The Douglas Bader — Restaurant in East Suffolk

The Lady owner is racist. I am an Indian. In November I along with my family and one of my neighbor went for a dinner. On the same day we booked a table for 16th December for Christmas dinner with my neighbors and for 31st December for my family to celebrate New Year. I asked the owner Lady about where they going to set up the band on New year Eve. She told me and I booked the front table on name of my wife. On 16th we along with my 8 neighbors went there and had fun. On New year Eve when I reached there with my wife and 15 years old son. I found out she changed my table without prior information. There was a hand made sticker with cello tape on it. Which says this table is reserved for " Name". It was unorthodox for me because I never saw this kind of hand made sticker to reserve the table. I was confused and looked for the owner. She was there but she was avoiding to exchange looks. Finally I met her and I asked why you changed my table. She replied "she had to. Because you are 6 people and I had a booking of 12 people that's why why shuffle it. Than I said " No, we are only 3 . " She mumbled and said " I am not going to shuffle it". I said " but you gave me your word. It that means something or nothing". She replied with the same " not going to shuffle". Than my hold me and said why to ruin our eve have fun. Later in the night I found out that the Lady owner allocate our reserved table to her friend. Because I saw her talking to her friend and at 0000hrs she sung a song with her on the bands mic. I was shocked. I asked my wife if there is any English customer instead of us, would she have done the same? It effected me deeply in my heart and mentally as well. Douglas and Bader is my first pub in England. So I am bit attach to it. I still have receipt of that night with me. I know it's been more than a month. But it took me time to...

I really use 2 enjoy the bader for good food at an honest price however today has really disappointed me. We arrived happy and ordered our food (which we expected a short wait for as it was busy) after an hours wait we asked for an update on our order which had not even been started and were told the order will be ready in 20 minutes. After waiting another half hour we asked again to be told in was then being started. By this time this kids were moaning and we were all hungry so we got a refund and left. There were many tables complaining today the delays were unacceptable tables were missing items 1 table half the party had food and had eaten while the other half had a ridiculous wait and left with only half the people eaten. It seemed that the chef was only concentrating on roast dinners anything else had 2 wait and got pushed back once more roast orders came through. I honestly felt sorry for the 2 young waitresses who were on the front line dealing with all the complaints and trying there hardest 2 rectify the problems. Understaffed is an understatement and until this get resolved my custome will be lost. Also it was not professional in the kitchen when the complaints came and we could hear the chef swearing and cursing. I hope the issues are addressed soon as I did enjoy a nice family...

I think the review by Andi Shepherd was rather unfair and ageist. There is a retirement home complex near to the Bader so it is quite reasonable that the residents would meet up in the pub for lunch. What would Andi have them do - stay in their flats and dine alone. I visit the Bader regularly and there are generally young people and families in there as well. Yes Andi, old and young can coexist in the same pub. Please try to be more tolerant - you might be old one day. (And no, I am not one the residents of the retirement home complex!)

I would agree it's not exactly haute cuisine, but it's not bad and is good value. I especially like the puddings. So many pubs have become solely "destination" pubs, put up their prices, and no longer provide the traditional local pub for local folk. There is a riverside pub in the area which has no bar seating at all now and the locals mostly do not use it any more. The Bader still is a "local" but also seems to get custom from a wider area.

In terms of hygiene the Bader got a 5 Star rating in Feb 2013 according the Food...