Goodliffes Bar — Restaurant in Charnwood

This place is an absolute hidden gem I say hidden because nobody seems to know it's there and up until last week neither did I, I do now and can't recommend it highly enough. It popped up on Google maps as a recommendation for me biased on other places I'd been so tried it out as it looked nice and all the reviews seemed to agree. We went on a Thursday night and had booked a table but on arrival realised that wasn't necessary, when you see an empty restaurant you wonder if you've made a mistake but as we found out no, no we hadn't. The waitress greeted us and showed us to a table, she was really pleasant and polite as was the only other staff member we saw that night who spent most the time behind the bar but also came out to take orders and help waite the table so we all got our meals together. The food.....well what can I say, the starters were all delightful and I can personally highly recommend the soup, served with the most amazing bread full of seed and cranberries giving it a savoury and sweet taste. I should have written this review earlier as I can't remember what everyone else had but they all said it was good. As for the main dishes well I can genuinely say hand on heart it was some of the finest food we had all eaten for as long as we can remember, between the five of us we had fish, lamb, chicken, steak and beef dishes and every single one was cooked to perfection and tasted amazing. I had the fish, a grilled smoked haddock fillet with Colcannon mashed potato, poached hens egg, English mustard & parsley cream sauce, smoked bacon crisp......the entire dish was amazing and the cream sauce to die for. As we were there for my mother inlaws birthday we took a cake and so missed out on the dessert menu but we will be back to settle that matter. I was torn while writing this review as one side of me wants to keep this place quiet so we will always be able to get a table but on the other I don't want it to disappear because nobody goes......

If I go somewhere and have a terrible time I will be honest in a review and tell them why, here I can genuinely not think of one bad thing to say, even the bill was a surprise as we expected it to be much more.

So nice decor, lovely staff, fantastic food and all at a reasonable price...go on...

Came in today and was looking forward to our meal as we have been before a few year back and it was excellent. Unfortunately on this occasion we were bitterly disappointed. Ordered starters which were OK but took 30 mins to arrive at our table, although there was only about 10 tables full in the restaurant so we weren’t sure how it was so slow. We finished our starters and waited a further 20-25 minutes for our mains. After asking the manager where our food was he went and checked and said there had been a mix up and someone else received our food, when it did finally arrive it looked as though it had been sat there for ages and was bone dry (The waitress had told us our food was being freshly made after the mix up). It looked like something you would get from a fairground burger van. The added pulled beef on the burger was so dry and the burger pattys themself were clearly burned and the cheese looked as though it had been microwaved on. I chose not to bother eating the burger and just had the chips, although they were also cold and very dry too. After speaking to the manager about it he did offer free drinks and said he would replace the burger and take it off our bill, I opted not to get another burger anyway as I didn’t fancy a repeat of the first occasion. My partner ordered the breakfast burger which again looked very dry and burnt, but she did eat it in the end as she was just hungry and needed something.

Now for the staff, the waitresses seemed fairly inexperienced and any time they spoke to us or came over they just seemed awkward. We were sat out of sight in the corner and the staff presence in our area was minimal, the only person I really saw walking around was the manager. The manager himself (unsure of his name but he was wearing glasses and possibly a blue shirt) was excellent at his job, he did do his very best to make sure we left satisfied, and he was probably the only reason this isn’t a 1* review. Although it wasn’t his fault the food was terrible he did do his best and was very welcoming on arrival and pleasant throughout.

Overall we did leave very disappointed and I can’t really see us returning again, especially not during a busy period considering this was our experience in a relatively...

Booked over a month in advance orderd way in advance and paid the deposit. The girls serving were lovely and to be quite honest should run the place instead of the manager. Took quite a while to get drinks but eventually came.

We orderd 2 steaks and no one asked how they would like to be cooked. A question that would take 1min to ask yet they failed to do so therefore we were given well done steaks... Surely you would cook it medium and then if someone wanted it well done it could be cooked for longer. We had to tell that that they were just too tought to eat being cooked for soo long, as we both wanted rare-medium. Took at least 5 mins for them to come and take steaks away... No apology from the 'manager'! No offer of any more drinks or even water throughout the whole evening, ever heard or upselling?!

A good 20 mins later after the whole party had finished there food our steaks arrived... Its really lovely eating alone! Not! They were well done again but we decided to cut our losses and get on with it.

The rest of the party had to sit with there empty plates infront of them untill we had got our food and then eat it... Then the oddest thing was we had to wait ages and ask over 3 times for the people who ordered puddings. They started taking the money for the bill before we got the puddings!!!!

Sooo strange. When we spoke to the manager about this I would have to agree with the other comments ... He had the customer service skills of flea! I doubt he has had any customer service training but he was to put it nicely extreamly rude, provoked the situation even more by just walking away half way through a conversation and not offering as much as an apology. This man needs a good talking to... No wonder hardly any one has heard of the restaurant!

A sorry would have been much appreciated seeing as though we spent over £400!

The girls did offer some apology but such bad behaviour from the manager. One of the girls did say the owner of the buisness would try to give us a call regarding this but as of yet we have had no contact.

SERIOUSLY would recommend to go to either Browns Lane or Old Bulls Head...google...