer service seems unusually good. We were greeted on arrival and given an electronic pager to notify us when our table was ready. The barman was friendly but not pushy, helpful and clearly knowledgeable of the beers and cocktails available, he clearly enjoyed his job and was good at it. The kids also enjoyed watching the barman making cocktails for other customers and making use of the free Wi-Fi. After a short time the pager started to flash and our friendly greeter was already looking for us and showed us to our table.
Our table was comfortable, not huge, but adequate for a family of 5, our waitress was patient giving us plenty of time to choose and was knowledgeable of the menu able to guide us where needed.
The food arrived in a reasonable time with no undue delay. Portion size was good and the meals were of good quality and enjoyed by all of us. The waitress was accessible, polite, but not in the way.
Obviously in a single visit, it is not possible to comment on the whole menu, however, if the rest of the menu is as good as our selection you will be in for a treat.
There are some negative points. We checked on-line and were unable to book a table as the system was showing as booked for several days in advance. A quick phone call confirmed this, but we were advised that there would be limited space if we turned up, generally we would expect to turn up and eat at a leisure park restaurant. If you want to eat here, it is worth making a booking as there appeared to be many people disappointed while we were eating. If you are on a budget and ordering by price, there was no pudding menu, our waitress gave us a verbal list but no prices so you have no idea of the cost of pudding (of course you may not need a pudding as the main courses we had were sufficiently generous).
I’m guessing the staff selection process was lengthy or the training was very good as all the staff we encountered seemed to be more on the ball than other places we have eaten over the last few years. The staff are a credit to the company.
All of the family would want to eat here again.
Further information can be found at http://www.c2crestaurants.com/restaurant/stevenage
Disclaimer: We were provided with a voucher which covered a significant portion of the meal, however, the voucher was not disclosed until the end of the meal so as not to influence service. The restaurant and meal were genuinely enjoyed by all the family.
