Denison Arms — Restaurant in England

Been here before & enjoyed... Gotta say though it's gone downhill, I came here to review but saw the last two were from the incident I observed, that has put me off. The man choked, was treated like he was a problem & staff kept focusing on him potentially vomiting, embarassed him, maybe focus on the medical situation? Have compassion? & I also heard some odd comments about the welfare of their dog which was so uncalled for. We didn't stay. It was so uncomfortable. Asking for truthful reviews & getting friends to post A* ones since is shoddy. Can confirm the reviews are true! Dunno what's happened since my last visit but can no longer recommend. Give it a miss!

** Owner replied, but I conveniently have no way to reply to them...

"Can we ask when you visited today ?" You know when the incident occurred so asking isn't needed & saying there was only one other couple sitting & eating food... Is implying I'm lying. It's not a road you should go down if you're the respectable business you imply you are.

I'm ignoring the rudeness, As i said we didn't stay, because of what we saw.

'No one was asked to leave' I didn't say anything about anyone being asked to leave?? I can see the reviews left from the people involved did, but I didn't see that.

'unwell and his clothing soiled' I saw a man choking & you gave him water, which he coughed while trying to drink. You're a food establishment, choking is a very real risk. You treated him (& I can see in the language you are using as well) As less than human.

'Not quite understanding your comments on “ friends leaving reviews ???'

After what I saw today & then two reviews left from the people involved. (That you're suggesting are false reviews) Followed by someone leaving a glowing one...to me that looks suspect.

As for relying on customers honest reviews, maybe take them on board? You have three here you are doing your best to make look like lies and that won't build you customer trust!

'It can be very damaging for anyone trying to do their job to their best abilities' please refrain from trying to guilt trip. The correct response should be:

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with us today, I can assure you this is not usually the normal service that we provide. Thank you for your feedback today we will be taking it into account moving forward when we put our best efforts into training our staff fully in safeguarding, first aid, customer welfare & customer service. I'm sorry you didn't feel welcomed or comfortable enough to stay with us today and we will work on this moving forward.

Maybe try that next time & learn to apologise. As I said we left, we went elsewhere, we will not be making a trip to you again.

*more edits due to another response this owner knows I can't reply to.

This isn't a battle. It's an honest review which you are too bull headed to take on professionally so are accusing me of leaving false reviews.

Looking me up online & looking through my old reviews is kind of creepy. Infact that's kind of unsettling behaviour.

The more you come at me for sharing an experience in your establishment that made us feel unsafe, the worse you look & it's doing a better job at convincing people to stay away than my review would on its own!

Anyway now you've stalked me, you can see from my past reviews on Google the years that span inbetween which shows you I don't often have bad experiences & I only review when I do.

My good experiences are usually expressed to the people in person.

You will have also now seen my very real review about a very real medical emergancy we had in a food establishment with my young daughter...

So maybe seeing what we did in yours, goes some way to explain why we felt uncomfortable & left.

If you treated that man that way, how would you treat us? In short we weren't hanging around to find out & warning others about it, is my right.

It's what reviews are for, If you can't handle that (& you have proved you can't) do better.

Wherever that family are, I hope they are OK & it didn't ruin...

Had Sunday dinner here with my parents - booked table for 4pm. When we came in it was obvious they didn’t have the reservation written down and asked if we wanted a table for 3. They then set a table for us. It wasn’t busy (some people sat at the bar) so basically could have set up any table in the whole pub.

Ordered 2 small dinners and one large (one small portion of veg came) was enough for maybe 2 people but barely. Had to ask for extra portion.

We finished and the plates were collected but the staff didn’t ask if wanted desserts or drinks - sat with empty glasses at this point. I asked if we needed to order drinks at the bar in the end and they said they would get us the drinks.

This did then make sense though at 5.05pm when one of the staff put a sign on the table saying booked from 5:30pm and walked away. I found this slightly annoying but figured we did have 1.5 hours from table booking time of 4pm so fair enough.

Then by 5.10pm the staff were literally hovering at the table waiting for us to go. The people who made the 5.30pm booking had turned up 20minutes early and they wanted the table. I just don’t understand why they put us on this one table that they needed back by before 5:30pm and I also don’t understand why they wanted us off the table 20mins before the booked time just because the other people had turned up. We made a booking just like they did. In the end we were being crowded by the people who came for the table and the staff and I just wanted to get out of there at this point (my dad still had half his pint) - a lot of the other tables were reserved as well but obviously this particular one was booked earlier than the rest as they were all still free at this point. Generally just thought the whole thing was really poorly managed and rude, as it felt as though we literally got rushed out of the pub.

Not sure if we were charged extra for the veg or not as I didn’t even have a second to look at the bill.

All in all just not a good experience and pretty...

Visiting the area and called in on Friday evening.

Found a table and went to the bar to make staff aware of our presence so I could get some menus and if we were okay sitting on any table that wasn't reserved. Upon speaking to the barmaid it was made to feel like I should have gone to the bar first upon arrival before sitting down? (Bearing in mind there were quite a few empty tables). Was giving two menu's but no kids one which I had to look up online.

Went back to the bar to order and it was only then did the same barmaid who gave me the menu's let know that there might be a delay with ordering food - great! But of course I could order some drinks whilst we waited and the waitress, Polly I think, would take our order.

So we waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually the waitress came to take our order and my wife asked how long the food was going to be as we had a one year old with us. We were given a time so placed an order. She did apologise for the delay and that she was under instructions from the kitchen. Time was getting on and our one year old was getting more restless and I very nearly cancelled the food order a few minutes before it arrived.

When the food did arrive it was nice but by this point we'd have eaten anything.

To be fair none of this was the waitresses fault who was really friendly throughout but did seem to be on her own without any assistance from the bar staff who were just talking amongst themselves. She was having to let other tables know about the delay in the kitchen and should have had some help to serve tables waiting to place orders for as long as they were.

Overall a bit disappointed by the whole experience really and personally I didn't think the pub looked that busy when we went (finally got food around 6:30pm) so I'd hate to see it busy.

Will hold my hands up if I should of gone to bar on arrival first but the overall service feedback...