Riverside Inn — Restaurant in England

I visited the Riverside Inn for an afternoon meal. First impressions were that it is a very nice building in a very nice location. When we entered the building there were rooms all over the place like a maze! We found our way to the rear of the building and sat in the conservatory restaurant area, which was quite stylish in design. However, it could have done with some UV pest control units as the conservatory windows had large flies and a wasp buzzing around, which is not good when eating.

The meal I ordered was a Cajun Chicken Burger that came with onion rings and thin fries, this cost £15.29. Although there was nothing majorly wrong with the meal, I did feel improvements could be made:

1st) the batter on the onion rings was quite soft and soaked in oil. I have cooked frozen onion rings myself in an air fryer and they came out VERY crispy with little oil, so much nicer! I feel the Riverside Inn should try this method and finish off their onion rings in an air fryer for much better results.

2nd) the Cajun battered chicken in the burger was nice, but again soaked in oil. The chicken was also too thick (about 30mm) which made the burger difficult to eat, especially when the burger contained bacon and cheese too.

3rd) the streaky bacon in the burger wasn't very crispy, so the streaks of fat found in streaky bacon where like elastic rubber bands! This again made eating the burger difficult and not that enjoyable. Bacon medallions would be a MUCH better choice of bacon for burgers as it has no fat.

4th) some of the lettuce in the burger looked like it had been standing around several hours, it was dry and looked like leaves of a dying plant! This was a bit worrying as old lettuce can sometimes cause food poisoning.

5th) The fries were ok and made of fresh potatoes. However, they were not at all crispy and very limp. Although, I do understand that getting fries to stay crispy is very difficult! Even McDonald's have this problem sometimes and they cook more fries than anyone!

6th) the choice of tableware seemed rather odd. The plates were a rustic / stone looking design with black speckles all over. The first thing that reminded me of this look was a damp wall with mould spots! I think pure white or jet black tableware would have looked much nicer and complemented the colour of the foods better.

Overall, the meal was ok, but I do not feel I would rush back to the Riverside Inn. Having the view of the river while eating was very nice indeed though, a fantastic spot for a restaurant! Oh, and the customer toilets were VERY clean when I used them,...

My husband and I went for my birthday lunch today and on first impressions we were very happy with the location. Unfortunately that is the only postive as it went down hill after that. We were the first to arrive in the restaurant and first to order. All we ordered was snacks and a light lunch each so imagine our shock to find the snacks were the smallest serving we have ever come across. We then had to wait an extra 50 minutes for our light lunches, watching others getting their meals before us. Upon asking the waiter as to where our light lunches was he promptly went to find out but then didn't bother coming back. When stopping him again he said it will be another 10 mins dismissively. When showing our annoyance about such a delay he said it was because we ordered a starter each (?). When I complained to the waitress about the delay when it finally arrived she ran back to the supervisor saying I told her off (wasn't the case at all). When the supervisor arrived she was passive aggressive and was dismissive of our concerns. She also made excuses about them being busy until I pointed out that we were the first to order so why were others getting their meals before us. She made the same excuse as the waiter that it was because we ordered starters (snacks) and that it delayed the meal by 50 minutes. I suspected that they forgot our lunches and did not apologise nor offer an resolutions until I made a comment about a full refund due to the poor service. She was rude and pulled faces and said that we could have a full refund if that is what we wanted (making a rude suggestion that this was our intention all along). We paid despite the disgusting service and poor quality/overpriced meals as we are good people. Moral of the story is don't operate in the service industry if you have no intentions of delivering a quality service. Oh and instead of saying to people who give you poor reviews that you will take things on board and welcome suggestions but not actually doing it, maybe you should actually improve...

Visited here for Sunday dinner with family today. Booked a table outside with nice views. Unfortunately we spent our entire time batting away an army of wasps - obviously to some degree this can't be helped, informed that 'someone' will be 'sorting' it tomorrow. Great news for those visiting tomorrow onwards hopefully, although I'd pack some wasp spray just incase. Asked to move inside but very promptly told that this isn't possible with no reason given. Plenty of tables, possibly reserved you might assume - we were there over an hour and the same tables remained empty which made the situation even more frustrating.

Sunday dinner arrived, looked ok. 'Roast' potatoes had maybe just about seen the oven. Peas were like bullets. Roast veg had definitely seen the oven and possibly spent a considerable amount of time waiting to be served. You'd need a chainsaw to get through most of it - especially the sirloin beef. The wasps seemed to be enjoying our food more than us at this stage. The meat was just about acceptable although far from what you'd hope to expect.

Nobody came to ask if everything was ok so we waited until we eventually flagged down a waiter who was to be fair apologetic. The whole place seems understaffed considering how busy it was. The waiter did offer a refund on one of the meals, for some reason each meal had different presentation and a variety of differences e.g. one pork meal with a huge slab of thickly cut meat and one with thin slices? Maybe the chef had to take a break because of the wasps? Another oddity about the meals is that all of our Yorkshire puddings were as flat as a pancake. Shame as they are my favourite bit! To top it off, a couple of the meals were cold.

After previously visiting with only minor issues, I'm not sure we'll be...