The Travellers Inn Birdwell — Restaurant in Barnsley

Avoid the food in this restaurant. Eight adults prebooked for a family lunch, including 4 octergenarians. Attempted to have a Christmas and Birthday meal together. Good comments first Venue decorated nicely for christmas. Waitress Lauren was really polite and pleasant and tried very hard to offer a good service to us. Manager Hannah did agree to offer smaller portions for the elders and agreed to exchanging some guests chips for new potatoes. The manager did allow the serving of Birthday cake that we had brought to the venue and served it with our lit candles to the birthdsy girl..... Lauren did help the Eldery ladies to the car with their gift bags which was a lovely gesture.

BAD COMMENTS A PLENTY

We had an extremely bad dining experience, this was not related to Lauren at all or her excellent service at all times during our visit, and our bad experience seemed to be beyond and out of her control. The rest of her team failed to deliver a half decent meal experience for our dual Christmas/Birthday lunch.

STARTERS - The Vegatable soup was disgusting tasted like old leftover vegetables covered up with excessive salt and pepper had to be returned to the 'Chef'

MAINS - well this was totally awfull we had issues with the quality of every plate that was served to us. Salmon and prawn salad...... Unfortunately!! the 'chef' misunderstood how to construct this salad, initially a lump of undercooked salmon and 4 new potatoes arrived rolling around on a plate! the prawns and salad where absent. The salad arrived with a dressing applied inwhich the salad had previously been ordered without a dressing. The salad arrived 6 minutes after the salmon had been served which by now was cold. Worse was to come 8 RAW!!!! UNCOOKED prawns in a dish arrived 2 minutes later, and just looked like they had been hastily defrosted in a microwave and sprinkled with dried parsley. Consequently this was brought to the attention of the manager and returned to 'chef'... it was brought to the attention of the manager also the public health risks and dangers of serving raw prawns to customers.......

'Roast of the day' The vegetables where cold and grossly undercooked impossible to get a fork into the carrots or sprouts. A minute amount of gravy, yorkshire puddings burnt. Mashed potatoes very cold, these issues also was brought to the attention of the manager and returned to the 'chef'.

Braised beef Again the vegetables where rock solid, very little gravy. Yorkshire pudding burnt. The meat was not tough and was tasty.

Resolution of our complaint regarding the very poor quality of our served food and the poor service from the 'chefs' attempts at producing our meals. We accepted a total refund of both the salmon salads. We accepted a proportionate refund for the 'roasts of the day'. We accepted a full refund for both the vegetable soup starters.

Unfortunately at this visit we where comparing this meal experience with an excellent experience we had enjoyed at the Travellers Rest 18 months ago. On this occssion there was no comparison in the quality of the food served from this current kitchen compared to our previous visit. On this visit it was absolutely awful and for that reason we will NOT visit again.

What was also concerning was before we left the manager gave reassurance to us that meals where not sent back to the kitchen!!! However on a table near to us 2 main meals where returned to the kitchen a short while after ours had been returned!!!!! which we witnessed. An other customer did inform us that food regularly returns to the kitchen. The Travellers had been sold earlier on in the year and was under new...

Review of The Travellers Inn, Birdwell – A Deeply Disappointing Experience

We recently visited The Travellers Inn, Birdwell, to celebrate a milestone occasion—my friend’s mother’s 50th birthday. Regrettably, what was intended to be a joyful and memorable evening was overshadowed by a series of missteps, poor service, and substandard food, culminating in a deeply disappointing experience for our party of 14.

Our reservation was made well in advance—three months prior to the date—and a £140 deposit was paid to secure the table. However, upon arrival for our 6:00 PM booking, there was no apparent record of this payment, which immediately cast doubt on the venue’s organisational capabilities. Matters deteriorated further from there.

Despite being seated promptly, we experienced an unacceptable delay in food service. By 7:00 PM, only five meals had arrived. The remaining dishes were served incrementally, with the final meals not appearing until approximately 45 minutes after the first. As a result, some guests had fully finished their meals while others were still waiting to be served, completely disrupting the flow and cohesion of the celebration.

The quality of the food, once it arrived, was no consolation. I personally ordered the chicken and chorizo linguine, which arrived greasy and entirely devoid of flavour. Another member of our group requested “just steak and chips” cooked very rare—an item listed at £25 on the menu. The steak was served closer to medium, and the chips were clearly undercooked, seemingly having spent less than a minute in the fryer. The fish and chips dish was equally unsatisfactory: the fish contained minimal flesh beneath an overly thick batter, and the “mushy peas” were neither textured nor adequately cooked to match their description.

Upon requesting to speak with the manager to raise these concerns, I was informed that the manager was not present. When I inquired further about who was overseeing the shift, a young woman with blond hair stated that she was “just 20 years old” and “didn’t like dealing with complaints.” While one can empathise with discomfort in handling conflict, it is wholly inappropriate for someone occupying a managerial role in hospitality to be unwilling to address guest concerns, particularly during a high-stakes event like a pre-booked birthday dinner.

To add further insult, I was charged £3.50 for a pint of Diet Coke, which had quite obviously been poured from a standard 2-litre bottle that could be purchased for a fraction of the price in any supermarket. Such pricing, paired with the lack of product quality, reflects a disregard for value and transparency.

In conclusion, The Travellers Inn failed comprehensively to meet even basic standards of service, food quality, or hospitality management. Their inefficiency and unpreparedness not only compromised the evening but irrevocably marred what should have been a cherished occasion. I would strongly advise others to consider alternative venues for significant events, particularly if professionalism, timeliness, and guest satisfaction...

Absolutely dog shit.

To say the least would be that the starters were "ok". (Garlic mushrooms)

I'll start with the atmosphere: the chairs we had were broken, and the others looked like they'd been taken out of local skips. The tables for 2 were far too small underneath for me to sit comfortably. The music was fine, the constant interruptions by loud adverts however was not. The building itself is quite the catfish, I felt like a moth drawn to a light, just to be swatted by a bat after going inside.

The food: Poor, and that's kind.

-We started with the garlic mushrooms. The bread was soggy due to the "milk" like oily sauce that they came in (not creamy at all), the mushrooms were warm at best. -The spagbol, I'll get to why me and my partner were mainly unhappy on the service, but never the less, it was like someone had just mixed tomato, beef and spaghetti, rather than using any flavouring like a normal dish, for £18 it is just poor. -The Steak, of course, is the star of everyone's menu... as a rule, I tend to go by if they only serve 1 type of steak I don't bother. However, I did fancy it at the time, just to be put down yet again. I recieved the incorrect chips, instead of the fries I recieved the home cooked, which still tasted and felt like you could pull them out the ground or put eyes and a mustache on them and it would be a mr potato head puzzle. The steak was definetly not medium like I asked, it was more like it had been dried up under a lamp, it was also covered in black splodges which I could only assume was other food left on the fryer leaving a burnt flavor in my mouth.

Moving onto the service, my biggest peeve. I arrived and we were greeted quite well, in fact the politeness of the staff was pretty good. We were seated and THEN told at least 5 items were not available!!! There were only about 10 items altogether. But we felt it was too much hassle to find somewhere else to eat. Keep in mind this was at 17:30, so not that late, poor planning on how much food to stock. We then waited about 10 minutes after receiving drinks to order food. Food arrived fairly quickly but not particularly hot. We finished food, and this is where my blood began to boil. We weren't asked if we'd like desert. We weren't asked for more drinks, which were empty after finishing food. We waited 30 minutes until I decided to confront the waitress at the bar. I explained that the spaghetti seemed like they were reducing portion size to produce more and not run out, I also explained I thought they were under staffed, which was confirmed when we were told they WERE when we finally recieved the bill!

Overall, it was one of the worst experiences I've ever had at a restaurant. Don't be fooled by the food presentation, as that was not an issue I had.

WOULD NOT RECOMMEND DONT BE FOOLED BY...