Britannia — Restaurant in England

Can I just start by saying that in my 80 plus years I have eaten army food, hospital food, fair ground food etc. and I have never had a worse meal that I experienced last night. We had arranged to take my wife’s niece , her son and fiancé out for a nice meal to fit in with their visit from Ireland to Northampton for the Rugby clash of the Saints and Munster. Earlier in the week we did a quick visit to the Britannia to see what it was like and book a table for 5 if all was ok. It was not very busy and looked quite nice and we selected a table. Our guests had not eaten since breakfast at their hotel and we arrived at 7.00pm prompt as we were advised if we were 15 minutes late then our reservation would be cancelled - fair enough! We gave our name only to be told our table was taken! The girl did apologise and not at our request did get the the people to move. The place appeared to be busy, which is normally a good sign. We bought our drinks at the bar , while she sorted out the table. After about 20 minutes they came to us at the table and took our order, with myself and the lad ordered starters. At around 8.15 I had to ask when were going to get our starters . 5 mins later they arrived, mine being a crispy chicken concoction and Jack had a mushroom on a slice of bread, which he ate down quite quickly. Mine was hard and really chewy, but I ate it never the less. At around 8.40 I had to go and ask where the main meal was because I had 3 people who who after all that time still not eaten. 5 minutes later a lad apologised and said the food wouldn’t be long and 5 minutes later it arrived. I must say they didn’t look too inviting, sort of had a heated up look about them, but I endeavoured on first by hacking my way into the crust of a so called mushroom pie, eventually breaking it down only for a brown tar like substance to ooze out! I had asked for new potatoes which looked like left overs from chunky chips, my carrots were shrivelled up as were the peas! I did eat the leaf from the broccoli, but I just couldn’t force my self to eat another forkful. Jack was getting stuck into his fish and chips( like any 25 year hungry lad would) , his fiancé was struggling with the sausages she got served up with mashed potatoes, but my wife and her niece were just staring and picking at their dried up smother chicken, which they both agreed was uneatable. I was shocked and angry, to have waited around all that time for that and the fact that I had invited them out for such a meal. The staff I guessed were hiding from us, but I eventually found the girl who took our order and expressed my feelings. She said that she was sorry and would not charge us for what we didn’t eat, so we got up from the table and I settled up for 2 starters and 1 sausage and mash, which came to £45.56, leaving 2 people without a meal and myself just a starter after nearly 2 and a half hours, by now 9.25pm. We got outside and I just did not know what to say to them……. where would we get anywhere to eat at that time of the night? All I can think of is that our main meals were probably cooked at the same time as the starters, then forgotten about until I complained, the starters heated up and served and then a repeat with the main meals ( maybe with the exception of the fish & chips). As I said at the start of this review, this was the worst meal and eating out experience of my life. I felt so, so sorry for our visitors that experienced this English...

Edit to answer pub’s reply: This was 28th June and I can confirm this was told to us by one of your waitresses who took our order.

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Pub had no salad on the menu whatsoever, whether it was as a side or full dish, they ran out. This was explained when we sat down. Disappointing but ok. No substitutes or small discount given for this though.

Ordered medium rare steak, was not medium rare at all, it was really stiff and barely pink. My partner ordered the chicken burger which was supposed to have bacon, sticky bacon & ale jam, roasted garlic mayonnaise and also served with spicy mayo (and salad but they obviously had run out). My partner was served a bun with just chicken and cheese. No bacon, none of the sauces. We pointed it out to one of the waiters who couldn’t see anything wrong with a plain dry burger, we had to grab a menu to point out all the stuff missing. He realised that then but didn’t take the plate to rectify though… then a few minutes later a different waitress comes out with a bowl with two slices of bacon. No sauces. She left before we could even say anything.

We couldn’t be bothered to get someone else to point out the stuff missing again as food would’ve gone cold, so we just put up with it at this point.

Then, we started eating and annoyingly, a waiter just kept walking by our table to see if we were done eating. He was really obvious, walking and tilting his head. This happened every 2/3 minutes, we felt watched and rushed.

We were disappointed as it was our first time at this pub and the atmosphere is lovely, we thought it could be our new go-to but the service and food were terrible. We would perhaps be back for drinks but I’d rather give my hard-earned money to a...

We arrived for our reserved meal a little early. However we were initially greeted warmly and took over to our table. The decor and the premises was lovely and appreciated. Once sat at our table we were given the basic menus. After a fair while the waiter came and took our drinks order. I asked if there was a special menu (I had already seen this at the staff station). The waiter casually said they are on the wall, I asked for a menu and he said he would get one but there wasn't much available. I think he was a little thrown as he couldn't remember what was present and was off the menu. A fair while after our drinks arrived, shockingly the wine was given in a gin glass. The waiter apologised and said we are out of wine glasses. We looked around and saw only a few tables. Surely you have more wine glasses than a few. I then went to the ladies where I genuinely struggled to get into the cubicle ( I am a size 12 for context). The wallpaper was falling away from the wall. The cutlery on the table was not matching. Considering it has recently been closed for a re vamp we were not impressed. The waiter also failed to ask if we had any allergies. My husband has a milk allergy so he avoids food containing milk however for a customer it is reassuring when the kitchen are aware of such allergies. Finally the food arrived after 1.5 hours. The food was absolutely delicious and cna not be faulted. If it wasn't for the food being awesome I would have written a formal complaint today. We usually as a family do have dessert when we are out however on this occasion we found the service so poor we just wanted the bill and left. I feel the front of house needs a...