Coaching Halt — Restaurant in Crawley

Service incredibly slow. Long wait tontake drinks ordera, then another long wait for.food order to be taken. Staff taking order seemed fairly confused and flustered. One of three starters came and wasn't quite right. Able then not fully cleared, no more drinks offered. Long wait for mains, child in the group was complaining of being hungry as they had been there over an hour before any mains appeared. When maind arrived no sign at all of the childrens meal. Pointed out to staff three times a whole meal appeared to be missing as they asked if we wanted sauces or needed anything else. Has seemed to escape their attention ine person had no food. Was then over a 10 minute wait for the child's meal to appear and the apology for the delay wasn't especially forthcoming. Int he meantime, my own food had gone cold (everyone else started to eat to avoid the whole tables food going cold, as a family we usually wait until everyone has food to start, however the service was sp bad that would have ruined everyone's meal). We eventually gave the child half our meals and trimmings to keep them going as the wait was so long. The meal was quite clearly complete forgotten about. When it did arrive, the burger was dry. The fish and chips was underwhelming, the peas were solid and the fish batter soggy over 95% of the portion, only the corners were slightly crunchy. The mixed grill sausages were bordering on charred/burnt. The service to clear plates was slow, and the table wasn't even fully cleared and we weren't offered opportunity to order more drinks. Given we were celebrating a family birthday it was hugely dissapointing, and we were actually very surprised to be charged for the kids main given the meal was so delayed and clearly they forgot about it. We would have expected this to have been removed from the bill in all honesty. Generally any where else we've eaten out in the last 8+ years, kids meals are served first to avoid whinging children, it would be good for this venue to consider this, or at least ensure all the meals for the full table are ready before starting to serve. This is very basic hospitality to be honest.

Also lots of skeletons and coffin decorations inside despite being over a month until Halloween.....coffins inside a food venue, and so soon before the occassion is a little in poor taste. Had we known, we may have...

Good evening, I leave this review with a view to perhaps helping people make an informed choice when spending one’s hard earned cash in an ever growing cash strapped society, where going out for a meal isn’t something we can all do or if we are fortunate enough to be able to do it, cant necessarily do it as often as we’d like. With that aside but with it still at the forefront of my mind I’m afraid that the ‘Coaching Halt’ fell below par on this occasion. We had booked a table to bid farewell to our youngest daughter, before she heads off back to university. The Coaching Halt is local to us and we’ve enjoyed many evening's in its cozy yet vibrant setting. Unfortunately tonight’s outing had left a somewhat bad taste in our mouths and when going out for dinner I’m sure this is something a chef dreads to hear. My daughters ordered the chicken Caesar salad which came out and looked very nice indeed apart from the lack of the Caesar dressing. We notified our waitress who kindly took them back to the kitchen only to return and advise us that the chef said ‘he'd put plenty on the salad and if we wanted more we would in fact need to pay for it’. We weren’t asking for a bottle of dressing nor had we arrived on hospital beds requesting the chef to personally come out and hook our party up with intravenous bags full of the dressing. We simply asked for a ‘a little more’ What a shame that for the sake of another ‘splash’ of dressing the Coaching Halt has come across as the ‘Scrooge’ of the chicken Caesar salad world and in doing so has lost an otherwise happy customer. I attach a couple of photos that show no dressing residue.

Update:28/09/2024

My reply from Coaching Halt was ‘thank you’.

•We are sorry your experience was less than perfect. •I’ve spoken to the chef to ensure this won’t happen again. •Here’s two tickets to an all you can drink Caesar salad dressing night at the O.K Corral.

These are some of the things you could have said but instead opted to thank me for leaving a bad review!? I read in your last reply to a 3star review that you’re now under new...

Our group arrived expecting some tasty filling good value pub restaurant food on a Saturday evening, a few of our group had heard of it's not so good reputation, but apparently it had improved lately,

Well we arrived at 730 so earlyish but not late, but the place wasn't very busy but I expected it to get busy later, the waitress took our food order and I'd bought many drinks on entry which to be honest was very expensive for an average pub at £61, we sat and waited for our food, considering the place was almost still empty our food took way too long, it arrived at all different times,not very hot, which meant part of our group without food whilst some had theirs,

Well finally trying the food and looking at the group, nobody including myself looked overly inspired by the food that arrived, mine personally was fish, chips and mushy peas, the fish was over cooked and full of grease, the chips weren't anything great considering they were supposed to be triple cooked, the mushy peas were cold and stuck as a blob to the plate and rather horrible,

Eventually our group were done and ready to leave by 10pm and from 8pm until when we left the pub was basically deserted and dead which based on costs of drinks, terrible food, slow disjointed service, with excessive pricing on everything I can see why, word of mouth says all about this place and no change clearly ,

After the £61 drinks bill and then at the end settling the food bill of £142 I felt disgusted I'd spent £203 for the group that had bad quality food and overpriced drink each,

This is a fair evaluation of a pub that needs to get it's act together in many ways or just close and stop charging over the top for food and drink and not having quality and portion size to match,

DEFINITELY won't go back again, better quality food at Toby Carvery for £8 a meal and £2,50 a drink at Wetherspoons, if I want cheap and lower quality I'll go there and pay what it's worth unlike this pub charges over the top without any value for money,

DEFINITELY will avoid avoid avoid. Total...