Bear Inn — Restaurant in England

So, we went to order food and was told multiple items were not on the menu, due to apparently being really busy that day (lunchtime) from my actual experience I think the truth of it is, the chef couldn’t cook anything more than a microwave meal. The drinks from ordering took approximately 35 minutes to turn up, in which time I had nearly dehydrated and was rather agitated. We waited a further 25 minutes before we asked about our food. At which point we were offered an extra round of drinks because we had waited so long, and then To be told, it’s next off the grill. So we waited and waited and waited a little bit more. Hurray the food came round the corner! Presentation wasn’t too bad apart from the scampi, which may I add was third choice as the first 2 was apparently out of stock. Well, 7 little bits of scampi, 10 maybe 12 chips. More of a children’s portion as the scampi just look like the stuff you buy in Iceland, Very small. Also 2 signature burgers. Signed off by the fact they were charcoal. Presentation wasn’t too bad. I just feel after tasting it, they had been left on the grill for about 30 minutes so were extremely dry and hard. Now I totally understand why the little girl on a table near by was crying about her burger tasting not very nice. We decided not to eat this food and told the waitress lady who went to report to the kitchen (never returned to us). Upon leaving the manageress asked us why we were leaving to which I had to repeat all over Again what had happened, bearing it mind it was roughly 7:40 and everyone was hungry and just wanted some decent food elsewhere. To then which she asked us how are drinks were. Under the circumstances I feel this was totally irrelevant and had to point out that our free round is drinks from 25 minutes ago hadn’t turned up. Not to even be offered a complimentary meal to encourage us to return to your establishment after this...

Last minute booking, and arrived just before the check in deadline. Was directed to a building 50yds down the road. A double room, with a bath/shower and a smaller room with a single bed. In information on wifi, TV was set to polish language, and the clock was set to the year 1970, so didn't work. The TV in the small room didn't work. Eventually got 2 or 3 channels with the help of the night porter, whose phone wasn't working, so I had to walk back up the road to the main building to find him. However, by the morning, the TV was back to polish and no channels, so couldn't see the news/weather. There were also 2 separate storage rooms attached to the 'suite', which were unlocked, open and in a disgusting state. Also, the smoke detector (apparently newly installed) had been disassembled and partially removed. In the bathroom were open ended soap 'dispensers', obviously shared and refilled continuously. Not hygienic at all and certainly not what I'd expect from a 4 star, £100 a night room. Also, no sweeteners with the kettle and instant. Full English breakfast was small - 2 rashers, one sausage, one egg, one mushroom, a spoonful of beans and a cherry tomato. Coffee was destroyed by the choice of sweetener, which again wasn't initially offered. On checking out, I showed the photos I had taken and asked if they really thought my experience was worth the £100+ . This was met with the response that they'd 'got engineers coming' , and I was offered a mere 20% off. I...

When we arrived, we waited for a good 5 minutes by the entry stand before anyone came to take us to our table. When we got to the table, we waited again for someone to come to take the drinks order. The drinks took 10 minutes to arrive, by which time the serving staff had taken our order for food. The starters arrived in an acceptable time frame BUT they had missed one starter from the order; so we had to wait for that. We then ordered our next lot of drinks which took so long that two of our party went to the bar to collect them. The mains arrived, and the food was pretty good - although my husband had a pie with veg, and there was an enormous gap on the plate (it really looked half empty!). We had desserts, which were very good. The final issue with our experience was the confusion over the bill; two of our party had the set menu and the other two picked from the main menu. It was a bit of a fiasco! So, in summary, there are more staff required as the servers were just not covering the tables in a suitable service fashion. The wait for the drinks was ridiculous. The food was good, but nothing special. The way the bill came was a joke, as initially everything had been charged on the main menu prices, not the two on the Set Menu. In summary with SO MANY places to eat in Street, The Bear needs to up its game on service and, to some extent, the food. Sadly we decided that we wouldnt be coming back as it could have been a...