The Plough — Restaurant in Eastleigh

Very poor customer service received tonight 29th, at The Plough. We arrived around 4pm having prebooked a table to eat later at 6pm. It was my 60th birthday and my daughter-in-law made the arrangements after I suggested trying the Plough. We were expecting several family members to join us for a birthday drink in the garden before going inside to eat, a table for 8 and the others were going home. Sadly it was raining and we quickly relocated inside, where we were instructed by a very abrupt female member of staff, that we could not sit anywhere for a drink except in the far corner on 4 armchairs!! There were around 14 of us at this point. The pub was virtually empty with maybe 30 empty tables, but we were told not to sit at any. This was apparently due to an expected busy evening for the quiz! So at this point they were putting the needs of future quizzers who were not even present above paying customers. Our plan was that anyone else in our party who decided to eat with us would find a table on the day. This was refused. We were told there were no other tables available!! One person in our party needed to eat ASAP as he was working nights and needed food before he went to work. So instead of eating at 6pm with us, he ordered food and sat alone in the garden in the rain to eat his food. The staff member came over again to us and reiterated her instructions that we were not to sit at any tables. You can imagine by this time I felt my birthday was becoming a farce. We noticed some if the tables (not all) had reserved 7.30pm on them. At this point it was 5pm and most of our drinking guests had planned to leave by 6pm anyway. There was no logical reason to not allow our group to have seats. The rest of my guests then left and went elsewhere for dinner leaving just the 8 of us at our table. The same lady then came over and asked if we were now eating, as we had a strict time limit of 1.5 hours to leave!!! None of the above was mentioned when the table was originally booked by phone a few days before. If we had known all this we would not have bothered. After looking at the menu and putting our orders in, 15 minutes had already gone by and then the 8 meals filtered out in two's over the space of 20 minutes. Needles to say, the first meals were finished before the last ones started. While we were eating, another group of 5 people came in from the garden and asked the waitress if they could sit at a particular table for dinner and she said yes, but warned them there would be a quiz on later. So clearly my family that had previously wanted to eat with us at 6pm could have! When our food finally came it was quite nice but fairly small portions for the cost. Definitely overpriced. We decided against buying desserts as we were concerned about the time it may take to receive the food again as we only had about 25 minutes left "on the clock". So, as a group we would have spent a lot more money and had more drinks. It seems a bizarre way to run a business aside from the fact of the terrible attitude the woman showed us, from beginning to end. It may be wise for the management to ensure that future table bookings are prewarned of these odd rules to avoid upsetting other groups of people. Obviously we won't be back and we will be telling the rest of our large family and friends of our...

This was my first visit to The Plough and I'm hoping it won't be my last. We'd pre-booked a table for early evening and were promptly guided to our table on arrival. The place is huge so I was initially worried about how long we'd probably have to wait. But no worries, every member of staff was extremely helpful, cheerful and nothing too much trouble. They'd obviously had a very busy Sunday lunch service during the afternoon as they'd run out of a couple of the extra side dishes. This was explained before we ordered but wasn't an issue for us as our party of four already knew what we wanted to order. Drinks were ordered and arrived promptly, our four roast beef courses also ordered. Speed of service was very efficient but at no time were we rushed. The star of the show was the food. Roast beef, a huge Yorkshire pudding, creamed leeks and peas, red cabbage, carrots, parsnips, perfect roast potatoes and a delicious dark meaty gravy. The beef was perfectly cooked and fell apart in your mouth. Portion sizes were very generous. I was further shocked to find that the meal cost just £10 each! The standard of service was excellent as was the food itself. Apparently they had been non stop since they opened but you'd never have known. The staff were as professional and as courteous as if they had just opened. This was by far one of the best pub Sunday...

Waitress behind the bar with glasses on was extremely rude . Asked me what I wanted then immediately huffed and flapped her hands at me rushing me to choose when she literally just asked me .

The macaroni cheese dish I can only describe as a toddler size portion . The fact it’s £12.95 a plate is disgusting there was more salad than actual proper food . Dishes had already run out (beef Canaloni) and the chilli con carne had more beans in it than actual meat !

And to top it all off the cheesy garlic bread we ordered didn’t come out . Waiting patiently for a few minutes thinking it will come out shortly but never did . In the end I had to ask for it and the waitress attitude sucked as she treated me like I was lying for a freebie as she checked on the system . When it finally did come I extremely they may have run out of cheese as there was next to none on there and clearly had been sat under the heat lamp for far too long .

Wouldn’t go back in a hurry . Staff looked fed up and tired of hearing people moan 3 other tables of customers complained where we were sat .

There was one waitress who was clearly quite new and seemed a little overwhelmed but she tried her...