There was a workman sanding the top of the door entrance on arrival that was awkward gaining access.

No one was behind the bar when we went inside & so waited for a few minutes for staff to arrive - not a good welcome at 1PM on a Monday lunchtime.

The micro-brew lager I had was OK, but I was expecting a lot more comparing to other micro breweries I have visited. It was nothing special & a tad flat. My wife had G&T and she said it was nice but the glass was worn & tired so it looked dirty - even though it wasn't - but that's off putting when going out to 'wine & dine'.

We were celebrating a birthday so we went for starters & mains from menu. It was a disappointment - and on leaving - there was a very young lady in the kitchen & I was left with the realisation our food had not been cooked by a very experience chef - which explains the quality issues we had with our 3 starters & main. See below for detail on the food items. Starter portion sizes were not value for money at all for £20.

Starters Bread & Oil - nice, no issues. Calamari - very very small portion for £7.50. I expected 5 or 6 whole ringlets for a starter. But it was more like 2 maybe 3 cut into smaller pieces to make it look more - but it was simply too mean a portion. It was slightly overdone, too, but tasty to be fair. Chicken Wings - Jalapeno. This was the best thing we ate out of everything - delicious! again, a bit mean on portion sizes - another 2 or 3 pieces would have made it more value for money.

Main We both had the chicken schnitzel, slaw, chips & onion rings. All the food coating was dark in colour - it had been deep fried too long and in dirty oil. That was obvious by colour of chips and the mixed taste - lingering of fish. The slaw was just purple cabbage with a slither of carrot. it was a bit shrivelled and not tasty at all - dry with no sauce of any kind. I was expecting a normal white cabbage mayo type slaw. The chicken was dry as it had been cremated. The coating was so crispy it was dark brown and breaking off. my wife couldn't cut hers with a knife but she is a bit of a weakling - but it was hard going. The chips were over done - no fluffy potato inside at all - but i was ok with that as I like crispy fries - but these were V crispy. The onion rings were greasy, tasted OK, but didn't look good.

Overall it was poor, edible yes, but portion sizes of starters too small, over done frying of the mains.

Would not go again. Even though it was Monday lunchtime - that is no excuse for a poor experience of an establishment that advertise themselves as a quality food place to eat in Poole, no where near. It was cold in there too , no heating. Still a cold spring day not summer time. Zero atmosphere at the time we visited - no one in the bar except us - should have cottoned on why no one else was there and left and gone elsewhere.