School Dinners Restaurant, London

...us have heard of The School Disco at the Hammersmith Palais but I can guarantee not many people have heard of School Dinners in Holborn. It is along the same line, everyone dresses in school uniform including staff but they have taken a different route at this place and I mean different, this place is not for the faint hearted.

I was on a Hen weekend and on the Friday night we went to the Roller Disco in Kings Cross and on the Saturday ...
...wearing as you dress in school uniform. Short black skirt, white shirt open low, tie, fish net tights, high heels and black underwear. Some girls go for the other look, long skirt, white knee socks, flat shoes, shirt and tie done all the way to the top, hair in bunches and glasses with cello tape; not an attractive look if you want to pull. Men are easy, trousers or shorts, shirt and tie. You don't have to dress up but it just adds to the atmosphere ... more

Now many of us have heard of The School Disco at the Hammersmith Palais but I can guarantee not many people have heard of School Dinners in Holborn. It is along the same line, everyone dresses in school uniform including staff but they have taken a different route at this place and I mean different, this place is not for the faint hearted.

I was on a Hen weekend and on the Friday night we went to the Roller Disco in Kings Cross and on the Saturday night we went to School Dinner in Holborn. Luckily another night where I did not have to worry about what I was wearing as you dress in school uniform. Short black skirt, white shirt open low, tie, fish net tights, high heels and black underwear. Some girls go for the other look, long skirt, white knee socks, flat shoes, shirt and tie done all the way to the top, hair in bunches and glasses with cello tape; not an attractive look if you want to pull. Men are easy, trousers or shorts, shirt and tie. You don't have to dress up but it just adds to the atmosphere I think.

Right where is it? Well it is not where you would expect it, amongst other restaurants and nightclubs. It is surrounded by office blocks and there are a couple of small shops next door.

What type of person goes to this place? Well if you want a night out here, it would have to be a special occasion like a works Christmas party, hen/stag party or a mile stone birthday party like a 21st. If you are not celebrating one of these do not bother going and secondly it is a place where you have to book in advance. Also I would avoid this place for a work Christmas party or a Hen and stag party where you older members of you family are joining you due to some of the activities going on here! All the parties there when we went were Hen and stag parties, so due to this I will probably refer to stag and hen to make life a bit easier.

You pay a deposit of £10 each in advance and pay the balance when you get there. The amount per person is £39. This amount I feel is reasonable considering you get a three course meal, a portion of chips when you get there and entertainment. If you had to pay for a restaurant and then an entrance into a club, I would guarantee you would spend a lot more.

When you arrive at the place you will meet someone on the street, we welcomed by a bloke called Wayne in school uniform drinking a pint of course, this made me think straight away that this is going to be a drunken fuelled night. When we arrived there, there was one hen do and one stag do there already who was a fair bit older than us. We all looked at each other thinking what have we let ourselves into.

We went in and ordered ourselves a drink each while waited to be seated for dinner and while someone went to the pay the remaining amount of are balance. When we ordered are drinks we almost had heart attack as drinks were £5 each but then we realised they were doubles so we were not too bothered and beers were £3 so prices were about average.

We also realised there was not an official clock room and we wanted to get rid of our coats and a few people wanted to get rid of bags. When we spoke to the staff they were very helpful and let us put them behind the bar in a room free of charge and attached a raffle ticket to our items and gave us the corresponding ticket.

Looking around the room it was pretty clean and decently decorated with school mementos, like Beano annual books and a MacDonald sign. There is also a gym horse outside the toilets. It is obvious that it was a bar and was converted into a school theme once they saw that the school disco took off so well.

While we are waiting around till we are seated for food someone comes round asking for your name to write on a sticker to give to you to wear. Each sticker has a header like 'Class Act' or 'Sporty', if I remember correctly there was 8 headings. They also bring round some chips for you to munch on while you wait, they are not a big portion but a decent amount, remember when you used to go to the seaside as a kid and got a portion of chips in a small cone container well that's what you get.

There are some table and chairs outside so you can sit outside before the meal or afterwards if you want to get some fresh air during the night. We sat outside at the beginning of the night so we see who was coming to this place before they arrived.

When it comes to be seated, the headmaster will find the head of your group and escort you to seat. The best way to describe the shape of the room is a C shape, the bar is one end, the disco and some seating area is the other end and there is more seating in between these two areas. The best place to be seated I think is the disco area as this is where all the, how can I put it, the boys get cained and you get the waitresses and waiters do a bit of displaying.

Once you have been seated the Head girl introduces everyone and tells you the rules in the place like if you want to leave the table during the meal, put you hand up and ask. She also did not hold back on her language, the best way to descried it is colourful.

As far as I remember, as I had has a bit to drink by now, the food pretty nice. They come round and ask you want for dinner. It is more or less the same every week. For starters there was a choice of tomatoe soup, prawn cocktail or pate and bread. For main course there was bangers and mash with vegetables or roast beef and vegetables, there is a vegetarian option but as none of us had it I could not tell you what it is. For pudding there was spotted dick and custard or chocolate gateau. Though there is a break between the main course and pudding, I would say a good half hour it could be longer but I was a bit gone by this pint I can not remember. During the time you are having your meal you can get your drinks yourselves or the waiters/waitresses will get them for you.

During this time there are some activities going on done by the head girl or head boy. Things you can expect to see. Stag's having their trousers/short pulled down and then cained and for some poor stags even the underwear removed as well, ouch! If you are wondering who does the caining, not only do they do the caining they do get some of the hen parties to get involved. Another activity they do is that they pick about 4 people, only one from each party and put them on a chair. They are then given someone of the opposite sex and made lick ice cream from their body or just been fed. Now if you are a bloke its ok as the women are pretty and young, where as for us women the blokes are not that good looking and the bloke they used for are Hen, Eddie he was a bit on the old side, sorry Eddie if you ever read this.

After people had finished their dinner people did leave and go on some where else but we stayed to the end. The place closed at 2:00am, this has been recently changed as it used to be midnight. If you consider that the place holds about 100 people for dinner and if groups leave the place does empty quickly and truthfully I was glad some groups did leave some of the men did take it to far with the girls who work there.

The staff are allowed to drink and you ask to tip them. I did see that many of the girls that worked there were a bit worse for where at the end of the night as the men were constantly buying them drink probably thinking that they will get something at the end of the night. This is a trick though, as it only encourages you to buy more drinks at the venue, thus spend more money.

Most of the girls skirts just about covered there bottoms and you could visible see there underwear, like white shirt barely buttoned up with a black bra and hold ups with their. Plus when they were sitting on the blokes laps, the blokes were running there hands up their legs and under their belt skirts.

Would I go back again? I doubt it, I found the other parties were a bit older than are crowd, I say about 30+, if the other parties leave early the place empties pretty quickly and also if they got more young fit blokes to work there. Though if they encouraged more groups to stay till the end of the night I might go again due the fact it landed up being a good night.

www.schooldinners.com

1 Bath House
53 Holborn Viaduct
London
EC1A 2FD

0845-601-7090
 

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