Old Success Inn, Sennen Cove — Restaurant in England

Updated review from 1 years time: They fixed some things based on my review bringing them to 5 stars.

Staff were so friendly. It was a beautiful stay but we had some issues which I’ve numbered below. I really wanted to write a 5 star rating so I write this in hopes of some staff training and or changes. We would still return please note but we would def change some things. The food has greatly improved based on other reviews because I will say, we tried a lot of different items on the menu and enjoyed them all. Breakfast was great and the hot food options were great. I liked the angus burger (dinner) so much I got it twice. Loved the view and artwork in the room. Teal and mustard yellow looks so good! Attention to detail; there is a little stair & step-up into the bathroom. It has a nightlight that’s auto shut on/off. It doesn’t stay on too long and it illuminates so you don’t trip. That was awesome. Ok ! So the issues:

Not all the bedroom windows had curtains in suite 14 (see photo) Only 1/3 bedroom windows had curtains..this left LOTS of light coming in very early. Management may not be aware as they probably don’t sleep here. Problematic especially for travellers overseas this isn’t good for jet lag!

*They have since added curtains !!

Staff walking into our room multiple times without giving us a chance to answer the door. Yep. Twice. Knock and then RIGHT into the room. The second time my husband was shirtless and she was embarrassed and apologized profusely. Thank you for that. It helped with the situation. The third time they knocked (this was all before noon btw) she waited for me to come to the door. Im assuming they probably talked about it with eachother! So third time was a charm. A simple “do not disturb” or “service” sign could fix this. Possibly nailed up since no door regular door knob. Even making guests request service to a room could work. It’s not good for staff safety either to be entering rooms with guests unknowingly. Easy fix for this though!

*They actually added cute signs to say if one doesn’t want to be disturbed !! *I added a photo

No body wash or soap was provided. Only shampoo and conditioner (see photo) Thankfully I had a sample body wash and soap from Sephora in my bag still. The hand wash could have opted as a body wash but it was locked into the wall at the bathroom sink. You couldn’t move it.

*Not sure if this changed

Suite is above a staircase that’s not carpeted, so footsteps are very loud. Surprisingly very little chatter or voices could be heard though! Which was good. It was forgiving.

Overall thanks for hosting us. I hope it was just an off week! If you need clarification on anything, I’ll be glad to respond to my review. Thanks Success. For an Inn.. definite 3/5 for this first stay. Total potential there for a 5/5!! & in one years time, I’ve changed it to a 5 star. We would definitely stay here again.

Honestly , you guys rock. VERY RARE to see someone implement changes quickly and look at you guys go. Thank you for listening to the people who stay with you guys

I must say I was really disappointed with this place, mainly the restaurant as my wife got food poisoning here. We stayed for two nights and the rooms are nicely decorated and clean. The location is great, right by the beach. But the food was hit and miss and unfortunately my wife got food poisoning the second evening we ate there. We had also found a hair in the brownie which was replaced but they didn’t really seem to care. After dinner there was some problem with the card machine so they said they’d put it on the room but we never received a bill with the items which isn’t acceptable. My wife spent the night sick in the bathroom and when I told them in the morning they didn’t seem to want to take responsibility. Said they would ‘investigate’ and asked if we needed anything but didn’t really offer anything. My wife couldn’t have breakfast which was of course annoying as the rooms are quite expensive and we obviously didn’t enjoy our second night. They let us check out late as my wife was too unwell to drive when I requested this.

Yet when I went to check out they didn’t offer to reduce ANYTHING at all from the bill. I asked if they had at least deducted the likely culprit the ‘butterflied asian style prawns’ which I had told them about earlier and they hadn’t! They did it reluctantly but didn’t offer anything else. Really disappointed with this customer service. Said it couldn’t be proven what caused her to be unwell, when we only ate there for breakfast and dinner and the only thing she ate that I didn’t was those prawns. So that was clearly the cause and they should’ve taken responsibility for that. In any case it was something she ate there (I tried her sticky toffee dessert but not much so that could also be a culprit).

Water bottles are not included in the breakfast which I find very strange, no cut fruit, no fresh orange juice etc. offered either.

Food wise the laksa we had the first night was way too spicy and too much sauce. Other things were ok.

Staff was friendly overall though some seemed inexperienced and the service got worse during the evening, often nobody around when you needed something. E.g. Giving the dessert menu but then not coming back to take the order after etc.

Wouldn’t recommend it...

We have eaten here twice now, once for a lunch service sitting outside and the second for dinner service seated inside. We have no complaints about lunch service, service was quick, and food was fabulous. Dinner service, however, had its flaws.

There was essentially no service, I think there needs to be decisions made about people's roles in the team, I.e if you are waiting on a table you are not also running food, clearing tables and pouring drinks behind the bar. Our starters and mains were fabulous, in particular the squid, padron peppers, lemon sole (fair warning you have to debone this yourself, no issue for us but worth noting) and the burgers. Wait for drinks was long, at one point a member of our party had to go along and ask them to make them, it seems the drinks orders from seated tables were getting ignored so as to quicker serve walk ins.

The issues began at dessert. After about a 30-minute wait, we finally called our waiter over to order desserts. He was frankly shocked by this as though he couldn't understand why we had asked him. When we finally got to order two of the desserts we wanted were no longer available. The sticky toffee pudding was apparantly exceptional, all three of us who ordered it loved it. I ordered the Strawberry Crem Pat tart, now I'm no culinary expert but there was no strawberry in the tart, only served on the side which was strange but I just put it on the tart, the real issue was the crem pat which was liquid, like it sloshed in the casing when the waiter brought it over, I couldve drunk it with a straw. The staff did have the good grace to look horrified when we told them as we paid, retrospectively I wish we had sent it back but by that point I was so desperate to just have a dessert I couldn't bear to wait.

Overall, the quality of ingredients was high, and the mains were good, but desserts suffered, and service was below par. I truly believe this is not through the fault of the servers but that it seemed a little disorganised on a staff...