Norway Inn — Restaurant in England

My friend and I chose to have a meal here today, she had previously visited saying that she was made to leave her table after 45 minutes, never been anywhere that gives you such a stringent time slot... but there you go.

We arrived at 12, were seated by the girl at the front desk who was rather rude to my friend after she raised the previous issue of being made to leave after 45 minutes saying that "yes thats right you get an hour and a half on our tables". We were assured that we had 2 hours on our table because my friend had raised the issue with the manager, she then told us we could have the table until 3pm. After being patronised by her we were then ignored for half an hour, then asked by a different girl if we wanted drinks.

Eventually we were asked what we would like to eat, we said we'd both like a carvery please, we were told that we "would be called when it was ready" bearing in mind that it was all served up on the hot counter. We sat and waited, seeing at least 4 other pairs of patrons arrive (since we had arrived), sit and be served their carvery within minutes of them being seated. We waited over an hour and had to ask if we could be served yet. The young lady was very polite and went to find out if we could go up, she came back immediately saying we could.

The beef was perfect, the gammon was tasty, the potatoes were lovely. The veg was hit and miss with some of it being burned, dry and undercooked. The stuffing was hard!

After this we waited a further half an hour before being asked if we would like anything else, we asked for a dessert menu. We ordered crumble which was divine but this was another long wait, we ordered it at 2:20pm, it arrived at 2:55pm, bearing in mind we had to vacate the table at 3pm.

I don't like leaving a bad review because the place is amazing but feel that after my friend had made a point of saying about being evicted early last time that we were being treated unfairly. This seemed to follow on when we paid the bill. The girl from the front desk took charge of this and was again very rude and abrupt to my friend when she was telling her which part she was paying for, "save your breath" is I believe the phrase she used. This is unnecessary and unacceptable for front of House staff.

Having visited the Norway Inn many years ago and hearing of its high reputation, I am incredibly disappointed.

It wasn't even THAT busy there today so the excuse of being run off their feet can't be used....

A good venue for a decent meal and peaceful night's sleep in a convenient location. Some niggles. +++ Liked · The rooms were clean, nicely decorated and the beds were v.comfortable. Functional and clean bathrooms - with heated/steam free mirrors - always a nice touch. The bedroom anciliary double-gazing worked well to significantly reduce the passing traffic noise to the front (since property is right on the A39). The included breakfast was tasty. This is a friendly, cosy and clean Pub in an ideal location for both Truro and Falmouth (being roughly midway). We had the Sunday Carvery and thought that this was tasty and reasonable value for money. Although we did experience some issues, we would likely consider staying again. Our summary would be that it's a good venue that has the potential to be great, with some further attention to basic details (like: functional bedroom heating & more joined-up bar service).

Disliked · The in-room heating (appeared to be wall mounted electric oil-filled radiators) could NOT be made to function in either of our rooms AT ALL - giving the appearance of being past their best, with illegible small LED control panels - for which there were no instructions supplied. This was faulted-out to the staff on our first evening (of a 3 night stay) and, although we were informed that "the manager will come out tomorrow" - these were NEVER successfully remedied whilst we were there. We were provided with a small portable oil-filled radiator, which served our purposes OK - but suggest that, once frosts and 'proper' Winter sets in, the inability to heat bedrooms effectively will very likely prove to be an issue for future guests(!) Although the staff were generally very friendly, there was an occasion on one of the evenings, when a drinks/snack order was placed with the passing staff member - and after a 10 mins plus wait (were thinking just how long does it take to pour 2x drinks and grab a bag of snacks?) - the same staff member was chased, only to receive the reply: "The receipt machine is broken, so the order didn't go through..." - SO... have a backup system, then maybe?!!! (possibly we'd still be waiting?) Another observation was that many of the staff appeared to be very young and had the air of being rather inexperienced... but then we guess that everyone has to...

We needed to find somewhere early evening to eat, before going on to an event in Falmouth. With such a large list of places in Falmouth itself, many of them offering not much more than burger n chips, or catch of the day, I looked at others along the way, including the Norway Inn, but needed to know that we could have our Weimaraner with us. So I emailed them to ask. While we there, the service was prompt, the prices were very competitive, and staff were helpful, enthusiastic, and friendly, as indeed were some of the other patrons who also wanted to say hello to our dog. Back to the email I sent, the response they sent me was also prompt and this is what it said, "Hi, Simon You are more than welcome to bring your fur baby along with you to your dinner reservation. Please be warned the staff will be armed with plenty of treats and cuddles." This wonderfully personable style of lighthearted humour resonates very well with us, showing me that the writer had made some creative effort right from the first point of contact, and made all the difference to how it made me feel, far more than a perfunctory response would have done, and even more so than the sort of greeting from a chatbot that we're all used to seeing these days. As soon as I read their response it made me think, this is definitely the place I would like to go to, and so it was. Well done everyone...