The Elms - Southend-on-Sea

Quite a nice pub, very large (it is a wetherspoons pub) friendly staff and reasonable prices, quite traditional,

Ordered a 'Heatwave burger '. There was nothing hot about it. An imperceptible amount of 'Naga 'sauce on a pale boiled bit of chicken between two aneamic baps with cheapest cheese sauce. When I asked waitress for more sauce, she said I would have to buy it. Wouldn 't eat there again.

While the prices at this restaurant were affordable and the atmosphere was somewhat cheerful, I would describe the menu as basic. The portions were small, matching the price, but my steak and kidney pie was disappointingly small. The plate was drowned in peas, which was a bit excessive. The desserts were slightly better, although there seemed to be more ice cream than anything else. I was surprised that they didn't offer apple crumble. The rest of my group of six also had similar experiences. Overall, we were not in a rush to return to this restaurant.

WETHERSPOONS break the law by allowing their pub managers to inforce illegal rules through their staff which contravene the equality act 2010 for goods and services to the public. WETHERSPOONS also show no empathy for elderly and frail customers or the disabled. WETHERSPOONS AS A BRAND HAVE GONE DOWN IN MY ESTIMATION. IT LACKS EMPATHY, COMPASSION 0R CARE TOWARDS ITS CLEARLY UNDERVALUED CUSTOMERS. I am so disappointed with Wetherspoons, I had always thought of it as a family and young persons value for money brand. With good ethics. I had enjoyed coming to this particular location on previous occassions with family members as there is never any trouble, the bar and waitress staff have always been very pleasant, my father loves the beer, they sell English wine and the food has been great. Our treatment yesterday was in complete contrast to previous visits. It showed a completey different side of the brand. It came as a total shock and something i have never witnessed anywhere else before. It is going to take all of us a long time to get over this experience. We were prevented from speaking with their pub manager or any of his staff about our circumstances by the men employed and instructed to block customers access at the entrances half way through our meal. On arriving home i phoned the manager and explained what had happened and he stood by his decision to prevent us access stating it had become busy and it was for the safety of his staff and customers. He said people were only allowed to leave the queue to use the toilet. There was plenty of empty seating for us to finish our dining inside and the bar was fairly empty as they had switched to operating a one in one out rule treating their customers very disrespectfully like cattle . He was disinterested in my parents ages and visible frailty, the fact that two of us were legally recognised as disabled and had wanted to come in out of the cold to finish our meals . I informed him he was breaking the law by denying disabled customers reasonable access and how badly my two elderly parents had been treated. He stood by his decision and was uninterested in the rules and regulations towards disabled customers. He only appologised when I referred to the Elms Pub as Wetherspoons the brand. It was a sunny afternoon around 3pm when the four of us sat in the gardens to celebrate a family birthday. It wa a lovely atmosphere with many young adults outside celebrating their A level results, meeting up with their former class friends for the last time. We bought sharing platers and drinks throughout the afternoon freely accessing the bar to make purchases and use the toilet facilities. We then placed a food order for our main courses using their app at around 6pm. The bar and table staff had been lovely all afternoon and the other patrons had been extremely polite apllowing us space to get past their groups tp access the pub facilities. After eating our main course the app wouldn 't acknowledge our table number 105 to order desserts and coffee, my elderly parents were both feeling uncomfortably cold and my father and I, both disabled customers needed to use the toilets so we decided to take our drinks inside to finish our meals where it was warm and there were lots of empty tables. We went to use the entrance nearest to us to the right side of the building which has easy access and two men blocked our way stating we could only access the building now using the main front entrance. My brother pointed to our frail father who is almost 87 and was using his stick to stand up and asked them to speak with their management to request an exception for us. I carry an Access card with me for my own disabilities but my fathers needs were very clearly visible so shouldn 't have been a problem. The man came back out and looked a bit embarrased as he apologised to us stating he had asked and they weren 't allowed to let us use the accessible entrance. We had to go to the front entrance to enter the bar. We had to carry our drinks round to the front entrance where a long queue had now formed to enter the pub. We stood at the back of the queue where they were now operating a one in one out system for the bar even though the pub was mostly empty with plenty of seating available inside. One minute we had been enjoying our main meal, the next we were thrown to the back of a long queue to access the building one at a time to order our desserts and use the toilets. I don 't know how their young patrons tolerate this sort of treatment, but here we were with my frail father at nearly 87 years old and our 84 year old mum. We had spent about £160 on food and drink throughout our stay and were now being treated without any compasion or respect. My brother took my father to the front of the queue to speak with the doormen and my mother and I followed still holding our glasses. A large burly doorman pushed his way past the other two men at the door and I distinctly heard him use the f word saying very cleary and they can f**k off I believe this was direceted at us. He was angry and intimidating and squared up to my frail father who was standing in front of him a bit confused by it all. He shouted at my brother you can bring him in to use the toilet but his going straight back out after to join the end of the queue if he wants to come in here he referred to my father like he was an object, an inconvienience. The young people at the front of the queue had more empathy and the lad at the front said he was happy for my dad to take his place. My disability causes balance issues and i was struggling on the steps. I tried to explain that we didn 't want to go to the bar, we had our drinks and simply wanted to sit inside where there was plenty of seating to order our desserts. The doormen all converged on me with the same man shouting at me telling me to leave the entrance. I lost my balance and almost fell over, it was so embarrasing surrounded by young adults queueing to buy their drinks at the bar. My family left the premises and went home without using the toilet or finishing our drinks. This man was nothing better than a thug, his behaviour and attitude was designed to be menacing and totally inappropriate and disproportionate squaring up to my poor elderly father. He should be sacked and so should the pub manager who apparently has over 25 years experience. He clearly didn 't know how to manage his staff or know how to put systems in place to ensure the smooth running of the pub in busier times causing minimum disruption to customers and staff. Wetherspoons head office should act on this because it is damaging their brand and they could potentially be sued for breaking the law by treating both elderly and disabled customers unfairly. I suspect as long as the tills are full at the end of the night they will do nothing. Our family celebration was ruined and we have all been left very distraught by the experience.

We stopped by our nearby Wetherspoons on New Year's Eve for lunch. The manager came to clear our table and we briefly chatted with him about how busy it was on Christmas Eve and mentioned our visit to the Wetherspoons in Harrogate. However, he replied rather rudely that this is a local's pub and he needed to get on with his work. This was unexpected as we have never encountered such behavior in any Wetherspoons before. We can only assume he was having a bad day. Nonetheless, a reminder to the manager that he is in the hospitality industry. Wishing a Happy New Year to all Wetherspoons staff and customers.