The Red Lion — Restaurant in Coventry

BEWARE - You have to type your vehicle registration into a tablet located on either side of the bar. This place causes unnecessary anxiety now. I visited the place on a Saturday night to meet some friends at 11:05pm. Upon ordering drinks at the bar, there are two touch screen tablet like devices. These devices are used so customers can enter their vehicle registration to avoid a parking fine. Now, here's where the anxiety kicks in. I left after meeting a couple of friends at approximately 12:05am, which is approximately an hour later. With leaving at 12:05, one of my friends pointed out that a parking fine may come through the post as the time we left was after 12am, which is technically the next day. I have had anxiety since visiting The Red Lion. I won't be visiting again because of this. It would be better to just have paid parking and then redeem the customer when they purchase food or drink upon them showing the ticket. These types of scamming tactics are not appreciated, especially if I'm paying the asked price in a venue for food and drink. The whole point of visiting a Pub is to unwind, relax and meet up with friends and family. Instead, you end up wondering if some parking fine is going to come through...

The restaurant was really busy and it was a lovely atmosphere. We got our table number and went and sat down. It is important to note that you need to input your car reg on the tablet at the bar, otherwise, you'll be charged for parking.

We chose the set menu of 3 courses £13.99, the choice of starters, meals etc is good.

We ordered through the app and chose nachos, doubled up 8oz rump, Tikka curry, and treacle sponge one with custard, the other ice cream. The food was delicious, as it has been on our previous visit. Despite being advised we may be waiting a bit for food, it arrived quite quickly. The mains arrived quickly after the starter, within about 5/10 mins, but then we waited about 30 mins to an hour (I think) for dessert to arrive and I ended up having to tell a waitress we were still waiting for our dessert. She got the receipt and confirmed it was just ONE Treacle Sponge - I said no, it was two. The lady apologised (no reason was given) and said she'd go and make them now.

This happened the last time (which was our first time visiting) as well.

We have been to another Ember Inn, and this didn't happen, so know it isn't the norm. Not sure why we'd been forgotten or...

Don't waste your money! We went as a party of 7, and only 2 of us were satisfied with our meals. We asked for 'medium' cooked steaks and they were actually burned, tough & full of fat. Portions small, also the 'grilled tomato was actually uncooked. Three of us had Onion rings missing, which we asked for, and actually turned up in 1 bowl when we had almost finished our meals and we were told to have 3 each!! These didn't even look like onion rings, and when my sister cut one in half it was actually a piece of red onion skin inside the batter!!!! A mixed grill consisted of burned steak, burned sausage & burned chicken which looked like a children sized meal. We felt sorry for the young lad who was bringing the food out, as it obviously wasn't his fault, but we complained to him and he apologised each time and said he would ask the manager to come over and speak to us....who, never appeared??. As we had to be somewhere else after we didn't stay to pursue the matter, but would have rather have gone to the Chippy- at least we would have been full for a fraction...