Having visited and enjoyed visiting Trackside many, many times over the years I'm now reluctantly forced to adjust my previous five star rating down to a one because of my experience yesterday (Friday 24th March 2023).

Arrived at 1:25pm, with the expectation of ordering a few beers and sharing one of the excellent platters with my friend from out of town who I was treating to lunch at "one of my favourite pubs".

The sign outside said that the pub was going to be closing at 2pm and would remain closed until 6pm - this was disappointing as this clearly meant we'd have to eat lunch elsewhere. No matter, we agreed we'd pop in for a quick pint anyway as the door was open and it was still very busy inside - even if we could only stay for one.

Walking through the entrance one of the gentlemen that worked there abrubtly announced "the bar is closed - we've an ambulance coming". A quick glance around and it was clear that there were several dozen pub goers sat chatting away with their drinks and eating their food enjoying themselves with no sense of there being any kind of panic - it looked anything but closed, and I commented to the bar man that the bar didn't look closed (figuring that, at the very least, if it WAS closed the front door would be closed and locked, the place wouldn't be full of happy patrons and and the sign outside wouldn't say 2pm on it if they were already closed at 1:25pm).

For this innocuous comment, I was sternly told "I told you, we've an ambulance coming, we don't need sarcastic comments from you" which was just bizarre - if the incoming ambulance was such a big deal why hadn't everyone been asked to leave? Why was the pub still so busy? When I restated my observation - that it didn't LOOK closed I was simply instructed to "get out", which of course we did.

I don't like leaving reviews like this but I firmly believe that without honest feedback businesses don't improve. Certainly, I'll not be revisiting Trackside any time soon which is a real shame, to be honest, but there you go. "Get out" is pretty clear.