Peden's Hotel — Restaurant in New South Wales

Well what an amazing Valentine's Day we've had. We chose to go to our favourite pub in Cessnock for dinner. They rang last night to confirm and asked if we were celebrating anything special. I said "Just Valentine's Day!".

So we arrived to be escorted to our table by Abbey (I hope I've spelt that correctly) and immediately saw a lit candle and a single red rose, plus 2 chilled (empty at this stage) champagne glasses on the table. My wife was absolutely ecstatic!!

I told both Abbey and the darling barman who came and filled our champagne glasses that they had made my wife's night, seeing as how I hadn't bought her flowers myself. Abbey kept checking on us to make sure we were happy with everything.

This wasn't the end of how far they went. Later on in the evening, the barman presented my wife with a beautifully boxed wine set and said she had won a prize. We still have no idea why, but we felt really special.

Anyway, it gets even better! We didn't take the 2 bottles of wine out of the box until we got home and as I did so, I noticed a card in the box. I said to my wife "What's this?". She said she didn't know. I thought it would be a "thanks for dining with us" type thing, but no, it's a voucher for an Ultimate tasting experience for two at Hungerford Hill Estate, which includes a mini-degustation of Hungerford Hill wines matched to bite-sized dishes by award winning two-hatted, Muse Restaurant!

Amazing! All this from a country pub! We were absolutely blown away by just how far they went above and beyond to look after us.

Thanks Abbey and all the staff at Pedens Hotel. You made our night so special and...

It was an easy check-in/check-out process. But that's to be expected from a pub-run accommodation. The accommodation had shared bathroom facilities. My room: a bed and a small bedside cabinet with 2 drawers. The drawer on top lost its handle and in its place was just a piece of plastic shoved into the hole in place of it. I couldn't open the lone window of the room. Could be just my lack of strength. The line for the blind had broken off, or was just left hanging on a hook on a wall taunting you. So, you couldn't really do much with the blind. There was an A/C unit in the room, but I couldn't find a remote control for it. I was just in the area for a concert and rather than driving 2.5hrs after 11pm, I'd decided to stay locally for the night. So, I wasn't to bothered by the condition of the room. As long as the bed is sleep-able and bathroom worked. But returning to my room after the concert, it was a little hard to talk asleep as there was music coming from the pub way after 12am. But tiredness overcame me. But I was roused up in the middle of the night by someone unlocking my room door and opening it (the door was quite stuck and you had to really lean into it to get it opened). I remember getting upright and saying "Hello" to the intruder. The person promptly left and I fell back into sleep. (I was thankful I didn't come to any harm.) I only remembered and wondered about the strange event the next morning Make of it...

Disgusted by the Security Guard on duty on the evening of Friday the 18th of March 2022. Was staying in Cessnock for a weekend away with another couple, as we approached the door (not intoxicated in any way) we were told that he would not allow us in because he saw us walking down the street apparently "pre-loading" (one of us was drinking a coke and one had a Kombucha) he was not willing to listen in any way at all, even though he was at the front entry talking to a group of 5 young men who were not only heavily intoxicated but were also smoking right next to the front door. I was not willing to argue with him, which he seemed a little disappointed about and instead we went to The Vincent for dinner and drinks, spending almost $300 at an establishment that was a lot more inviting and much more refined. I only hope the owners/managers of this business do their due diligence and find some more mature security guards as the professionalism of the one on duty at the front door that night was disgraceful and gave the business a bad look. I would strongly suggest not bothering to attend this venue due to this treatment. It may have been because he was so young and me being over 40 he wanted to show some form of superiority to his young friends that were obviously hanging out with him at the front door....