Hoghton Arms — Restaurant in Chorley

Dined here in June. Enjoyed. Reasonable priced food ordered from the set price lunchtime menu and service was great. However, was overcharged on our bill. Please see my previous review. A phone call confirmed this would be reimbursed if we visited again plus we had a voucher offering £10 off if you spent £40 or more so we went back on a Thursday afternoon late July. Unfortunately this visit was in no way comparable to the first. Thought it was very expensive and service very poor. Ordered 2 pints of Estella lager. Gone up 25 pence a pint from our previous visit. Also ordered a bottle of Rioja at £21.75. No problem with that as that’s what you can expect to pay in most places for a bottle of wine. Ordered starter of squid with chilli’s. Mains of burger with side order of onion rings and a mixed grill. The wine arrived already uncorked and with 2 dirty glasses. Previously I would have sent this back. Wine should be uncorked at the table, this was not a screw top bottle. The customer should be allowed to check if it’s not corked. But probably lucky it came this way as the glasses were dirty. I had raised this on my last visit. My view is that the glasses are cleaned but either heat dried or drip dried not wiped clean. This leaves marks. We cleaned them with our napkins. But not a good start. The wine however was excellent. Starter came. Brought by a different server. Reasonable flavour and chillis good and hot but, for the price, £6.50, I though the portion was small. I moved the finished dish to the side where it stayed for the rest of our visit. No attempt made to remove it. Mains came. My brother had specifically asked for a hard yolk on his egg. The egg was soft. He sent it back. I had the burger. I had ordered onion rings which, if ordered with the burger, were £1.50. I asked the waitress about my side order. She explained they were on top of the burger. They consisted on one onion ring and two wanna be rings who hoped to be onion rings when they grew up. I know £1.50 isn’t much but I would rather pay more and get a decent portion. I began to eat mine. The burger was bland. Like the fries I would assume frozen. Certainly not home made. The only flavour came from the bacon and cheese. My brothers mixed grill arrived along with a container with various sauces and condiments in it. Might have been nicer to bring this before the mains were served so both of us could have used it if we had wanted not wait until I had nearly finished. My brother said the sausage and gammon were tasty but the steak was tough. But you don’t normally expect to get the best steak on a mixed grill. Meals finished and plates finally taken away. No one bothering to come over and ask if everything was alright and no dessert menu offered. The place was not busy. It must have been a good ten minutes after before we were asked if we wanted dessert. I think 6 items on the dessert menu but we were immediately told two items were unavailable. We decided not to bother. Went to pay the bill. Luckily we had the discount voucher and some money back from previously being over charged as the final bill without this discount would, in my opinion have been exorbitant. Just a fraction short of £70. Unlike our last visit I am sorry to say this was just not good value for money. And the service, which previously had been friendly and attentive, was anything of the sort this time. I don’t like to give low marks but feel I have no option after this visit. We won’t be returning. My advice if you do go is eat from the fixed price menu and hope you pick a day and time when the staff on duty have better customer service skills. Unfortunately adding this review has deleted my previous review when we visited in June. That's unfortunate as I gave four stars then despite the issue with the bill. The discount for the three course set lunch had not been applied. I have put the pictures on from the first visit showing the three and two course set...

The Hoghton Arms is very conveniently located close to the M65 motorway, making it very accessible. There is a car park and the grounds and building itself are attractive and welcoming. I have been bringing a group here every three months for many years and whilst the quality of the ingredients remains fresh there has been a very noticeable reduction in the portion sizes and the standard and quality of garnishes since the premises changed management. On my visit last evening I would go so far as to say that the warmth and friendliness of the staff was extremely poor, particularly from the lady who processed our payment. There was no satisfaction check, no attempt whatsoever at conversation and not a hint of a farewell as the transaction was completed and we left.

The ambiance in the restaurant was pleasant and the tables were well spaced out so as to provide privacy. The delay between ordering and the arrival of the food I felt was too long at 45 minutes.

Personally, I ordered the Sharing Nachos as a main course due to it being recommended as a starter for two persons. Historically this has made a generous main course for one person, which has been most enjoyable. Last evening the dish was relatively tiny and would just about have made an acceptable and pricey starter for one. The ingredients placed onto the tortilla chips were sparce and, as you will see from the two photos below, were almost non existent once the chips had been eaten (see photo 2). One of my companions ordered the relatively expensive 10oz Rib Eye Steak and requested a salad garnish instead of chips. As you will see from the photo, the side salad was miniscule and accompanied by a single slice of tomato. The Hunter’s Chicken itself was tasty however this too came with a dramatically smaller salad garnish than previously, and it would be fair to say that this just consisted of a single lettuce leaf.

This was a very disappointing visit. This reviewer does not give a 2* rating lightly however The Hoghton Arms is currently operating at significantly below its potential. I have forwarded a copy of this review to the...

Party of 5. After placing the order, the waitress informed us approximately 25 minutes later that one of the dishes was unavailable so an alternative was ordered. Roast chicken dinner. This was advertised as half a roast chicken. The waitress advised it could be served off the bone. 2 out of the 3 ordered opted for off the bone. The meal was advertised on the menu served with honey roast parsnips and herb roast potatoes. My own meal had only 2 very very small roast potatoes. The others had 3 small, not herb, as advertised. It was only when we had nearly finished eating, my friend said I’m sure it should of come with Parsnips. We asked for the menu which confirmed this. We paid an additional £3,50 for broccoli cheese. This was a mere 2 small florets! The chicken off the bone was a very average size chicken breast. When asked did we enjoy the meal, I informed the waitress that I was very disappointed due to the above. She apologised and said there had been teething problems with the new menu and offered 20 percent off the food. 4 of the party ordered desserts. The £7.50 tiny portion chocolate bomb arrived. It was advertised with toffee sauce. It came with chocolate sauce! One of the party who ordered it does not like chocolate sauce and would therefore not of ordered it had she known. For the prices, quality, menu misrepresentation, it was just wholly unsuitable, even with 20 percent discount. The Yorkshire pudding and gravy were the only saving grace of the meal. The waitress was excellent at her job, she was very friendly, polite and professional and she deserved the £5 tip we gave her, albeit begrudgingly for the waste of money we felt we were paying...