The Happy Haddock — Local services in Isle of Wight

We visited the sandown one last week whilst on holiday. I definitely would not recommend it. We walked in at 5.15pm and were told they weren’t taking any orders for 5 minutes whilst they caught up on the four orders they already had. We finally got served after waiting 10 minutes. When I ordered I asked for the gluten free options that they advertise on their website….they had to check first with the cook that they could do gluten free that evening as they only had one frier for it, not quite sure why they advertise as gluten free then if it’s not an every time occurrence for them? Thankfully they could do it however, we’d of been stuck if they couldn’t…I’d of also thought that was false advertising? Anyway, after waiting another 40 minutes for 5 meals we finally got served and were able to eat, once we fought our way to trying to find chairs to sit and eat (there’s an extremely big lack of chairs which is weird for an eat in or takeaway place). We were told the wait was due to us ordering gluten free, it was quite clear it was just because they were under prepared. People before us had to wait for their haddock because “it hadn’t been taken out of the freezer.” I would never go back to this place and we visit quite often. We ate at a restaurant a few times in the same week and received our meals each time a lot faster and nicer than here. The food once it arrived was ok, the pie my husband ordered was rock hard so I wouldn’t...

Me, mum and my sister visited Sandown for the day and fancied some fish and chips.

I goggle a few take away restaurants and this one seemed quite good!

We ordered cod and chips and we must say that we loved it! The cod was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside! Yum! It definitely filled up our rumbling tummies! :)

However, when we sat down and ate there, it felt quite awkward as being new on the island and did not realise that this restaurant gets very very busy. - There were only two tables and a few chairs and it felt uneasy with people watching you eat as they came in but that soon wore off as we got chatting and tucked into the delicious food!

Seeing as we ate in and it was a restaurant, we were expecting the fish and chips to be served on the plate and have metal knife and forks on display at the counter but instead we ate from the paper bag with a wooden fork. It wasn't easy to eat to be honest.

Happy to see that there were toilets in the restaurant and they were clean!

Apart from all that, we will still come back in the future whenever we visit sandown again! But maybe next time we will bring our own metal knife, forks and...

HAPPY HADDOCK SANDOWN Tuesday 16/09/2025 definitely the worst value for money on the island the fish was a tiny piece of ???? Whatever it was I took it to the beach to eat it I wondered why she had put it in 2 heavy paper bags well the oil had run out of the first one into the second one obviously the oil wasn't hot enough and the poor tiny fish was saturated in spent oil I was going to try it but it was to oily so I know you have good reviews but they obviously didn't get offered what you gave me £9 for a tin of pepsi max so the tiny fish was £7.60 I just had to take it back and as soon as I went to the counter she opened the till I didn't take my money back it wasn't about the money , I had a chip shop a few year's back and I would have taken small bits of fish like that at the end of the night or took it home to my dog 9 times out of ten I put it in with someone's fish because that's what you do at home in Northern Ireland so if you own the happy Haddock and are expecting a good living out of it you would need your last meal of the day to be as good as your first meal of the...