Red Lion, Lower Withington — Restaurant in England

We'd read many good reviews and were in the area so we thought we'd have Sunday lunch here. First red flag - there was no smell of food cooking! Second red flag - we were sat at a table wondering whether it was table service or bar service, either is fine but it would be nice to be told. We assumed bar service as no-one spoke to us for at least 10 minutes. Third red flag - only chicken on the Sunday roast menu.

We ordered the half roast chicken, a burger, chicken caesar burger and a children's fish and chips.

When the food arrived, the chef in all their wisdom deemed it appropriate to pour the watery gravy on the roast and serve on a very flat plate where the waitress left a trail of gravy behind her, spilt it on herself, on my leg and on the table, rather than just using a jug.

When presented with the roast to say it looked unappetising is an under statement, none of it was hot, the 'roast' potatoes were stale, cold in the middle and anaemic. The mash was nuked to within an inch of it's existence and the stuffing ball was just a soft soggy mess. The chicken itself was lukewarm and half a carrot was just haphazardly thrown on the plate.

I was asked how the food was and I explained the above and the waitress said she would go and get the chef but they never came, probably busy microwaving someone else's meal. She offered to replace the meal and I refused as if it were to be made properly it would be another 25 minutes at least and the rest of the table had already started their meals and I knew my 4 year old wouldn't last that long. But why wasn't it properly prepared to start off with?

The other meals were mediocre at best but mine was truly awful, if you expect a customer to pay £19 for the meal in the photo then you really should get your heads tested as you are insulting our intelligence! The burgers were £15 to £17 - again how in good conscience can you charge customers those prices - a severe case of over promising and under delivering.

Avoid like the plague unless you want to be parted with your hard earned cash - there are so many amazing pubs in a 5 mile radius pick ANY one of those instead. I honestly believe I'm being generous with the 1 star, if I could give...

Booked a table for 19.45 on Saturday night. We wanted the small plate/seniors but were told on arrival that they weren't available as there was only one chef in the kitchen. Was then told 3 of the items on the main menu were also unavailable but we still decided to stay and chose food off the remaining menu. We were told at 20.45 (after waiting an hour) that the food wouldn't be long! I had chosen scampi and chips and when the meal did arrive I was told that there were only 7 pieces of scampi as they had ran out. I was offered a drink and had a Coke as was driving. My partner chose the sweet potato, spinach and coconut curry. There was one sweet potato cube, no spinach at all and no taste of coconut either. They really should either close the kitchen in these circumstances or warn people that there is a limited menu when they book. This was our first time at this pub and was really looking forward to it but...

We booked for Sunday lunch. We were told that there was a limited menu due to the butcher not delivering which is absolutely fair enough. The choice was pork loin or chicken. We had both so we can share. The pork was cold and dry. The vegetables were barely cooked and definitely no roasted vegetables were used in the making , which is surprising given that the wait time was 45 minutes. We were asked if everything was OK and I said I would talk to the person later. I wanted to speak personally rather than doing this ,but all eye contact was avoided, the bar was busy on paying and I didn't get the opportunity to do this. On the very positive side, customer service was excellent as was the welcome both for us and our dog. The presentation of the food was also good just not the cooking of the meal which was...