De Rodes Arms Stonehouse — Restaurant in Bolsover

For anyone looking for a quality meal, DON'T BOTHER with this let down of an environment.

Usually, driving past this place on the main road I would think about how nice it'd be dine in, my first thought will now be "what a disappointment".

As one of four on Table 17, I was the only one to order a burger and not a carvery. The others on my table waited 15 minutes before queing for the carvary so that my burger could come as suggested by your staff, it did not. 35 minutes later, my burger still hadn't arrived and the others on my table had finishes all three carvarys.

To think this would be bad enough would be common, but once I approached a member of service staff with a polite question of where my food was, I was met by a stunned and frankly rude response of "What did you order?".

The chef brought my food 5 minutes later and was polite enough, but the shocking lack of service from the rest of your staff created a disappointing and unenjoyable atmosphere. 35 minutes post order is unacceptable when I was told it would be 10-15.

Onto the food, the burger was lackluster chicken and very, very dry. The chips were standard.

If possible, I wouldn't deliver more than half a star rating. I completely understand a place can be busy, but it clearly wasn't and others were arriving and being served bigger sized meal before my own after I'd been waiting. For me, this place wouldn't be worth attending and I have never come across a service and time-keeping as bad as this at a Stonehouse. It is unacceptable, and I hope this review is shared at your next team meeting so everyone can take a long hard look at their service. From the start of arrival to asking where my food was, service was blunt and rude. Knives and forks were at a loss, and a genuine lack of care in presentation of both the food and the table was clear.

Would reccommend others to...

My wife and I travelled from York to meet up with our Daughter and Grandaughter who travelled up from Gloucestershire, the plan was to have a nice lunch and exchange Christmas Gifts. I had chosen the De Rodes from their promising Website, but the experience was very disappointing. We were allocated table 4, which was furthest from the meal ordering point at the Bar, and I queued for almost 15 minutes to place our order. There was only one young lady working at the bar taking orders and serving drinks, when I tried to place my order, I was told that Fish and Chips were off the menu and I had to return to our table to ask for alternative choices. I then had to queue for another 10 minutes to place my order which included 4 drinks. I asked for a tray to carry my drinks, but none were available and I had to make two journeys to carry them to our table. Two of us were having carveries, another 15 minutes of queuing, we had almost finished eating our carveries before the other two table service meals were served. One of those meals was the Classic Burger, which was served without and salad or red onion, and had only and unrecognisable blob of dried up cheese on it. My daughter complained about this, and was told there would be a wait of another 20 minutes for another Burger, so she elected for the carvery. The other table service meal was the gammon, which was served with almost cold dry chips and hard peas. The two deserts and carveries were reasonable, but overall, the De Rodes Arms failed in both food quality and service. In spite of them being ordered for table service, deserts and coffees were not served until we asked where they were. Staff levels were totally inadequate to afford acceptable customer care, esp at the bar. We will...

Honestly this was the saddest pub/restaurant experience I personally may have ever had.

Food- Absolutely shocking, sad and not worth the calories.

We had 3 for £9.99 Crispy chicken with garlic mayo 3 nuggets on a bed of iceberg lettuce, absolutely shocking, frozen tosh. Buffalo chicken wings- 3 small wings on a bed of iceberg lettuce (they love a bit of iceberg lettuce) ps we got the Carolina rapper wings not buffalo, rubbish no the less!

Garlic flatbread- This reminded me of when you get sand in your mouth on the beach on holiday. Rubbish!

Simply beef burger- frozen bought in beef patties that looked like digestive biscuits. Simply rubbish!

Simply crispy chicken burger- simply bought in frozen chicken fillet, again dryer than a bucket of sawdust!

Gammon and eggs- which is just the ham from the carvery with inedible brown garden peas a two perfectly cooked eggs hahaha

My kids had the ice cream refills which was the best bit. Every time the ice cream machine kicked in it scared all the kids stood waiting.

Sticky toffee pudding- wasn’t sticky, dry (definitely microwaved) and just so sad. Had to ask for this twice from the lady at the bar

Service- I’m not going to be to harsh on the FOH team because it’s clear they are doing things by the M&B book, but it was pretty poor. No glasses cleared, plates sat on the end of our table for 45 mins, no check backs.

Atmosphere- There is none. It’s just a pub full of people queuing for a carvery.

As you can probably guess, we will not be returning so please make sure the RBM for this brand gets to see this feedback.

Feel free to send me a response because I’d love to hear...