Blue Ball Inn — Restaurant in East Devon

On the 6th of March a few friends and I had spent the day travelling from Suffolk for a holiday and needed a good meal. Unfortunately we had to find a place we could also bring our dog - As it was recommended by the Landlord we headed down to The Blue Ball where we found that they are dog friendly in both the pub and restaurant. The pub is on the edge of the village with beautiful views in most directions and a beautiful old thatch roof building to host in such a lovely venue. When coming through the front door you find a lovely entrance way splitting the bar from the restaurant. It was only a momentary wait before being greeted by the staff with warm smiles before being led to a table. The interior of the restaurant side is open, spacious, well lit and well decorated with various paintings and brasses to break up the old style timber creating a warm and welcoming feeling.

The cook times for each course varied between 10 and 15 minutes with only a short 5 minute wait for our drinks - The selection of drinks is wide and varied with many local ales and beers and ciders, as well as a very refreshing menu of non-alcoholic drinks too : The Blue Ball sports an impressive selection of wines giving me and my travelling companions a taste from home with a Pinotage from South Africa at a reasonable price. On each table dining, a bottle of water was given and refilled - With food that was served it is good to cleanse the pallet to enjoy every spectacle of flavour packed into each meal.

Throughout the whole night we had wonderful service from all of the staff, they were all extremely well presented and punctual - they were all very expressive and happy to answer all questions we had for them. The staff create a wonderful vibe in the pub and keep a warm atmosphere.

The pub itself has a bit of a Tardis effect, from the outside the building looks to be of a decent size, but once you find yourself walking around in the pub you find that it is so much bigger than it seems, With 3 distinct seating areas, a massive wrap around bar, carvery station and a private hall it seems to be the pub that just keeps on giving - The facilities in the pub look as if they had been cleaned regularly, with a good and open layout with plenty of room, with both a fragrant hand soap and hand cream both being offered. Furthermore there is a wonderful outside area with seating, ashtrays and blankets provided - A really nice touch to an otherwise great pub. Whilst we were on our holiday this pub was our local, and it really did make a great watering hole with loads of personality. The pub side of the venue with lovely and cosy with a fireplace and a unique touch I had not seen before - Trivial Pursuit cards on all of the tables, As a hospitality manager myself I love this concept, It worked well to keep all entertained on our nights out here - The regulars and other visitors of the pub where very warm and welcoming to us all - It definitely made our stay in Sidford. We will definitely be...

Firstly the food and drinks were good, at a good price.||Matt is very professional and caring and the staff are willing but mostly untrained - this is hospitality at the moment. But we’re all nice and well presented and being trained isn’t their responsibility anyway.||I would have given the venue 4* if food and drink were all we go out for, but you can have nice food and drink at home nowadays. ||What we go out for is the extra bit - the service and the atmosphere and environment. This is where the place fell down for us.||When 3 of us found the food tepid, having already let the horrible and unprofessional “welcome” go and then the fact we had reordered drinks three times to then be asked if we could remind them of our order choices… we thought if we just eat we’ll be told well you can’t complain you’ve eaten it all. So we asked Matt to speak to the Manager.||And then it just got ridiculous. The owner arrived and I asked to have a quiet word away from the table. I didn’t want my parents to have to get involved when they were treating us (they are elderly and I wanted to be discrete) and I didn’t want the other diners to see we were talking to the owner/ unhappy as they might draw conclusions. But I was basically told if I had something to say it could be said at the table 😳. ||He then told us that hospitality is suffering, he had 141 covers and couldn’t have enough staff on (so take 120?!), the Labour Party mean it’s only going to get worse.. “this isn’t McDonalds” (we had waited half an hour and it seemed a bit long when we had no starters and drinks had taken forever and then it arrived quite cold…) ||And then we ended up with “look what do you want?”||And we said we felt one meal to be taken off the menu would feel appropriate. This was greeted with a “oh well if that will make you happy”.||So to be honest there is one person letting this place done and it’s sadly the owner so when you can go somewhere like Dukes or the Bedford for the same price and by the sea I know where I’ll...

We went to the blue ball for Sunday lunch, the staff explained that they were short staffed in the kitchen so there would be a delay on food. We thought this would be fine as we were in no rush and the staff were very polite. After an hour of waiting once we had ordered and seeing other people’s food come out even though they had arrived and ordered after us we inquired with a member of staff what was happening and that we had been waiting for over an hour. The staff member said “that’s crappy” so we asked to see the manager who said he would find out what had happened. He then returned and explained they had given out food to someone else, we stated that we really weren’t happy and explained to him that we had had our wedding at the blue ball and we couldn’t fault it there when the previous management ran the pub and it’s clearly got a lot worse since then. We asked the manager for the bill as we were so unhappy with the service, he did give us a discount on our drinks, I asked for him to bring the card machine so we could pay immediately. He ignored this and walked off so we left the correct cash on the table with the bill. After leaving he then rang me to ask why we hadn’t paid, I told him that the money was on the table with the bill. He told me and would check and that of it wasn’t correct he would be ringing me back. We had an awful experience and won’t be returning even though it’s a 10 minute walk from where we live and would encourage anyone of thinking of going there to make...