The Garrison Tavern — Restaurant in Chelmsford

EDIT: Still no apology in response, and there was no refusal to have a conversation on our part. When two large guys come up to your table and say "come with me" with no explanation, you're going to ask why - are they about to take us to some seedy back office and hurt us? When we ask why, and are told they'll drag us out if we don't comply - that's us escalating the situation apparently? We were not aggressive at all - just confused more than anything. The only ego bruised was the bouncer's who didn't like being calmly told he had no legal authority to threaten to assault us. If he'd explained the situation - that two of us matched a description and he needed to check us out - of course we would have complied. Your staff handled the situation badly. Bouncer accused us of taking drugs on the premises and threatened to drag us out the bar - a few minutes after buying our drinks. He quickly admitted he'd got it wrong and it was someone else, but told us we still had to leave because we'd taken exception to being accused of a crime with no evidence. We didn't raise our voices or anything - just calmly made clear that we felt they were being unreasonable. I think he was embarrassed he'd got it wrong, but doubled down and was quite rude to us.

He didn't apologise and really didn't need to open with a threat to hurt us if we didn't comply - that's surely not conducive to ensuring a situation doesn't escalate.

This has never happened to me in a Chelmsford pub before - clearly this place has issues with drug use. It really ruined our Christmas night out.

It was my first visit to this pub and I think...

First the positive, the staff is very friendly and helpfull and the Bar is nice. Thats it with the positive though. The rooms are a catastrophe. We had loose and broken tiles on the floor of tha bathroom, sharp enough to cut your feet on, a fairly large hole in the wall, some more tiles lying next to the toilet which had fallen off the wall. Enough black mold to poison a few people on the sink and around the bathtub, the shower head was dripping loudly an in major need of descaling. In my room i also found a used mug in the bathtub and something resembling blood stains. Also finding used towels on the floor fram a previous guest is not a nice thing. One of the firealarms was constantly on, but we were told thats normal. We would have dared to try the breakfast, but we couldent, because at 8.20AM no staff was preasent, we were told usualy they show up at 7.30 but today somehow they were late. I could go on like this for a while, but listing everything that was broken, dirty or in desperate need of replacing or repair would be far to much to list here. Health and safety might want to shut this place down very soon. Also charging £60 per night for this seems...

The Saracen's Head, in the High Street, Chelmsford, is a big venue. It is probably a survivor from those time, in the 17th and 18th centuries when a coach and horses, fresh from London, dropped off their travellers for good food, a good pint and somewhere to rest for the night. The pub is quite large, split in two by the large, central alleyway to the stables used to be at the rear. The ambience is quite good and they try to attract customers to eat, but I've never seen more than a couple of diners there. The staff are friendly (but, along with almost ALL bar staff I have encountered in pubs all over the country) don't know how to pull a decent bitter shandy. I have lived, and worked, in pubs for over 15 years and serving a decent shandy is an art, if you don't want to wreck the lemonade and waste a lot of beer. Overall the Saracen's is a decent pub, hanging on in this age of clubs and restaurants and deserves our support. A good place to go for a decent pint in a quiet atmosphere, or to sit outside in the sun and...