Downs Hotel — Restaurant in England

I tried to keep this as fair as possible, as I do know it's under new management and this is(I think!) the first large hot weekend they've had since opening so please take with a grain of salt, as this could have just been a rushed day!

Pros: The refurb is beautiful! Fantastic work. The atmosphere felt great, the outside decking area looks wonderful, albeit right next to a major road through Woodingdean, it still seemed like a really nice place for a sit in the sun with a drink.

The staff were super friendly, very apologetic and always smiling. The food came out sizzling hot! Once ordered we did get our drinks and food really quickly.

Whoever the lovely waitress with the purple hair is, she deserves a raise! I never saw her stop working, she was waiting on an entire area nearly alone, while also taking orders for new tables, managing to clear tables to get them ready for new patrons and all while still polishing silverware.

So many lovely dogs everywhere!!! If you're heading here for a quick drink at the bar, I think it's perfect!

Cons: Too. Many. Staff. They weren't interested in taking our order for drinks or food while we sat and waited. It took us going to the bar, to be told they take orders at the table but we didn't know as we were there for around 15/20 minutes before this happened.

There were quite a few times where we had to flag someone down from the bar as they were joking around and not really paying attention to the tables who needed help / were ready to order. They also didn't give us our extras and we had to flag down a waitress to request them.

The food could do with some work as it was quite bland and not very nice, considering it was around £16 each with extras, we just expected the food to taste good. Roast potatoes were soft, mashed potato tasted powdered, cauliflower cheese was watery and the Yorkshire's were pre made. Some of it was fine (the pigs in blankets and the veg were lovely :) )

The drinks are a little pricy, a small glass of wine (125ml) was on average £5/£6 which seems quite steep considering the quality of the food, you could make the price of the drinks cheaper.

Please reconsider allowing dogs inside, or at least maybe where the eating area is, as we had two quite lovely large dogs at the table next to us, but it left us with no room to move our chairs without the fear of crushing a tail or a paw. It's also a huge hygiene concern when there's food and people eating with a large dog right near their face. I watched multiple Waitresses fuss over dogs and then go into the kitchen and bring plates of food out 10 seconds later which grossed me out a bit

Overall: I don't think we'd return on a Sunday for the lunch unless the food supply is improved but we'd love to return for a few drinks in the future :) Thank you for overhauling this pub and giving it a new lease of life, it was definitely needed and it 100% passed the vibe check, but I do think some minor adjustments could send you guys on the right path.

Thank you and I really hope to come back some day for a banging...

First night in their superior room with 4 poster bed, bathroom dirty, with mould on ceiling and in shower, decided not to use it, no heating in room, reported this and was given a heater. Bed was comfy. Tried to book next 6 nights in a single ensuite, website states buy 2 nights get 3rd free, owner disputed this and claimed her website did it without her permission, regardless, it was there, still on there 3 days later. Finally got 3 nights booked at cost of 2, glad I didnt do all 6. Room was clean enough, bed was comfy, although there was mould all over shower, which wouldn't produce hot water. Noise from toilets and pub patrons downstairs extremely loud until midnight. 2nd night, still no hot water in shower, was woken to the sound of rain over spilling the moss clogged gutters onto plastic corrugated roof directly outside window, rain stopped at 6.30am. Breakfast was adequate. After complaining again about the shower was moved to another room, this one had a cleaner shower that was inside the room, next to the bed. I'm 5' 2" and could barely reach the shower light switch and power button, couldn't reach temp controls but luckily it was set to decent temp. Shower head ridiculous, water going everywhere, a few reached me. Bed extremely uncomfortable, felt like I was slowly being tipped out which caused me to wake a few times. Less noise from downstairs. Most of the staff were polite and friendly. This could have been a great place to stay, especially as it's so close to Nuffield hospital, locals advised me of Airbnb's nearby and noone had anything nice to say about the Downs. I left with relief and without a backward glance, my reason for being here was stressful enough, staying at the Downs increased it needlessly. Environmental Health should pay a visit. Do not stay here if you have a choice, I'm glad I found somewhere else for my last 3 nights. External door to rooms has a pigeon nest, which has covered the ground in droppings, these are tracked into the hotel and then into your room, pigeons and their droppings are a known health hazard yet no effort to keep this area clean is being made. I avoided this door which means going through the bar every time I...

I visited the restaurant with my daughter and granddaughter on Saturday 18th September at around 4pm. The restaurant at that time only had 4 other people seated and eating. My daughter ordered sausage and mash, my granddaughter had the plant based burger and I ordered the turkey & ham hock pie. We were surprised that we had to wait 35 minutes for our food considering that we were the only ones ordering food as the other 4 people in the restaurant were already eating. While my daughter and granddaughter were happy with the food they had I was extremely disappointed with my plate of food. When the waitress came to clear the plates I told her how disappointed I was. The pie was all pastry and I had to search for any meat in it, the carrots, parsnips and broccoli were obviously left over from lunchtime and reheated and were totally inedible. The pork, cranberry & fig stuffing was so dry and hard I couldn’t put my fork into it and the rich beef gravy was cold. As I was hungry I ate some of the potatoes and the pastry only. The waitress didn’t offer much of an apology and just cleared all the plates from the table. Then to add insult to injury we were totally ignored by the staff. We weren’t offered the dessert menu or coffee and my granddaughter had to go to the bar to ask them to bring us the bill as we just couldn’t get their attention. I paid the bill in full even though £17 for what I was able to eat was outrageous. My family and I have eaten there before and have always been happy but after Saturdays visit we will never go again and that is mainly because of the appalling customer service. An apology and some attention from the staff would have made...