The Near Boot — Restaurant in Carlisle

Very disappointed all round.

Too many issues to go into too much detail.

• Food allergy confusion in the whole team that wasn’t rectified or understood. Total disregard and terrible levels of education through the team, but appreciate this isn’t their issue.

As an FYI to provide context: food allergy includes cross contamination of your food and for reference please see photo 1/33 on @TripAdvisor of your “Gluten Free” beef that is covered in Yorkshire puddings, containing wheat flour, that was shared by your team on the 3rd time of asking. Please be cautious when visiting with an allergy as this is what is “on show”, so what happens behind the scenes would now worry me more.

• Appalling attitude of the owner who declared:

“I am the licensee and I can be as rude as I want to be”

“I don’t recognise you, so you don’t come in here regularly”

This was as bad as I have ever seen customer service wise, which all came around from them wanting our table back at 13:50, after taking additional drinks & dessert orders at 13.35, whilst the children were still eating the desserts, and for an added bonus, we were never given a ‘require table back by…’ upon arrival.

We live in the local village and we won’t be back. Food was okay, but to spend £160 on 90 minutes, I don’t appreciate the disgraceful tone and manner in which we were spoken to. .

People skills need severely looked at. This was from a group of 8, with ties to the local area and 4 of the group were under 7. They are lucky i couldn’t award 0 stars on the review.

I am really hoping this doesn’t affect their performance in ‘The Best Carvery in Cumbria’ play offs when the tournament starts again.

Please don’t contact me as I am not interested in coming back or discussing this further. Disgraceful in...

Dont often do reviews but I loved this wee place so feel I owe them one! Stopped here after buying a dodgy Volvo as me and my friend hadn't eaten lunch. When we arrived the manager had a laugh talking about how she saw me pull in and about her volvo needing work. We sat for a drink and asked whether they'd recommend us waiting till food service started to which she replied, they eat the food themselves and there is nothing on the menu they don't like. I could tell she was being honest. I ordered the Steak Pie, my friend ordered the Chicken Burger and we were both amazed. The steak pie was delicious and so was the mash! I don't usually eat the vegetables that come with food, but they were cooked perfectly with beautiful presentation and dipping them in the lovely gravy made me feel like maybe I should eat veg more often! The staff were super friendly throughout our dinner and we decided to try squeeze in some dessert. I got Belgian Chocolate and Grand Marnier pudding which was absolute heaven and my mate got the Sticky Toffee pudding, which I tasted the sauce of, whilst he was at the bathroom. Made me wish I had ordered both! After emptying our plates yet again we were stuffed yet absolutely delighted. Could not recommend a place more. One of the best places I've been to. The staff were delightful and had friendly banter, the food was amazing and well priced and the atmosphere of the place was just lovely. Will be back again, hopefully when my volvo...

Lovely meal, really super food and a nice varied menu. Had a great dinner here with friends last night, couldn't fault it, completely overshadowed by a nasty taste when leaving of the automatic tip 'suggested' by the card machine. I say 'suggested', but you have to actively decline it if you don't want to leave a tip, which makes you feel uncomfortable as if you're doing a Dine'n'Dash or something.

I wish pubs would think for a moment before they set their card machine up that way about what they are doing - why on earth would you take a really happy satisfied customer who is vowing to return, and sour him just as he's leaving? Seriously, consider it - how many people do you think you convince with this model to leave a tip who weren't going to already? Is that enough to offset the people like me who's experience you soured and who now won't return?

Yup, you can say "hey if you're the sort of person who won't tip then we won't miss you anyway", but we came and spent £150 in your premises, money we could have spent elsewhere. Tip or not, you need money going through the till or next week you're closed. Let people make their own choices on tipping, and you might even find you get the same amount left anyway but without upsetting happy customers into taking their...