Comments on: Max’s Indian Restaurant in Bakewell – A Real Treat

By: Hadi

Hadi — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:40:57 +0000

Thanks for commenting Chris.

It must be ages since we last went to Max’s – in fact since we last went out at all!

Looks like they’ve taken customer comments seriously and acted on them.

If you’re in the area again, Simply Thai in Buxton is excellent (if you like Thai food).

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:41:46 +0000

Lessons learned?
My wife and I had a meal at Max’s on Friday and – thankfully – had a totally different experience from the nightmare cited above. The staff were friendly and courteous. We ordered a drink and the waiter helpfully explained that the Kingfisher beer came in two sizes of bottle – one twice the size of the other (660 ml as opposed to 330 ml) but was only 75p dearer. We then had some very nice poppadums and pickles – served promptly. Had a bit of a wait for the main course (it wasn’t one I was familiar with and I don’t remember the name of it now). I had a fish version and my wife had a veggie version. When it arrived we found that the veggie one was much too salty and we raised this with the waiter, who was very apologetic. He explained that the dish involved marinading the fish/veg. The fish was not too salty though (and I’m really sensitive to salt as I rarely use it). Anyway, without any argument he offered to remove the price of the veggie dish from the meal. Other than that everything was fine, and I was happy to leave a tip. I would definitely go there again next time I was in Bakewell, but would warn the staff that I didn’t like anything too salty.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:32:33 +0000

Thanks Max

I’m looking forward to our next visit!

By: max

max — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:21:03 +0000

we are sorry for their poor experience. However i would like to say that it is a long comment with a few arguable points that can’t be portrayed in a simple reply on this website. We take the point of the complaint and say sorry.
Many thanks max

By: admin

admin — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:04:53 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Tim.
I’m really sorry you had such a poor experience.
I guess the beauty of the web is that our two experiences will be there for all to see and if the owner/manager of Max’s was properly switched on, he would move to give his side too!

By: Tim P

Tim P — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:48:18 +0000

I don’t normally leave comments about restaurants we have visited (I should really!), however I felt obliged to share our experience of dining at Max’s. I must state that we were a large party (27) so we were expecting a bit of a wait on our food. One of our party had booked the table earlier on in the day, and the staff had said they could accommodate us on 2 tables, which was fine. When it came to the meal, we finally had to wait 1hour 20 minutes for our food, with one table finishing their food before the other had even received the first dish. As I said earlier, we were expected a fair wait on food, but at no point did any of the staff apologise for the wait, explain how long the food was going to be etc. There were some complimentary snacks given to the tables, but the waitress told us it was chicken, when it was fish, and we had to ask specifically for a vegetarian option. These snacks were just placed on the table with no reason given for why, we assumed it was to make up for the long wait on the main meals.

After all the food had arrived, I think most people had enjoyed their meals, I found my jalfrezi tasteless and in a very watery sauce. My partner’s massalla consisted of just 5 pieces of chicken (£10).

As a party, we were very disappointed with the service and experience as a whole. For this reason my partner went up to voice our concerns with the waitress. My partner was very polite and explained how we were disappointed and would like to see some compensation for the poor service on the bill. The waitress just seemed very disinterested in what my partner had to say, not once apologised or took responsibility. A male member of our group then joined my partner to voice our concerns (politely and calmly).

When the bill arrived, there were no corrections to it as you would expect from any regular restaurant would do if the customer were unhappy. I noticed that all the food was itemised, however the bar bill was just a subtotal. I decided to ask for this to be itemised and broken down so we can see what we were paying for. This took another 10 minutes while the waitresses did this. I then asked to speak to the manager to discuss our experience and give him feedback expecting a professional manager to be understanding. Now it was this person who really ruined our experience. From the start of our conversation he was rude, abrupt and completely unwilling to accept any responsibility. Initially he more or less refused to speak to me but only to the person who made the booking saying that they were a small business and we could not expect fast service in such a large party. I said we understood this but it was the fact there was no explanation or apologies plus the disinterest in the staff to please us as customers. The manager then went on to say that for the “cheap” prices you can’t expect good service to which I completely disagreed with. Throughout the conversation this gentleman was trying to argue with me and was being very obtrusive. I told him this and said that I wasn’t here to argue, but to basically give feedback as a customer and would expect some compensation. My partner then added to the conversation stating how the other staff were disinterested in her complaint. The manager basically went on to say how he thought that she was drunk and didn’t know what she was on about. I found this very offensive and made him aware of this. I must state that I am a calm person and not once raised my voice or was aggressive in any way. My partner was very upset by this comment and had to leave. I then said that at the very least he could take off the £35 worth of poppadoms we were charged for which to be fair he did do, but only after I asked.

Overall a very poor experience and I was very shocked to encounter such a rude, unprofessional and obtrusive individual, let alone somebody running a business that revolves around customer satisfaction.

SO SORRY FOR TAKING UP SO MUCH ROOM, BUT I FELT OUR EXPERIENCE SHOULD BE SHARED!