The Red Lion, Thorpe — Restaurant in Borough of Runnymede

The Red Lion - Graham, Louise and their team have just hosted a First Holy Communion Celebration for two little girls (ours being one) their families and friends.

We are all so impressed, from the first enquiry to paying the bill on the day, nothing was too much trouble, we opted for a 'Buffet Lunch' and 'Afternoon Tea' for 45 guests.

Graham said at the outset that he doesn't have buffet menus, preferring instead to ask customers what they want, he set a price per head, together we then chose items, hot, cold, savoury and sweet, Graham made note of our requirements and asked us to pop in and confirm numbers the week before the event.

As requested, we confirmed our numbers a week before and arranged to leave some balloons and party decorations in the day before our party.

On the day of our celebration, we turned up earlier than expected, no problem at all, everything was ready, tables ready and decorations in place, everything looking lovely and just as we had requested.

Our guests took their time arriving and trickled in over the space of an hour, again this wasn't a problem, Graham and Louise assured us everything was good to go and they would keep food back until we said we were ready, which they did.

The 'Buffet Lunch' and 'Afternoon Tea' were fantastic! A wonderful variety of hot and cold savoury items and dishes, too many to mention, all fresh, tasty and very well presented, further food being brought out as per demand.

The 'Afternoon Tea' was equally fantastic and to the same high standard, an amazing variety of cakes, buns, scones and fruit, with cups of tea or coffee included - Totally delicious!!

It was a beautiful sunny day so most guests chose to sit outside in the garden, although we also had the use of the lovely, newly refurbished restaurant and some of our guests chose to eat there.

Our party consisted of adults and a large number of children, the children had a fabulous time in the safe, enclosed garden and play area, whilst the pool table was a big hit too!

All our guests told us they had a wonderful day and enjoyed the delicious food.

Graham, Louise and team - A HUGE thank you from us all, you made everything so easy and stress free, we had an amazing day, thank you for making that possible.

Anyone looking for a venue for a celebration/party of any type, look no further than The Red Lion Thorpe, you won't be disappointed!

Highly recommended.

Great food - Child-friendly - Excellent...

To start with on our arrival for our booking for Sunday lunch at 5pm, we had to hunt for staff to be seated this took a good 15min wait as well as another family which had been waiting in front of us, We was all confused as the restaurant wasn’t busy what so ever as only one table was occupied and they was already eating dessert and the rest was empty.

Once we was seated we ordered our food and drink almost immediately. The food service was around 40mins for 2 adult roasts and 1 child’s (empty restaurant) bar us and the other family if 3 but this wasn’t too much of an issue we passed it off as was enjoying family time together. Any how we had finished food at 6pm, we then had our table cleared at 6.15pm this was the first time we had table service since served food At 5.40pm we was asked if we would like dessert and we replied yes now this menu never made it to our table until I had to get up and go find staff to remind the server around 6.35 and we still waited 15 more minutes for that we was ready to order but again no staff in sight we decided to not have dessert as the kids need to get home to bed at 7pm far to late.

Upon paying I compliment the manger on the food but stated the service was utterly slow with a smile and there’s no real reason for such delays being we are the only people in the restaurant and the bar had a hand full of people the reply I received was utterly rude and quite frankly poor customer services and utterly unprofessional.

Managers reply:

“Well you know, it’s hot picking at the moment and I can’t afford 15 members of staff we trying to keep the place open”

I mean not even an apology or any given respectful customer services response if the restaurant had been busy we would have understood the wait etc but we was the only customer in the restaurant and no one other Table of 3.... so there’s no real excuse for the wait or rudeness received I’m confused to where the manager thought 15members of staff would fit in this tiny tiny pub/restaurant so I take it as utter rudeness and sarcasm which for me is just not how a good hospitality host would behave to customers.

I was being polite if anything just saying the service was slow and food was nice but in reality the food was sloppy as well as the service and the manger needs to understand good...

Visited the red lion a few months ago during a weekend away. I must say the food was absolutely amazing and some of the best food we’ve ever had. The pub in itself is absolutely beautiful and really is such a pleasing place. My only downfall would be our server, but this could be as we went quite late in the day / towards the end of her shift. I pre booked a table and when I arrived was told they had no records of our booking. The pub was empty so was told to sit down anyway. When we were ready to order, we were told to not worry about payment yet as they needed us to get our orders in quick so they could close the kitchen. This made us feel uncomfortable and as though we were an inconvenience because we had booked weeks in advanced for food, so they would have known that we were planning on eating. When given our drinks, one of the glasses was half filled so we asked for it to be filled a little more and this was done without hesitation. As I said the pub and food is great but we didn’t feel welcome there at this time. The server seemed stressed even in an empty pub which is why I say maybe they’d had a busy day. Overall, positive...