The Argyll Hotel

We’d pre-booked the Argyll Hotel's "Taste our Best" Clyde Suite for the final night of a family gathering of 12, including relatives visiting from Canada. The award was last won in 1994, back when Chatters was the restaurant on site, and nothing about our meal lived up to the name. We were booked for 6pm, but nobody came over until 6.30, and food didn’t arrive until 7. There were two mistakes with the starters. The table was eventually cleared, but no cutlery was replaced and empty glasses were left there. We took the glasses back ourselves and ordered another round. The main courses, ordinary fish and chips, steak pie and lasagne, came after 7.35. The bill was £300. We gave our feedback to the "manager", who offered a paltry 10% discount. Scottish tourism shoots itself in the foot again. Avoid this place and go to the chippie across the road instead. 😡

We had lunch in the Clyde Suite yesterday. It took over 25 minutes for two meals to arrive, and the staff weren’t very attentive. The “Slumdog Chicken Burger” wasn’t what the menu led us to expect, it was a roll with more salad than chicken. Having to pay at the bar on our way out didn’t work well either. I also saw a waitress spray half a bottle of cleaner on a table and scrub it with a dish towel after another table left. And the gents’ toilets had a sign advertising Mother’s Day on 15 March, nearly four months out of date.

We ended up paying almost the full bill after a pretty unbelievable experience. Our AirBNB guy hadn’t advised us to go, but we tried it anyway because it meant a shorter walk for my 88-year-old Great Aunt. I’ve never left a bad review before. We were being people-pleasers and got only a few pounds off. The usual hospitality seemed not to apply here. My Great Aunt left her beef pie untouched. The meat was dried out at the edges and very basic, like a bad Spoons meal left on the hot plate too long. It wasn’t awful, but the quality didn’t justify the price. I might have eaten it anyway, but she’s 88. No one had checked on us before the waiter came to clear the plates, so that was when she said she wasn’t going to eat it. The waiter chewed gum the whole time and looked at us like he was some Cool Kid in an American high school movie and we were beneath him. He didn’t seem trained in how to handle the complaint. He shrugged like an annoyed teenager, rolled his eyes and said, “mmm ok.” When my Aunt said it wasn’t good enough, he asked what we wanted him to do, as though it was no big deal. I explained that normally a customer who doesn’t eat a meal because of its quality would be offered a refund or another meal. He rolled his eyes again and said “mmmkaay.” I was terrible at hospitality myself and got fired from two cafes for being clumsy, but even I’d never seen a waiter show that much attitude. It’s the opposite of the job when you’re paid to work in hospitality. He said he’d speak to someone, then nobody came. We sat on our own for 20 minutes. We went to the drinks bar to pay and explained what had happened. They apparently knew about it, but had let us wait alone. The guy at the bar said, “Mmm sorry, the chef said that the meal was fine so we can't offer a refund.” I couldn’t believe it. Do customers have to get a jury to decide if food is good? Do I need the chef, who obviously has a vested interest in calling his own meal fine, to verify my 88-year-old Great Aunt’s bad experience? He repeated that the chef said it was fine, so that was that. I said this wasn’t how things are done and asked to talk to a manager. He said there was no manager there. When I asked if there was nobody I could speak to about the service, he just said, “No manager, no sorry.” I pointed out how it looked: she hadn’t eaten any of her meal, but they wanted to charge full price and denied there was a problem because the cook said so. I can’t remember exactly what happened after that. We thought we’d agreed to pay half the meal, then saw the bill had only taken £2 off. Both meals were about £18, and we each had one basic G and T at £7, served in a coke class with no lemon. A note to the staff: customers are NOT trying to scam you. That’s not how it works in Scotland. You don’t need to play us back, thanks. It’s hard to know for sure, but based on their accents and confusing performance, it seemed the two staff had recently arrived in the country to work and had been given NO training. What’s the point? Ownership seem to be disadvantaging the staff as well as customers, presumably so they can have more pliable people they can pay and treat badly, since they depend on your sponsorship to remain in the country. I wouldn’t recommend coming here unless ownership changes. They’re trading on the name of an old Scottish establishment, but it feels hollowed out inside and replaced by people who consider you liars.

We had my gran’s 80th birthday lunch here two weeks ago, and both the food and service were amazing. Everyone we spoke to was approachable and helpful. Joanna deserves a special mention because she couldn’t have done more for us, though all the staff, especially the bar staff and waitresses, were lovely. No complaints at all 😊😊!!! I stayed the night too. The hotel and rooms are dated, in my opinion, but that’s part of the charm of an old traditional Scottish hotel. Breakfast was amazing as well, especially the tattie scones.