Castle Varagh Hotel — Hotel in County Westmeath

Essential information: check in 3pm, checkout 12noon.

Car parking is available on the street outside but there is private parking to the rear. To access this you MUST check in first and get your room card. Then you drive around to the rear of the hotel, looking for Derravaragh Court. Turn right in here and follow the wall on the right hand side until you see the entrance with the green sign that says “Castle Varagh Hotel Food Served All Day”. Turn right here and then, before the gate, there is a black and silver box where you swipe your room card and the gate opens to provide access to a huge rear car park (see attached pictures).

Also attached is a picture of the Table D’Hote menu; we had booked a stay that included a 3-course evening meal and this was the menu we ate from.

Truthfully, we had a lovely stay, with the exception of our breakfast (& Reception) experiences.

We ate breakfast in the Breakfast Room. We went in at 10am (breakfast is served until 11:30am Monday - Friday) and there was no one there. After 5 mins I went to reception (where there thankfully was someone) and they went and spoke to someone and our waitress arrived shortly after this. We ordered the full Irish breakfast and a Veggie breakfast, and my wife also ordered Overnight Oats. I asked for 2 glasses of orange juice and both of us asked for no tomato with our meals. Our waitress, who was very friendly and polite, left and shortly returned with my wife’s Overnight Oats and tea and coffee. 30 minutes passed - whilst we could hear folk in the kitchen chatting and laughing (sounding like they were having a great time) and then our waitress returned and took away my wife’s empty plate. Maybe 5 minutes later she returned with our cooked food (both having tomatoes!) and still no orange juice. Genuinely, I think if she had written down our order it would have been correct, but because so long passed between placing our order and receiving our food, I think that’s where the problem occurred. I asked again for the orange juice, and fresh tea and coffee, and a few minutes later she returned, finally with the orange juice, and the fresh tea and coffee. I must emphasise - the food was delicious, as were the drinks - but the service was pretty poor, compared to what we’d experienced the previous evening in Tom’s Bar.

It might be useful, at this point, to say we were the only guests in the Breakfast Room. It’s not as if the staff were serving other guests as well as us.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the reception experience. When we arrived there was no one there and I ‘dinged’ the bell a number of times before someone came; I think we waited maybe 5 minutes. Check in was quick and friendly.

We passed through reception a few times over the course of the evening and there was no one there at any time. The next morning my wife asked me to go to reception to see if there was an iron - after ‘dinging’ the bell numerous times and waiting maybe 10 minutes I gave up and returned to our room. And when we were departing- you’ve guessed it - there was no one at reception so we just left our room keys on the desk and left.

I know this must sound like a real moan but truthfully our stay was pleasant and enjoyable; these were just a couple of things that made us unable to award a...

Myself and my newlywed wife went here as we heard about it from our B&B host. When we walked in it was great looking and that all instantly went down hill before we could even order, it took 15-20 minutes just to get the attention of a server (in fact I had to walk up to a sever at a station) after that a young female server (distant and not attentive) came and took our order. We ordered the salmon and the fish and chips. The tables to the right and left of us received their food 10ish minutes before we did even tho they had sat down several minutes after us. In fact I had to even go up to the bar just to ask where our food was. After dinner my wife ordered a rice pudding and was very excited to enjoy it, only to end up having us wait so long that again the table to the left of us (which finished their meals after us) received their desserts before us (four people at the table and one of them had ordered the rice pudding) we waited so long that I finally walked up to the bar and said I wanted the bill, when they printed off the bill our meal and drink and they had no issue putting the rice pudding on the bill, seemed to only have any issue to serve it to us...I told them we didn't get the pudding and then proceeded to tell them "I get it that I'm American but that doesn't mean you should treat me poorly" (everyone else around us were Irish as this restaurant is in a small town) they told me they were busy but the place had maybe 50% capacity...I mentioned several times how unacceptable the treatment of our visit was and then left.

I wholeheartedly suggest never to visit this restaurant. It is a very poorly managed and service establishment. I would pick one of the pubs on the same strip a hundred times over before I ever step foot in that restaurant again.

And the icing on the cake was my wife whom ordered the salmon was extremely unwell when we had gotten back to the B&B.

In fact I would say to give them one star is generous if I could put a negative Star...

Myself, my pregnant wife and my 2 very young daughters arrived at 4:50pm for dinner in which the waitress had advised us that we couldn't order food until 5pm as the carvery had just finished, we were ok with this as it was only 10 minutes and by the time we looked at the menu and ordered drinks it was time to order. Time went by and we noticed more customers coming in, ordering, being served food and leaving. In particular one couple sitting beside us ordered 20 minutes after us and was finished before we even got our food. I had informed a member of staff that we had been waiting quite awhile for our food while everyone else had come in and finished their food. No member of staff had come down to say our food was delayed or any apology what so ever, The girl who took our order made it her business to avoid us after i had asked the member of staff about the delay. It came to a stage where the table beside us even questioned were we being looked after. It came to 6pm and we were just getting ready to leave as we had 2 very hungry young girls and the food arrived. Although its not nice to have to wait an hour for food it would of been nice if somebody would have come down and explained the situation or even apologised. We were not once approached during or after our meal to see was all ok, it was like we were being avoided incase we gave out. What looked like 2 managers that were on duty didnt even acknowledge what had happened. As a local family who enjoyed eating there from time to time, we most definitely will not...