Blue Bell Smallwood — Restaurant in England

After seeing that the Blue Bell had been refurbished - and it having a connection to the Pear Group, I was excited to see what they had to offer (having eaten at Pecks and the Wheatsheaf in Sandbach a number of times previously, I expected great things)

As we entered the restaurant, the smell of delicious food greeted us, and it was fairly busy for a Sunday at 4pm. The decor was lovely, they really have refurbished it well.. im sure i saw that you can see into the kitchen too, it was all very novel.

We had booked for 9 people, for my dad's birthday. Not a big birthday, but aren't all birthdays special? The male member of staff took our order for food, he then came back to ask about drinks - we ordered 4 full fat coke and 1 diet. 4 diet and 1 full fat arrived, hey ho it was loud and it's only pepsi

The stroganoffs that were both ordered with chicken, came without chicken. My daughters meal arrived with mash instead of chips. A female member of staff brought out a plate of chicken for the stroganoffs and replaced the mash (the receipt said Ellen? she was pregnant and the only one who seemed to be doing much)

Then 3 burgers all arrived with rare mince, mine had a stale bun.. literally rock hard. And I'm all for a rare steak but I'm pretty sure that minced beef burgers need to be cooked all the way through.

My nana said that the beef was dry and the veg was hard on the roast.

The male staff member (unfortunately didnt catch his name) came over and asked if everything was OK with the food.. I raised that it wasn't and he seemed to just walk off - didn't say sorry, didn't tell me he was getting a manager.

Ellen? then came over and said she had heard it wasn't OK, and I ran through the issues with her. She was really attentive and tried hard to rectify the situation. She offered replacement food, but frankly it was the worst food I've had in a long time and I politely declined.

She took a percentage off the food bill and removed the service charge, (even after the discount, we still paid £135 so by no means was I looking for a freebie), she also apologised for the experience we'd had and she didn't try and make excuses - so the 3 stars for service are for her and her alone.

Please correct me if im wrong, but if I'm paying near on £20 for a plate of food and over £6 a pint, I expect certain standards. And on 27th October they fell seriously short.

edited to add photo...

We had been looking forward to coming to the pub as we had heard some good things about it since it had reopened.

However our experience was the complete opposite.

We walked in the pub and went into the bar area. We had been out walking all day so had walking clothes and boots on so we didn't really want to sit in the restaurant. If the weather had been nice we would of gone straight into the garden.

We found a table in the bar area and asked at the bar if we were ok to sit there and have food. The young lad we spoke to said he would find out. When he returned he told us we couldn't sit there and had to sit outside if we wanted food. So we enquired about the restaurant area and was told it was full and no tables. He didn't even check. While the restaurants may have been full which it certainly didnt look I was happy to accept that.

However my issue was on returning to the table in the bar area to get my bag I noticed there were menus on some of the tables in that area, and the table we asked to sit on also had condiments on it along with all the other tables in that area. Also they were other people eating in the same area.

So I went back to the bar and explained to another member of staff the situation who then said we should be ok to sit there but never offered any menus and wasn't particularly friendly.

The entire situation didnt make any sense. Why could we eat outside but not in the bar area?

We had our drinks that we had already ordered and paid for and left. Very disappointed with the customer service.

I can't comment on the food as we didnt get the chance to try it. The drinks we had were...

Disappointing! This is the fourth time we've been since the refurbishment and it's no longer impressive. It's run by a big group with 4 beautiful venues but sadly the Bluebell lets the side down. The first time we went after the refurbishment was amazing. The second time was average. Third time I asked for prawn cocktail without sauce but it came with the sauce and then I was told that's how it comes. Tonight was the fourth time. Service was terrible. Long wait for drinks and meals, asked for kids starters and mains to come together straight away as kids were hungry. That didn't happen. Garlic bread came separately and one child's starter came 10 minutes before the other child's starter, followed by chicken goujons for both of them a further 10 minutes later. For mains, overcooked gammon for two of us. Another in our party ordered a prawn lakhsa as she is pescatarian and was told 45 minutes later there were no prawns and she was asked if she could she have chicken instead. Not great. For an established brand in the local area, it was simply not good enough, particularly for the price. The Bluebell needs to up it's game, I'm afraid. We feel we've been fair and given the Bluebell enough chances now but sadly, I don't think we'll be going back. The Brownlow just down the way from the Bluebell is so much better in terms of the food, service and value for money. It's such a shame as the Bluebell is in a fantastic location. The staff are friendly and it has a fab children's play area and beer garden out the back. We really hope...