The Horseshoe — Restaurant in Bolton

I visited today (26/12/21) with my family. The service and overall manner of the manageress/owner stinks. She was rude to my wife, abruptly telling her to turn down our children's tablets. This came out of the blue as the devices were on a moderate volume as we personally don't like them to be loud ourselves. She seems to not like people with families as there was a group of men sat behind us watching horse racing at a much higher volume on their phones and nothing was said about that.

My wife did relay her unhappiness about the rude actions of the manager to a polite member of the bar staff, who apologised on her behalf and we got the impression this didn't seem like much of a shock to her- so I assume she's rather tyrant like to work for.

Also if you read below any slightly negative reviews, they are met with a bad attitude which would leave me to believe she is the manager in charge of responding and can't seem to take any criticism on board.

But I would say as honest review the food and service from the other waiting staff and bar staff was great thats the reasons for 2 stars rather than 1. But she has single handed stopped me returning and I will be advising friends and family not to go back to the horseshoe as we live in the local area.

BELOW IS MY RESPONSE TO THE RUDE MANAGERS REPLY

If "can you tell your children to turn it down" in a stern voice is what you class as polite. Then that is probably your issue.

But you have obviously missed the point. It's not way you asked, you shouldn't have asked at all. The children were behaving and the noise being made was no more than anyone else in the pub they didn't need to be turned down. We were sat in an isolated spot away from other tables, I thought this was a pub not a library! The group of men were watching horseracing loudly on their phone the whole time we were there (By the way I have no issue with this). You just you didn't want to confront them as you did a harmless family of four out for some boxing day lunch.

Anyway I see I am not going to get an apology from you, I was correct you can't take criticism and I will have to accept the apology from your kind member of staff instead.

Merry...

Our first visit today, 04/05/25!! We booked on Friday for 1pm. Our drinks were served promptly but that’s where the good stuff ended!! Two starters ordered from 6 diners, not too much wrong there I guess but 45 after they had been finished, our mains hadn’t arrived!! Finally, child’s pizza finally arrived first, burnt and they left the two sets of empty plates on the table from the starters!! In the mean time, 4 other tables in our small dog friendly section were served!! One of which didn’t get the extra portion of chips they ordered!! Then a couple of other mains, two more from 5 burnt!! Oh and one with gravy that had a thick skin on it, clearly from sitting on the hot plate too long!! We decided, quite easily that slagging off other members of staff in customer ear shot wasn’t the best for the bar staff to do, or that the till facing away from customers so that staff turned away to enter your orders probably wasn’t the best idea!! Some of us were going to have dessert, but no, why bother when they couldn’t grill two burgers without one being charcoal or chips on other meals being, I’d say cold but more like almost frozen is more fitting!! The only staff with anything about them were the waiting on staff, the bar staff were mediocre and the manager when spoken to about our disaster, I mean meal, was rude, unapologetic and insulting. In our party of 6, two of us have worked in the trade and two more in customer service outside of hospitality. If you want a lesson in how NOT to treat customers, or make food, go here. If you have opened a new place and are training staff, go here, that way you can show them what a shambles it can be!! It wasn’t even busy when we ordered, but the tables who arrived after us and were served before us, well their plates and glasses remained until just before we left!! Thanks though for a birthday memory, and the swearing by other customers in a family friendly pub...

Went out for a meal for 5. First point we made a reservation over the phone for 4.30 to arrive and be told food was not served until 5 and they didn't know why we were able to book a 4.30 table. This didn't really bother us as it wasn't such a big problem. We all ordered our food, when the starters came out the young waitress put a plate (with black pudding, poached egg and mustard sauce) on the edge of the table which then slipped and the food landed on my husbands lap. For which there was no apology. obviously my husband dashed off to the toilets to try and clean himself and I had to go to the bar to ask for a clean cloth for him. Two of the starters were breaded mushrooms which we had to return as you could not get your fork into them. Once all starters were returned the food was nice. Then it came to the mains, my husband had ordered a medium rare steak with a side of peppercorn sauce. All food arrived, except the peppercorn sauce which we reminded them about. My husband went to start his meal and the steak was like leather, even using a steak knife you could not cut it. After a good 5 mins the waitress finally returned with the peppercorn sauce when we informed her the steak was extremely over cooked and we asked to speak to the landlord. The landlord arrived after a few minutes with a little attitude asking what our problem was. We explained what had happened and her response was that her waitress had told her that my husband had knocked the food over himself a down and outright lie. At this point we all were very annoyed and admit that we shouted as we could not believe the blatant lie. It resulted in us leaving paying just for the starters and drinks. Can't say we will be going back...