Located on Elvet Bridge, in Durham, 19TWENTY is known for its gourmet burgers and grilled meats. Having dined now a total of three times at this restaurant, I can honestly say that I have mixed views. Whilst the food is always of high quality, it is a shame to say that the service often fails to meet those same standards.

Let’s start first with the positives. As mentioned above, I have always been pleased with the food served at this establishment. The menu has a range of options from burgers, hanging kebabs to fish and chips. For starters, we shared the bruschetta, olives and hummus – a good selection. For mains we order the burgers and the chicken kebabs. My particular favourite is the wagyu burger (pictured below). Whilst dishes are not cheap, they are relatively fair considering the portion size and food quality.

On my most recent visit, I only had one qualm with the food. A group of four of us ordered the parmesan truffle fries as our side dish (at an additional cost). However, the presentation of these chips was inconsistent. Two of us were given a portion of fries with an abundance of cheese grated on top (as seen in the image above). The other two meanwhile were given portions with just a few thin shavings of cheese placed sparsely on top. Whilst both tasted good, the fries with grated rather than finely sliced parmesan, tasted better. It seemed strange that not all the portions were the same, especially since two of the members of our group ordered the exact same meal – yet received different fries.

This was only a small matter however, and does not override the fact that the food here is definitely recommendable. The burgers alone are perhaps some of the best I have ever had. On a separate occasion, I tried the red velvet cake for dessert. The cake held the perfect balance of flavour, with a creamy and moist texture.

Now onto the service. As someone who regularly works in hospitality, I am always reluctant to be harsh on servers. However, the poorness of this aspect of 19TWENTY is hard to ignore. The staff here are by no means unfriendly. However, they often lack any sort of life or agency to do their job. This makes me question whether the employees of this establishment are given any sort of encouragement from their bosses, or whether they are simply waiting for their shift to end. Again, I have worked several waiting-on jobs and appreciate the prospect of minimum wage does not spark worker motivation. But in a job like this, a welcoming and attentive attitude is key. Only one waitress, when clearing our table towards the end of our meal, made an effort to interact with us.

Issues with the service have occurred on multiple occasions. This was first evident on my visit in February, for Valentine’s Day. My boyfriend and I waited almost half an hour for someone to come and clear our plates, and this was only after explicit eye contact was made with the servers. This would be completely understandable had it been extremely busy that evening, however for an occasional night like Valentine’s, it was relatively quiet. Whilst we waited, I could see servers stood around, not really doing much. One server then began to slowly clear a table where the customers had already left, rather than prioritising customers who were still at the restaurant awaiting service.

Similarly, on a recent lunch visit this May, we were frequently left waiting for service. The wait time was closer to 15 minutes this time, for our starter plates to be taken away. Additionally, we had told the server who had taken our order that we would be sharing these starter dishes, however it appeared this message was not passed on, as no extra plates were provided and the server seemed confused when we asked her to place the plates anywhere on the table rather than assigning them to a specific person.

Whilst waiting for the starter plates to be taken away, staff were again seen to be stood around chatting. When they were completing tasks, this was done with little agency or speed, suggesting the restaurant was not rushed off its feet with customers at that hour. We were served just before 4pm, after any potential lunch rush and before a supposedly busy evening.

It also seemed that each employee was given a set task to do, and this structure of organisation seemed very rigid. One waiter had the job of laying tables. They did this when other, perhaps more pressing tasks could have been prioritised, such as attending current customers rather than future ones. Admittedly, they did come to our table to refresh our cutlery after having used it for the starters. Funnily, they placed another set of salt and pepper shakers at our table, when a pair already sat quite obviously in the centre. I could understand if this was routine, and if the server had suddenly realised we already had no shakers. However, the initial seasonings were placed beside the shakers we already had and no recognition was made of this. The motion felt almost robotic.

A few other minor mistakes occurred. A drink that had been ordered never turned up and when queried we were asked how many of that particular beverage we had had, suggesting this had not been kept track of by the staff. No real apology was made either when the drink eventually did turn up. There only seemed to be one employee on the bar – again suggesting that each server had been allocate a specific roll, and was not allowed to adapt based on demand. This may be the fault of a manager or boss, rather than the staff themselves, who were likely following orders. Moreover, the server went to get the condiment we had asked for but then began serving another table mid-way through. Again eye contact had to be made before they then came back a few minutes later with the sauce. Again, this server lacked friendliness.

Finally, no check-back was made on the table. Whilst this is not essential, it is always a nice feature of a dining experience. Whilst sometimes this is difficult to do in immensely busy periods, as mentioned earlier, we ate at an off-peak hour, when the establishment was far from full.

If these issues were isolated, perhaps less would have been thought of it. But it was the combination of constant low effort and mistakes that quickly created an atmosphere of poor service. Solutions to this may be further training for employees, or higher worker incentives from employers. Certainly, something has to be changed.

Despite all this, I would return to 19TWENTY. Perhaps not regularly, however at least once more before leaving Durham. This is purely due to the delicious food, which is all too tempting.