Ferry Boat Inn — Restaurant in East Suffolk

The four of us "ate" at the Ferry Boat Inn on Monday 25th August. We placed our order at 12:40. After a long wait (expected to be 30 mins when we placed our order) two starters turned up - one correct, one wrong. After another 30 minutes, someone came out and said that there had been a mix up with our order and instead of camenbert the order taken had been for calamari. (This doesn't explain why 2 starters came out instead of 4 - it turned out they delivered the food to the wrong table too).

The manager insisted that he had to process a refund the calamari, and take the order for the camembert and have us pay for that (apparently the till makes it mysteriously mandatory to refund each wrongly added meal and then charge for the correct one rather than having any sort of common sense style mechanism for just adjusting the total). This also appeared to return us to the end of the ever growing food queue (now advertised as a 45 minute wait). Finally, after another eye widening long wait the starters came out.

After the starters there was, now fairly predictably yet another long wait. In the end I chased the main course, and let them know if it was much longer we would have to leave. I hate being that sort of customer, but we had now been at the pub for over two and a quarter hours. A few minutes later the manager came out and he told us that our order had been lost, and that they could make it now for us. We declined and were told (and I quote) "I will refund you for all of your meals" - which we I think understandably took to mean refunding for all the food we had ordered. Given we had wasted over two hours waiting (and also been buying drinks in that time, we felt refunding all of our food was a fair recognition of the poor experience and reflected our wasted time too) Apparently however this was not what he meant, as the refund only totalled the main courses that had never arrived.

When we queried that, we were told by the same manager that it wasn't his fault, because the errors had occured in the kitchen!! So, presumably short of going into the kitchen and requesting the kitchen staff hold themselves responsible for the abject failure to deliver any food, there was little else we could do at that point. I always understood that a business delivers the experience to the customer as a whole. What a way to throw your stressed and busy kitchen staff under a bus too by the way. Shame on you.

So, in summary, we spent two and a half hours having a starter at the Ferry Boat Inn, and the manager there considers compensation to mean refunding you for what they never made for you in the first place. I would argue that to not refund food that you never prepared or served would be tantamount to theft, rather than any gesture in any way to reflect a truly awful experience. Even my wife, who genuinely hates any sort of fuss, couldn't believe it and felt she wanted to speak to him about it too. It was a total shambles. I met my wife's parents in that pub, and we have been visitors there over many years. It held a special place in our history in terms of significance and we have gone there on special occasions (as today was supposed to be) due to the history we have there. Now it holds a different place, and for all the wrong reasons. It is fair to assume that we will not be going there again. Such a shame to see how far...

Beware false reviews! This highlights the problem with Google Reviews.... too open to abuse because of the low volume of reviews/standing compared to TA (Trip Advisor). I also find a lot of false reviews written by the competition. On TA, The Ferry Boat has 95 reviews (but 5 bad ones here?) with good, even scores for Food, Service, Value and Atmosphere. The majority of people class it overall as "VERY GOOD" and more that ate there rated it is "Excellent" than all of those reporting a disappointing experience (poor or terrible) put together. When I worked in Felixstowe there it suffered from not having enough decent places to drink or eat, also they're insulated from the sort of prices people are used to paying for good food in nicer parts of the county, I don't think £4.50 is over the top for a dessert as one reviewer thought (If you feel that way go to Wetherspoons or other chain value eateries in Ipswich instead!). Also we also saw a lot of elderly and retired people eating there - the couple we spoke to said they come every week and love it - who generally are not the types of people to review their experiences online. Anyway, on to my review:

Many of our family travel down to The Ferry Boat for meals or an afternoon by the coast, despite living around Bury St. Edmunds. Why? Because in the 6 months that we've gone, the food is consistently excellent, the staff friendly and helpful. It ticks all the boxes and I have no hesitation giving it 5 Stars (check my other reviews - this is not always the case!). It may be that it's really pulled it's socks up over the last year, as a lot of the lower scores were some time ago, or like here there may be some malicious false reviewing as on Google Reviews. Even friends and family who are fussy - look for faults, refuse to eat in Wetherspoons etc - they have spoken highly of the place, the most often quoted phrase being "More like restaurant quality food & service at pub prices". If I ever had an experience to the contrary I'd be the first to post it up here or on TA. Their menu is good (it's online take a look) and I've no hesitation in recommending the place. Last tip: worth booking, and getting there early as it's a beautiful area for a walk along the beach or the river...

Me and my partner decided to come down as we were excited to see it was open again , when we arrived my partner went to the bar to order a drink , there were 4 members of staff behind the bar talking to each other , the male member of staff was hinting to another member of staff to come and serve but they continued to talk until they had finished there conversation , to then he was served . After sitting outside looking at the menu , I decided to go in to order . When I arrived at the bar , the male bar staff was having a deep conversation to a customer, so thought it was rude to interrupt. The young waitress asked if I was ok and smiled , I stated I just wanted to order some food . She just smiled at me and carried on wiping the table .... She kept looking to see if the bar staff was going to serve me but continued to wipe tables and ignore what I had said . I waited 5 minutes and gave up , said to the waitress, to not worry about it as it was pointles to keep on waiting. She smiled as I walked out to my seat outside . I think there's always a saying , that the customer comes first , there were 4 young bar staff , one outside one the phone , one cleaning tables , one talking to a customer which already had a drink full and the other was no where to be seen . I find this very disappointing as we used to love coming to this pub, I think there needs to be a lot more training and communication. To work in a pub, isn't to socialize with the staff it's to communicate with the customers. I really hope this will change as we would love to come back to...