horrible service, very rude staff - worst i have experienced in edinburgh!. i went to monteith on saturday afternoon with my boyfriend and a couple friends for the second time. the previous visit had already been a little disappointing due to unfriendly staff but we thought we would give it another go. i now have to say that i will not go back and i would not recommend this place to anyone!
we arrived about 5pm, it was pretty quiet and we wanted to sit at a table in the back (which is the restaurant area at night time). we were told that we are “not allowed to sit there if we were only having drinks” as they were starting to serve dinner soon. i thought it was a little silly as hardly anyone else was in but fair enough, we went to the bar and luckily quite quickly got a table. the waitresses were pretty much ignoring us, didn't clear the table(i mentioned before the place wasn't busy) so we eventually took all the glasses from previous customers to the bar and asked if someone could wipe the table – which one of the waitresses did but she couldn’t have been more aggressive whilst doing so. we had just ordered a second round ofdrinkswhen one of the waitress put a reserved sign on our table saying that we would have to leave the table in 15min at 6.30pm. this already happened at our first visit a couple weeks before. to improve customer service i would suggest that they should put reserved signs on the tables before people sit down or not take reservations for tables which are already in use. anyway, luckily the table next to us become vacant so we moved over. maybe half an hour later another waitress put a reserved sign on our table again saying we would have to leave at 7.30pm. she came back at 7.15 to remind us that we had to leave soon and at 7.25 she actually that we “really have to leave now” – the people who apparently had reserved the table hadn't even arrived by that point. i hardly could believe how rude they were. my friends and i are very polite people and we understand that working in hospitality can be stressful when it’s very busy, but so much rude behaviour is not acceptable. i would like to mention that the 2 male bartenders were very nice and polite. anyway, we left and went down to the shore for a lovely dinner at the kings wark anddrinksat the shore bar. both of these places i can highly recommend, great customer service, great food and a very welcoming and warm atmosphere.