Duke Of York Brewers Fayre — Restaurant in Dover

So when we arrived we went into the bar to have a drink before sitting down for our restaurant booking, an antiquated system of book your meal at the bar, this type of pub went out with bus conductors in London.

So in the bar, it started with one person taking drinks orders and food orders, which went on for an hour, pretty dismal if I am honest. Person's standing in long queues to order food, quicker at the Toby carvery.

So waiting at the bar and the server tells me, before taking a drinks order that I have to come to his till as he is only logged onto the one, obviously doesn't know how to log on to another till. nearly 10 minutes to get a drink, and many servers walking around and tables so dirty our clothes were sticking to the surfaces.

So we decided to go to the front of house for our booking at 6pm, to be seated next to the kitchen on a dirty table.

The first thing we were told. There is a 40-minute wait for food, I look around the restaurant and I am surprised at this statement that the restaurant isn't busy. Many empty tables.

Meal ordered at the bar after an exceptional wait of 15 minutes, and now we wait for the starters, the mains then went on to take a further 50 minutes to arrive, and the food quality was far from adequate.

So as part of the Premier Inn deal we had to have breakfast here, never again.

We arrived to be told the hot food would be out in a bit as they were just cooking it, we arrived at 9am gor a service that started at 630?

When it all came out we had around 10 people in front of us in the school dinner line.

When we got to the front we went to get plates from the plate warmer, which wasnt even switched on, and most of the plates had to be disguarded as they still had food remains from the last users.

we found the servings where by far too small for the amount of customers, and we then had to wait for more hot breakfast to come out.

The girl serving was asked if there was ant scrambled egg coming out and my wife was curtly told, I can only bring out one item at a time, dripping with sarcasm.

Obviously hasn't mastered using 2 hands yet.

Honestly I won't return to the place, it's not a restaurant it's a school dinner hall with dinner ladies with no idea of customer service.

If I could have I would not have given the one star rating as this place doesn't deserve it.

I welcome the...

This Brewer's Fayre restaurant is attached to Premier Inn East Dover as well as the service station. It has plenty of free parking and is included in the Premier Inn Meal Deal. We initially decided only to have dinner so didn't take up the Meal Deal on this occasion but ended up having breakfast as well , hey ho!

The restaurant is clean and well decorated in the standard wood and brick, pub-resto look. There is plenty of room to park in the free car park.

The staff were very helpful and friendly, we were quickly seated and given a good run down of the food and drink options.

In this case you decide what you want to eat and drink, go to the bar and place your order making sure you make a note of your table number. They will serve any drinks ordered while you wait at the bar and your food is brought to your table once cooked.

I went for the meat pie with gravy and mashed potato, Wifey had the Chicken and hock ham with cheese topping pie, mash instead of chips and peas. Both were very nice.

She also had the compulsory Sticky Toffee Pudding and custard which she loved. She had the 2 cocktails offer and I went for the never ending coffee option.

Overall the food was good pub grub but the portions were a bit on the small side hence why we had breakfast the next day.

They do a continental and Full English breakfast option which are at 2 different price points. Both are limitless however the continental is laud out and self serve. For the Full English the waitress takes your choice of items or you can just plump for the full English and sort your own bread/toast out from the serving tables. Repeat food top ups are available on request. We had the Full English options and they were great and plentiful

Quite often Premier Inns have Beefeater Restaurants attached to them and their menu tends to be less standard pub grub and the portions are bigger so no need to opt for brekky.

I know that, currently, both Brewer's Fayre and Beefeater Restautants are owned by Whitbread Brewery and predominantly attached to Premier Inns but are apparently going to be offered up for sale as per this article. I hope this doesn't cause a drop in the standards they currently hold.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-12203437/Whitbread-speeds-plans-sell-250-Beefeater-Brewers-Fayre-pubs-restaurants.html

No...

Well, I had hung up my "review hat" seemingly for good, but after my visit to the Duke of York today, I felt it was wholly necessary to come out of retirement.

I don't know whether my party or myself had done something wrong to a member of staff in a past life, but to say we were treated differently to every other table around us was an understatement.

Literally getting any service was like pulling teeth, we ordered at the bar whilst tables around us received a more than happy table service?

30 minutes, still no food; ok, I'll ask for the kid's meals at least? "I'll see how long they'll be but I know they are busy" she never returned, I do hope she's ok and didn't get lost?

Eventually my "blue" steak arrived, I'm fairly sure it had been sat on the grill for the whole 30+ minutes as it was black throughout.

When I raised the point with who I assume to be the manager he might as well have snatched the plate from in front of me and ran off, he returned 10 minutes later with a better steak, but although advertised as 16oz, they don't mention that 15oz of it is fat and gristle.

No check back whilst every other table had one, so definitely someone in our group has upset someone at some point.

Certainly reminds me of why it's so long between visits of this "restaurant".

Perhaps they should include a free stay at the travelodge next door to cover the wait time?

Happy to not return any time soon.

EDIT just as we left I had to ask our "server" why the tables around us had received such a contrastingly different service to us, her response was that "they're regulars" and that she kept having to go up and down whatever that means?

So there you have it, if you aren't a regular here you're seemingly unwelcome, and try to sit somewhere where staff members don't have to go...