The Boater, Bath — Restaurant in Bath

I moved to bath nearly 2 years ago and the family and I are always trying out new pubs in the area. With so many top pubs to choose from, you're spoilt for choice. It was actually refreshing to find one that is so DREADFUL that we can finally strike one pub from our list. Meet (ominous music starts)...THE BOATER. Here a short list of what we hated most: The booking system: pub wi-fi is nearly non-existent yet you can only order online. After 20 minutes of struggling, we gave up and tried to order from an actual human. But this brought us into contact with disappointment no 2.... The staff: the pub was about a third empty, despite it being a Bath-rugby-playing Sunday. Yet staff are harried and dismissive. They'll sloooowly clean a table and then another table while you patiently wait...and wait...to order from them. Then when they could no longer find a table to wipe, and had presumably wiped the tables at the pizzeria next door too, they ambled over. No kids menu or kids' portions or kids' anything: Let's just do what Boater's management does and pretend that the nasty little grubs don't exist. It's not as if you'll be abler to order for them anyway, as the system doesn't work, as outlined above. They did finally get a juice. The food: After the long battle to order and a long wait, our crucified burgers were presented to us. And I do mean crucified. The buttermilk chicken and buns were so badly torched that they were blackened, dry as dust and inedible. My hubby and I were so hungry at this stage, that we tried to eat them anyway, but gave up after a few bites and sent the food back. We were informed that our meals wouldn't be replaced because of problem number 5.... The kitchen: The dark heart of The Boater's chaos. Despite only reservations, and no walk-ins, the venue was entirely unprepared for the number of guests. Very mysterious. They eventually panicked and closed their doors while (so we were told) they "caught up" (massacred more chicken burgers presumably). We'd now been seated for well over an hour and hadn't still hadn't eaten. We gave up and left. There's an ice cream cart next door and we ended up eating ice cream for lunch.

The food order was deducted from our bill and for that we are thankful. Sadly, we couldn't deduct the entire experience. It's a mess of a pub with a lovely shady beer garden, in a prime central location. Jog on...

Came here yesterday for a pub lunch to kick off a friend’s stag party and left disappointed. We had booked in advance but only one small table had been reserved for our group of 17, so we had to ask others to move. Staff were obviously very busy but that is not an excuse for how rude and blunt they were with our group.

The food menu advertised on the website was not on offer and only an outdoor BBQ was available. There was only one vegetarian/vegan option which could not be ordered through the online ordering system, so you had to go down to the BBQ to order it (not great for those who don’t want to stand next to the smell of cooking meat). When we went to order food, we were told the BBQ staff were having a break and we couldn’t order anything for 20 mins, despite orders still being taken through the online system. There would then be a 40 min wait for food once we could order. This is indirect discrimination against people who don’t eat meat for religious or ideological reasons, under the Equality Act 2010.

It was after 2:30pm by this point and I was starving. We went to the (empty) inside bar but could only get crisps there. My friend ended up going to Waitrose down the road and buying food.

I don’t blame the staff because they were obviously overwhelmed, but when we had booked for a large party at 2pm we expected to be able to eat a pub lunch within 2 hours of arriving. We had to leave just before 4pm for a boat tour (hence why we chose this riverside pub), and half of the group had only had wraps and crisps from Waitrose rather than the cooked lunch we were expecting.

Thankfully the rest of the day was great, which made up for this...

When entering the boater with my group of friends (we are all 21), I was asked for my ID by the host, a mousy brown haired lady I believe. We were all asked for our ID, and I provided my provisional drivers license (as I don’t drive), which is recognised by the government as a legal form of identification. However, the lady responded in a condescending tone (paraphrased) “you can get a fake provisionals for £5 online, I’m only letting you in this time because all your friends have proper ID”. I suffer from social anxiety and this immediately made me feel unwelcome and embarrassed and for the remainder of my time there I felt uncomfortable. As a bartender of three years myself, in reflection this also made no sense, as you are able to purchase any fake form of ID whether it be a passport or drivers licence. So it being a provisional licence has no bearing, and is the same as all other government issued forms of ID, as it ‘includes exactly the same beaurocratic checks as a full licence’. This reasoning has never held validity before in my working experience, so I would like to understand why it was used, as I fear I may have been mis-educated, please do let me know.

The bartender was lovely, and they also only serve one type of seedlip and a low percentage ale (outside at least) for non-drinkers...