The Old Courthouse — Restaurant in Cheltenham

I had previously rated Courthouse as five-stars. It was a place I used to visit very frequently for lunch in 2019 - the steak ciabatta being a personal favourite - and always spoke highly of The Old Courthouse to others.

Having booked the location for our Work Christmas do (and having pre-ordered) I had high hopes, but unfortunately due to a comedy of errors the evening was somewhat spoilt.

Our starters were brought out half an hour after we had arrived. Perfectly adequate timing and some solid reviews from around the table. However, matters went south after here.

We proceeded to wait for an hour for our main courses, before one of the serving team approached our table and asked "who was having the cheeseboard?". At this point a colleague remarked, "we're still waiting for our mains". The server scurried off but we were none the wiser to the state of play, so I grabbed her attention. I pointed out that they had forgotten our mains. She at first denied this was the case before I retorted "you wouldn't ask us who was having which pudding, if you weren't ready to give us our desserts, ergo you've forgotten our mains". Additionally, I said that I appreciate mistakes happen and it wasn't the servers fault per se, but that some communication (when things go wrong) is essential and asked if we could please get an update.

The server was apologetic and flustered and she, and subsequently the team, dealt with it as well as possible by offering the table a free round of drinks. Fine, say no more, we move on. Having said that, however, two of the free-round of drinks weren't brought and we had to request them separately.

Unfortunately, when the main courses arrived, they were served at a tepid temperature (if being generous), as if they'd been sat on the side of the kitchen for an abnormally long period of time. Nonetheless we carry on.

The desserts came swiftly and were passable, however, we did have to request cutlery to consume them.

Ready to pay, we were brought the card machine and when tapping "no tip", which given the circumstances I feel was a reasonable stance to take given the events, an audible frustrated-sigh was heard from the staff member.

I appreciate with Christmas Parties, this potentially makes the establishment busier than normal, however that is surely what the pre-ordering system is meant to aide with - in order to expedite orders swiftly by limiting (and knowing in advance) the choices.

The location is as gorgeous as ever, it was just a very disappointing experience for my team's first...

Really sad evening!!! we were asked to leave by the landlord for no valid reason!! Sat 16th Nov Races evening and we were sat outside as there were no spaces inside, We considered sitting inside using the chairs from outside, as it was warmer so we started to move an A board ( in hindsight maybe not the best idea) At this point the lady who claims to be the landlord came out of the disabled toilets and shouted aggressively at us “what on earth do we think we are doing” We responded our intention, which was to sit in the warm, However at this point I said that this lady did not need to shout at us, instead she just needed to speak to us, she apologised but was with every reason why her reaction was acceptable to be aggressive ( there was no justifiable reason to be aggressive we wernt drunk or anything we didn’t continue to move we the sign we stopped immediately) At this point the situation was done and we returned to our seats “It was done in our eyes “and at that point she replied you’re not going to listen anyway! (Again rude and uncalled for)

We then continued to sit outside and enjoyed several more drinks and enjoyed our evening just chatting amongst ourselves,

Fast forward a little time a couple came out and lit up a cigarette each, The smoke was blowing towards us, ( we are not smokers) My father at this point who is a 65 year old man with respiratory issues covered his mouth with his scarf, No words were exchanged with this couple what so ever, they did however move away to outside area, (maybe cos they saw my dad cover his mouth)

We continued to have another round of drinks and enjoy our evening, The smokers left the restaurant and about an hour later the landlord came out and asked us to leave and she wasn’t going to serve us again, No reason until we asked, And her reply was simply she had a complaint that we had made some smokers feel uncomfortable and made comments. Now if she had checked her cctv which was pointing on us she will see there was no exchange of communication between us and the couple, other than my father putting his scarf across his mouth, The only thing we can think is that the landlord didn’t take lightly to being called out for being aggressive and rude when she challenged us over touching her sign. As locals who have visited the bar on many occasions we are saddened by this situation and feel that we were targeted for standing up for ourselves against a bully landlord. Shame really as we can’t complain about...

Went to The Old Courthouse for my birthday with friends last night and unfortunately, it wasn't the same experience I've had the last two times I've been in.

I had booked a table and it hadn't been set up for dining, so we had no menus or cutlery for nearly an hour after we sat down. I had to go to the bar and ask for some. When we were ready to order, there were hardly any staff around, there only seemed to be three or four members of staff in, despite it being really busy, which might be the reason for the very slow service.

My friend ordered the soup of the day from the menu, which was carrot, but she was brought tomato soup instead - apparently they had ran out, and our server was supposed to tell us, but they didn't. We then had to wait another half an hour to get some more drinks and pudding menus, and sadly two of us ordered the sticky toffee pudding, which was very burnt and solid as a rock.

Our server was incredibly apologetic throughout the evening, and took the soup, and both puddings off our bill, but it still did take the shine off the evening a little. The two previous times I've been to this pub, it's been brilliant, so it was really disappointing to have had a more negative experience. The main courses were all delicious, and as usual, it looked beautiful. The ambiance was a bit off as I think most other tables were having trouble finding anyone to take orders or get...