We were there on Friday 6 December 2024 before heading to the panto, as having been a good few times before we expected the same good food and service as before, sadly this was not the case, we were shown to our booked table quickly enough but went very rapidly downhill from there, we sat for a good 30 minutes and no one came near, well that’s not strictly true, a lady came and put water in the table after about 20 minutes and my son in law went to order drinks but was told “I’ll be back in a minute”, she just disappeared, I eventually went to the bar to order drinks to be asked by the gentleman that showed us to our seats have you not ordered yet, I explained and he apologised and said to go back to my seat and someone will be with me shortly, he actually came up himself and took our drinks and food order, drinks came after about 5-10 minutes but we waited and waited for our food, restaurant was not exceptionally busy at this point, we had finished our drinks too by this time and again no one came near, another waitress we hadn’t seen showed a family to a table and took their drinks order, we waited until she had finished with them and said excuse me, she carried on walking away, we spoke a bit louder and still ‘did not hear’, any other establishment I have been in whether your server or not see empty glasses ask the customer if the need anything, we eventually saw the young girl that had brought our drinks and clearly shouted excuse me, she seemed a bit flustered and started to say something when the original girl who had brought the water came up, took the drinks order and we asked about our food, she apologised about our wait and said she’d put the drinks order through then go into the kitchen to see what was happening, she did this and actually came out with our food, nothing elaborate, 3 of us had ordered burgers & 1 steak pie, we think the food had been sitting under the hot lamps as the burgers were so dried out one was totally inedible, and, our side dish did not appear at all, again got an apology, but the girl did take the burger away and said it was removed off our bill and 20% discount would be given, now I’m not sure if that was whole bill or just food as son in law paid and he didn’t notice as he just wanted to get out and grab a snack before heading to the panto. We were so disappointed, to be honest if they were short staffed all that was required was to say right at the beginning that things may take a little longer than normal due to short staff then it was up to the customer whether they stayed and waited or leave, I get they may not want to lose a customer by going elsewhere but, to be honest I highly doubt we will ever be back now, so in my opinion it would have been worth the risk to be upfront, that is of course if that were the reason for the awful service and not nice food (other than the steak pie).