"It has been nearly nine years since I gave a 1-star review to a restaurant for its poor service (The Bees Knees in Hisaronu Turkey), but on 1 September I visited the Allegria Italian restaurant in St Annes near Blackpool. The service here was even worse than the Bees Knees! We had been recommended the restaurant by the receptionist at our hotel, based on what visitors had told her. We arrived at the restaurant at 19.10, to find if busy. We asked if they had a table for two. They told us that there was a table upstairs, if we didn't mind the climb. This was in the wine bar called Tempo, but they were using this as they were busy. We found our table near the front window, and we're handed the menu, and asked for a large bottle of sparkling water, to be going on with. We looked at the menu; my wife decided to have the lasagna, and I opted for the calzone. I noticed that the menu said that calzone took around 15 minutes longer than other dishes, so I said we should share some garlic bread as a starter, as we had not eaten since noon. We waited for someone to take our order. At 19;45 we managed to attract someone's attention and asked them to take our order. We waited for our starter. This eventually arrived at 20:15, over an hour after we had entered the restaurant. The starter was polished off in five minutes. We then waited for the main course. At 20:45 the manager of the wine bar came to apologise for the delay. He said the kitchen was very busy, and they had managed to burn my calzone. They were preparing another calzone and it would be ready in 10 minutes. Ten minutes came and went. At 21:10, exactly TWO HOURS after we had entered the restaurant, the main courses arrived. By this time I had really got off the food. I managed to eat the middle of the calzone, but didn't want to finish the meal, as I didn't want to go to bed on a full stomach, so late. Having finished the meal, we went to the bar upstairs to pay the bill. We were told we had to go downstairs. We went down to the main restaurant and told a member of staff we wanted to pay the bill, and also asked to speak to the manager to discuss the poor service. We were told by the member of staff that we had to pay the bill upstairs, zas that was where we had eaten, and that the manager was busy. We went up to pay the bill and again told the staff we wanted to speak to the manager. He accompanied us downstairs. A gentleman, dressed in a rowing club t-shirt said he was the manager. We told how unsatisfied we were with the service, having been on the premises for two and a half hours by this time. He said it was beyond their control as they were having problem in the kitchen and were very busy. My wife asked why they were still accepting walk-ins if they were so busy. He just said there was nothing he could do about that, we would just have to accept it. I just wish I could award zero, or negative stars to this awful restaurant. I cannot comment if the quality of the food because by the time it arrived I had lost my appetite."
