O'Neills - Northampton

45-47 The Drapery

Northampton

Northamptonshire

NN1 2EU

Breakfast served everyday until noon

All day breakfast available

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I always usually get an exterior shot of anywhere I visit for breakfast. On this occasion I completely forgot though, no big problem though as you probably won't be wanting to go here for breakfast.

Inside was fairly spacious and quite dark.

We missed the breakfast menu by 15 minutes but was told there was an all day breakfast, thankfully there was a vegetarian option too. On the menu it sounded quite nice, we weren't too fussed about having chips but they come with the all day breakfast anyway.

With fairly bad hangovers we ordered diet coke instead of a hot drink.

I searched on different tables looking for some ketchup, my wife was delighted to find some jalapeno sauce already on the table.

Why would anyone serve bread without butter was my first thought. I was told I'd been given an extra egg because they'd run out of veggie sausages on my wife's breakfast. Maybe they were really trying to make up for the fact they'd forgotten to give me any mushrooms and only given me half a tiny tomato.

I moved the dry unbuttered bread to the side of the plate but still remained unimpressed.

A trio of unsightly looking fried eggs with semi solid yolks.

The unbuttered bread lay across the meat.

 Dry, over salty bacon and fairly shriveled sausages.

The chips were supposed to be seasoned but tasted fairly standard to me. 

My wife was offered extra items as they'd run out of vegetarian sausages. We were thinking extra tomatoes and mushrooms would be given but that wasn't to be the case, they must have just run out of those too. Instead she was given an extra egg and some undercooked broccoli and carrots, what were they thinking!

My wife and I had been out the previous night till silly o'clock drinking and spent the night in the Central Travelodge. We left the Travelodge as close to checkout time as possible and headed to The Bear pub for breakfast, they were having problems with food supplies though so we needed a back up plan. We'd spotted an O'Neills nearby and having eaten fairly nice food in their London branches before decided to head there instead...

Upon entering - Inside it was fairly spacious with plenty of tables to choose from, we wanted to sit by the window as it was a much better light for taking photos. With most of the window seats taken we ended up sitting by the bar, not a very good light but nobody else was about so a much better option when you're suffering from a hangover. Menus were already on the table and the main menu contained an all day breakfast which was quite a relief as we'd missed the main breakfast menu by just 15 minutes. Order and pay at the bar and the food is brought over when it's ready along with some cutlery. Sauces are already on the table, that said though I ended up searching for quite some time for a bottle of ketchup. 5/10

Service - The chap serving us seemed fairly friendly, he made us aware of the all day breakfast and later returned to break the news to my wife that they'd run out of veggie sausages. He said extra items could be added to make up for the veggie sausages, a bit of a blow but we just wanted something to eat so my wife agreed expecting extra tomatoes and mushrooms to appear on the plate. Once the food had arrived nobody returned again to check if everything was ok, possibly a bit tricky to ask having just served broccoli and carrots on a breakfast! We were told an extra egg each was to make up for any inconvenience, sadly there was no mention of why there was no mushrooms, tomato (I was served a tiny half which I gave to my wife) or butter on the bread. 5/10

Contents - 2 sausages, 3 bacon, 3 fried eggs, chips, half a small tomato, beans and a slice of unbuttered bread. 4/10

Presentation - It all looked pretty shabby when it arrived, a number of things immediately stood out though. Why was the bread served unbuttered? The eggs were an eyesore, the meat looked dry, where were my mushrooms and was this the smallest tomato portion I'd ever been served? 3/10

The food - I left most of the bacon, very dry and much too salty. The sausages were ok but nothing special, I took one with me and later ate it on the journey home, it tasted better when it was cold. The eggs were alright but the yolks were semi solid, they tasted a bit better than they looked. I ate one of the eggs between the dry slices of unbuttered bread. The chips were supposed to be seasoned but were just standard and quite bland. Finally a small serving of beans and a tiny half of tasteless tomato made up this fairly disappointing breakfast. 4/10

Value for money - I resented paying £8 for this, a high price for something incomplete and disappointing. Even Wetherspoons could have done better than this for half the cost. 3/10

Vegetarian option - Yes but it may start to resemble a roast dinner! 
 

Overall - On so many occasions chains have been a disappointment and O'Neills didn't change my opinion. Had they just said to us that they didn't have enough items to make up an all day breakfast  we could have gone elsewhere. The unbuttered bread and undercooked veg added to the vegetarian breakfast can't be ignored and a point for each of those breakfast sins must be deducted from the overall score. 2/10