Old Five Bells — Restaurant in England

Overall a really wonderful experience!

We don't live locally, but popped in during after dark, post-birthday hike. The venue is quaint, but such a perfect atmosphere! They had a small choice of board games, lots of different seating options and the venue itself is designed wonderfully to allow most tables to have a lot of privacy. It has a great warm feel, great lighting and great modern/clean rustic design.

Upon arrival we were welcomed by staff immediately ahead at the bar. I have to sing the praises of Nicole, as she had great energy and no request was too much hassle for her (and I'm a difficult customer due to allergies, but also asking if they could bring a cake out later in our meal!). She was SO lovely and friendly - and clearly very passionate about the venue. She gave us a heads up about the menu change that was happening, so lots of things weren't available, but honestly it wasn't a problem and she was wonderful for suggesting alternatives/proactive in crossing out unavailable items on menus for us. Really fab customer service from her and I'd return solely on that aspect, among the other lovely things about this venue.

The singular reduction in star for service was not experienced by myself, but on behalf of the accompanying birthday friend and I feel I should mention it as I got the impression he was very minorly disheartened, to the point of us laughing about it. Only because his meal came without the broccoli, which is one of the reasons he chose it vs another meal option he was on the fence about. To which we weren't told, just served his meal without any veg, so we addressed it and the server/cook (not sure - respect if he was also the chef and serving us) said there was only peas, which we were happy with! So I shared the peas on my plate, whilst we waited 5 mins for them to cook more for us to share. Although the peas came out in a little ramakin that was half full of water, at which point we laughed and continued our evening; it seems like the chef may have been a little rushed, overwhelmed, or peeved - not sure!

Overall though, I would absolutely return and recommend this place. I'm looking forward to seeing the menu changes and I might donate some board games to...

Had the worst experience for our first visit to this pub yesterday. Booked a table for 6 at 5pm for my partners birthday. Ordered food at 5.20pm-4 roasts & 2 fish n chips. 6.30pm still no food not even our starter despite noticing other people who arrived after us already had there food, approached staff who apologised & said wouldn't be long & offered complimentary drinks. 6.50pm get approached to tell us they didn't have enough lamb shanks so to choose other option (took 1 hour & half to realise this) by now waited over hour n half for our food. 7.10pm our food finally comes out, the roast dinners the veg was stone cold & the lamb shanks were not only cold but well over cooked thick with grease & did not taste of lamb, the tiniest cup of gravy which was conjeeled & wouldnt have even covered a third of the meal, a flat burnt yorkshire pudding & roast potatos i suspect were frozen ones as not fresh. The fish n chips the fish was rock hard & probably been sat under heat lamp for over an hour-we couldn't eat any of it as completely inedible-at best a microwave meal by all accounts. A young girl who we can only presume was a manager sincerely apologised & refunded us our full bill-it wasnt her fault & full blame lies with the so called chef!! 2 hours waiting for the worse meal & service I have ever had. We had 6 very hungry people who had to resort in going home with a take away & finally eating at 8.30pm. Shame as only just moved to area so could have easily...

Came in went through the bar all signs say order on app… we did after over 20mins went to find our drinks… lady on bar said she will start doing and got the ticket from the back of the bar… another lady apologised and said the machine wasn’t working but they obviously had the order… we checked our food was received as we ordered on app also… they said yes was fine… after over 40mins again we checked they said we where next… another 20mins and further food coming out went to check again as by this time the family was very hungry and having young kids was getting late we where then told the ovens had broken again sounding like another excuse for poor service and poor management or lack of… we are new to area and was hoping for a nice local which was a shame as the place seemed nice just let down by extremely slow and poor service and this was a fairly quiet Tuesday evening 🤦🏻‍♂️👎 we requested money back for the food in the end and got fish and chips from end of that road…

A generic reply to the original review to get in contact and discuss which I sent an email apologising for for the bad review but it was terrible service and was happy to discuss further but after the email was sent was fully ignored again same service as in the actual pub shocking 😮 so no we will not give them...