The Jubilee Oak — Restaurant in Crawley

Just went in on my own for a meal and a pint to reward myself for a promotion. I waited at the bar for 11 minutes (in a quiet pub and though admittedly they looked short staffed, the staff were being very slow and didn't seem to care about the customers waiting). After the long wait I was finally served by a woman who gave no apology for the wait. I asked for a pint, not wanting to take up time ordering a meal at the bar while others waited. She took my payment, poured the pint, and went to hand it across the bar.

She then took it back as I went to reach for it and decided to ask me for my ID.

I don't carry my ID with me these days (I'm late twenties) but I apologised for this and offered to show my airport work ID as well as another corporate ID that had my name and date of birth. I even offered to show a photo of my passport.

The staff member decided that this wasn't good enough and called over her manager to refund me, which took another 5 minutes.

I was then advised that I wouldn't be receiving a refund because I paid using Apple Pay. I spent 15 minutes in this pub and paid for a pint, only for it to be taken away and poured down the drain without a refund.

I understand that I should have probably brought a drivers license, but I'm frustrated that they didn't ask for this before taking my payment and pouring my drink.

The attitude of the staff really didn't help the situation - I'd expect them to be apologetic as they clearly knew I wasn't underage but...

If I could give less than 1 star, I would....

The presentation of the pub generally was a bit poor (in comparison to quite a few wetherspoons I had been in the past)

When attending the toiletts, some.of them were clearly out of order, not due to a.sign but to toilette roll paper blockage. Clearly not maintained, checked or cleaned reguraly.

And food wise... Well, I don't even know where to start... I will only resume it to the fact that I ordered a maple&chicken salad with bacon to receive what it seemed to be chunks of bacon ripped by hand (or teeth) and a very old and dry chunks of chicken that looked like the left overs from someone elses dish. Not even mentioning the fact that it was hard to touch as if it was left to dry since a day before...

I wish I could have taken pictures of how the presentación of the dish looked, but find attached some pictures of the pieces of chicken and bacon brought to me (completely untouched from me as I only ate the lettice and spinach).

These and more puts in doubt the sanitary standards of this pub....

This could be Rotterdam, or anywhere: Liverpool or Rome... if they had Wetherspoons in Rotterdam or Rome, that is. The point is that it is a Wetherspoons, and you know exactly what you get. A large selection of cheap drinks, you know what you get when it comes to the food, and you know pretty well what the other punters will be like. Staff are overworked (and underpaid) but do their best. On my last visit, Stuart deserves a special mention: very attentive and polite (and even interrupted his break to help out and serve).

The pub is deceptively large (in that the front is not very wide but the pub goes back a fair bit and there's an upstairs, too). The bar, as in so many Wetherspoons, is long.

With the cheapest pints in town it gets busy, and what you sacrifice with atmosphere you make up for with your bank balance. Tim Martin has many things to answer for, but his business model of cheap drinks is s not...