Great and not so great - visiting Brighton for my birthday

For me, this birthday was about spending time with my best friend after a year of being separated due to lockdown.

On July 5, I turned 23-years-old and was gifted with the surprise of a getaway in Brighton.

With the hotel already booked, I searched high and low for a place to celebrate my birthday and after days of searching, I booked two different venues.

The first place was Steinbeck and Shaw, somewhere which I had passed before and always wanted to go.

It was so awful that we left after five minutes.

As we stood excitedly waiting to be allocated to a seat - we soon realised that the staff who were hanging around by the bar wouldn't be coming over.

But we continued to wait due to the company's policy being that seats must be allocated so that they can legally track and trace each person who attends - this was before freedom day.

Our eyes continued to wander around the room which had one other group in it, eventually we decided to find a seat.

As we sat down in an area close to the bar, two employees, both women, glanced over at us but didn't say anything.

The atmosphere was dreary but nothing that a few cocktails wouldn't be able to make us forget, or so we thought...

As we went to order the cocktails through the app, we noticed that the menu failed to describe the content of each drink, it was just a list of names.

The app also wasn't working well - so I asked the two women, who were still standing at the bar: "Excuse me, is there anyway we can order at the bar...?"

She stopped me mid-sentence and said: “No! use the app."

"And you need to put your masks on," she added, while we were still located at our seats.

There was a group of people also sat down without masks, so we were unsure why we had been pointed out.

We got our masks out anyway and decided to leave.

As we got up to leave, the other woman walked over to us and said: "We need to see your ID."

Again, we were confused as they could clearly see we were putting on our coats - we explained we were leaving as we felt uncomfortable but offered to show our IDs anyway.

"Well, no one has been rude. You should follow government guidance, I don't need to see your ID, " the woman said.

In response, I said: "There isn't an issue here, of course we don't mind following guidance, but we are sat down and there was no need to use that tone. We are trying to leave."

The rather strange experience left us both deflated. We felt belittled and felt out of place until it became so uncomfortable, that we left.

The experience was so bad it made us question whether we would want to come back to Brighton - until now we had always looked at the city as quite a welcoming place.

But our families urged us to go to Shoosh and not let Steinbeck & Shaw ruin our night.

And it was a complete 360 experience.

The venue was at limited capacity but staff did their upmost to find us a seat.

Unlike the last place, the venue was full of life. The guests seemed as happy as the bar staff, and the bar staff checked up on us all night.

Each member of staff who served us introduced themselves and told us their names, they were complimentary and asked us if we were ok.

They told us about what we can expect from the music - which was everything from 90s, House and R&B.

On top of the fantastic music selection, ordering drinks was a much easier process as staff walked around with their iPad and contactless devices.

We would like to say a special thank you to Sydney - who is the organiser of the weekly event called 'Gassed Mondays'.

You could tell that she had taken pride in her event and that the customers' experience was important to her.

She had also made sure that the venue was decorated beautifully, seating was carefully arranged and both staff and the public were made to feel safe.

Shoosh, you made my birthday a night to remember, and after a tough year we are truly grateful.

Management at Steinbeck & Shaw have since apologised for our experience and offered us a voucher if we wish to return. Which we don't.