On Saturday 6/5/23, my friend and I visited the property for a social drink and meal, After ordering our first drinks, we decided to ask for a menu, as there were none to be seen anywhere nearby.

My friend approached a member of staff behind the bar (a young female with blonde hair and wearing glasses) and asked for a menu. However, he was told, "There's a problem with that. We've had someone phone in sick, so we're not serving food".

When he came back to the table and told me, we were both disappointed, but understood and ordered another drink each.

However, we then watched in surprise as we counted five people approaching the bar in turn with menus, and all being allowed to order food. We also watched as two couples (who had come in after us) were served food at their tables.

At this point, my friend and I became rather annoyed, and felt that we were being given excuses, and figured that maybe every few customers were being turned away for food, to ease pressure on the kitchen staff.

However, we both recalled how on a previous visit some weeks ago, when we asked about ordering some food at the Brierley Hop House, we were told that they'd stopped serving. We had thought that this was a little strange, as it was still very early (around 1930 / 2000 from memory) so we asked someone else, and were able to order food.

With this in mind (and back to Sat 6/5/23) I told my friend that I would also ask for a menu, so as a different member of staff approached (a young male) I asked him and he said that he would go and get me one.

Then we watched as he was approached by the staff member who had turned my friend away, and they were talking for several minutes, before he came back and told us that they were not serving food, as there was only one chef on duty.

However, he was prepared to get a menu for us before he was approached by the other staff member, and as we had noticed he was already on duty when we arrived, he most surely would have known about staff shortages beforehand.

I mentioned to him that this was strange, as my friend had been given a similar response when asking for food, yet we had counted five people being allowed to order food after that, and that we had also seen two couples (who had come in after us) being served food.

His response was, "I'm just passing a message on...that's what I've just been told". I told him that we would be finishing our drinks and leaving, and that we would NOT be returning to the premises ever again.

We have been visiting the Brierley Hop House quite regularly, and have always found it to be a nice environment and atmosphere, and have never had any issues there, apart from the two problems ordering food.

My friend also visits regularly when he goes for a walk every Saturday afternoon, but after this latest incident we have decided not to revisit the Brierley Hop House again. On this occasion, we went to the nearby Wetherspoons pub, and enjoyed a lovely atmosphere, friendly staff, various drinks and ordered food when we got there. The food was served very quickly and we both enjoyed it, deciding that the Brierley Hop House was really not worth any future visits, due to the extraordinary difficulty in being able to order food.

We are also sharing our experiences with others in person and via social media, as this is sheer dishonesty on the part of the staff at the property.