The Hillside Inn — Restaurant in Crawley

Our company booked a table weeks in advance for our Christmas lunch. Even the menu choices were given in advance and as the place was only around a fifth full with customers there was absolutely no reason for the complete and utter farce that was inflicted upon us yesterday lunchtime by the Hillside staff. In the 3 hours we were there, well over 2 hours was actually waiting for the food to arrive. Not only did they get orders completely wrong but the people who had wrong orders had to wait around half an hour until theirs arrived and we had all eaten ours by the time they eventually turned up. All 4 of us who ordered sides didn't get them until well after we had finished our main dishes and it was half an hour too late. We also were not happy with the quality of some of the dishes. We believed some of the food was microwaved as it tasted reheated. The service was that bad that none of us received our desserts as it took them that long to serve our mains then clear the table we were well past the 2.5 hour mark and the desserts were nowhere to be seen even when asked. It was a diabolical service to which they never received full payment. We will never return to them again such was the terrible service and dubious food quality. They also need to look at the state of their toilets. Their sink waste traps leak so the floor is permanently wet and the sink vanity unit needs to be completely replaced as it's completely water damaged and tired. Update Colin the manager never came back to me directly unlike to others on these reviews so I had to make contact instead via email on the 7/12/22. He did respond initially and stated that if I returned in the new year I'd get a complimentary meal. When I asked if that covered the whole disappointed party of 9 that I had paid for, I never heard back. It seems that Hillside were not actually interested in resolving problems, rather they are paying lip service to look like they are taking your complaint seriously. Well that's 9 customers plus families, friends and colleagues they've lost immediately because of this. This is what happens when you treat customers...

I Attended a works festive lunch at this establishment, and I have to say that the whole experience (Albeit from the laughs I had with my colleagues) was truly awful. Starting with the level of service, bearing in the mind the pub was not that busy when we arrived, was slow to non existent! It took 30mins for the starter course to come out to us. At least we all received all the correct orders, this was not the case with the main course. Most people received their orders with the exception of two of us who had ordered the Christmas lunch (Roast Turkey, all the trimmings) two Turkey pies turned up, which is not what we ordered! so we had to wait, and wait and then wait some more....It got so long waiting I considered 'ordering' from a food delivery service. It was at least 35-40 mins after everyone in our party had their meals that we received our turkey dinners. The main course I had was ok, but a few of us had ordered sides to come out with the main courses....these turned up just after my meal and after complaints to why these were not served at the time of the mains coming out! After everyone had received their main courses we were expectant that the desserts would be a good finish to what was a very, very poor dining experience. Another 30 mins elapsed with no sign of when or if the desserts were indeed going to be served to us. In total we were dining for over 3 hours and we all had had enough, it was decided that we would forgo the dessert course as we were fed up. To the credit of the staff they did at least take some money off the bill and did offer free drinks... which were declined as we all just wanted to leave. Overall a very, very service. the staff members on probably sensed our disappointment and literally gave up themselves. We will NOT be attending this establishment again. the fact I have to award 1 star is a joke because the service doe not...

As a group of 3 people, we had booked this for my Nan's last day in the U.K. as she was due to fly back to Spain on Sunday evening (03/07/2022) My partner had booked us a table inside for a Sunday Roast dinner at 12:00.

Once we arrived at the restaurant, we found the weather to be very good so asked the waitress if it would be ok to sit outside instead, which it was. On sitting down, we found the app obtained through the QR Code on the tables outside, which usually allows customers to order and pay for food & drink didn't work. I went in to ask about this and ordered the drinks inside. A waitress brought out some printed menus for us and then I found myself going in to order the roast dinners.

The food itself was ok and there were good portion sizes. The two meals which were supposed to include stuffing wrapped in bacon were missing these items so we had to enquire for these, along with asking for more gravy as this was also listed to be limitless. A common theme we found was having to go in to ask for things - staff were quite content on being inside without checking on guests to see if their meal was okay - we never got asked this once nor if we required anything, such as condiments (none were on the tables), and nobody bothered to clear away our plates once we had finished (or any of the other tables of guests, even when they had left).

The service for the desserts was sadly no different. We waited over 40 minutes which we didn't think was acceptable considering it wasn't even busy!

Overall, we found the service to be incredibly poor throughout our visit, considering how much we paid. Our previous visit in November last year had been very good but I think yesterday's visit and the lack of consistency in food quality and service would most definitely put us...