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A restaurant has suffered a disaster on Valentine’s Day: almost a dozen customers have left negative reviews about the most romantic night of the year. Customers had complained about “terrible service” on February 14, with one person describing himself as “one of the victims of Valentine’s Day.”

The ill-fated dinner on February 14 took place at Ego at Tumbledown Farm in Cannock. The Mediterranean restaurant has a 4.0 Tripadvisor rating, with customers often leaving glowing reviews.

A review in early February said: “Lovely relaxing lunch… good selection of food and drinks. Slightly higher priced but well worth it.”

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“The staff were efficient and friendly. Comfortable seats, definitely worth a visit.”

Another recent review said: “Excellent service and great food, never had a problem with anything. All the staff were friendly considering the restaurant was busy.”

But the same cannot be said for several patrons who chose to dine at Ego on Valentine’s Day. In all, nine different customers left a negative review online about their experience on February 14.

Long wait times and service were listed as part of the blame after a reservation system glitch at the restaurant. Several customers questioned if they will return to the country restaurant again.

One of the reviews stated: “We had reserved a table at Egos for 7.30pm on Valentine’s Day. We arrived at our reservation time to discover a queue out the door and there seemed to be around 8/9 couples in the forehead”. of us waiting for a table.

“We queued outside (it was freezing cold!) and just waited. No one came out to tell us how long the wait was and how long it took for us to be seated.

“We waited until 8pm for a table and by that time only a few couples in front of us had been seated. So we decided to ask the manager to get our deposit back (as we had to pay £20 to secure our reservation). ) and just walked away.

We thought we’d probably be waiting another 30 minutes-an hour for a table and figured by the time we were seated the table service would be poor as well. Glad we decided to go, reading reviews from other guests, the table service didn’t get better either.

“I have never had to queue for so long for a pre-booked table, it was shocking and quite frankly unacceptable. I will never recommend this restaurant to anyone in the future.”

A different person wrote: “Valentine’s night really came crashing down, with lines to get into the building starting at 8pm. We had lost our appetite for food and life in general with the romantic atmosphere and any thoughts of love fading away. .

“We requested a refund which was graciously granted and left. Completely confused by ego with numbers and service although entrees were nice. Thank you for making this a very special Valentine’s night to remember. Best of luck next year” .

One reviewer, identified as Jane, said: “I advise you to contact Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares because the way you treat your customers is outrageous! Thank you Ego for challenging and testing our patience, you have done so well It was the worst night of my life.”

Another customer said “Extremely poor, I won’t waste too much effort as the other 1 star reviews say it all.”

Meanwhile, Colin wrote: “Well what can I say that hasn’t already been said? Nice setting (apart from too many people there and mostly grumpy). Staff are under extreme pressure but try their best to be Right. Ego you got it so, so bad.

“Too many reservations, service is stretched thin and just a domino effect. Very frustrating waiting for service, food, drinks and when the food came it was very average.”

Said another reviewer: “As has been mentioned below many times, I was one of the ‘Valentine’s Victims’. For me my issues were everything everyone has said below (slow service, standing in the cold for half an hour, waiting Over 2 hours for the main course, just a big disappointment overall).”

James Horler, CEO of Ego Restaurants, spoke to BirminghamLive about Valentine’s Day, revealing that affected guests were invited back for a complimentary meal. Described as “an isolated situation”, an error in the reservation system did not help, as James apologized on behalf of the restaurant.

He said: “Quality is very important to us as a business. This is a big site for us, employing forty-six local people. We have over 35,000 Ego club members, all of whom have applied to become club members in the last seven years We recommend the reviews, we have more than 2200 reviews on Tripadvisor, 1500 of them are “excellent” or “very good”.

“Overall, we pride ourselves on our quality. On Valentine’s Day, which was a busy day with over 400 people booked, we had a reservation system glitch at around 6:00 pm for forty minutes.

“This caused problems, but I think we could have handled it better afterwards. We had a very difficult turnaround from a lot of people who were very unhappy, and I think we could have done better and we apologize.”

“Everyone who has contacted us about that night has been treated to a complimentary meal. We value our customers and don’t want to lose them as repeat customers.

“We let them down that day and raised our hands. It was an isolated situation driven by our booking system, but we could have done better and we’re looking forward to making it right.”

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