Rookery Wood Farm — Restaurant in England

After arriving at the nearby Crewe Hall Hotel & Spa following a 5 hour drive with my wife and two kids, we quickly googled local restaurants that were kid friendly. The first one were found was this restaurant, on looking at their website a promotion popped up front and centre saying kids meals for free with a purchased adult meal during summer holidays. It seemed a great deal so we followed the instructions and signed up for the promotion online. The verification email never arrived after both my wife and I both tried signing up (we both checked our junk mail as well). We booked a table anyway, to which we received an email instantly and we took a screen shot of the confirmation webpage showing we had signed up for the deal. On arriving at the restaurant we explained to the hostess the situation, she looked vacant and said we are not doing deals like this. We assumed maybe the deal had expired or was an upcoming one, so checked the website again, but it was as I said the first thing you see on their website. We showed the hostess, and she just said without a code on email there was nothing she could do. We tried explaining the situation again and she just said there was nothing she could do. We asked her to check with a manager, to which she looked at me like I’d asked her something completely unreasonable. When she came back she repeated the same message. I politely asked to speak to the manager, who when arrived seemed very annoyed with us. The manager did not say hello or how can I help, so I said hello, how are you? She just stared at us with an annoyed look on her face. So I started trying to explain, and she jumped in with there’s nothing she can do, it’s a head office problem. When I asked her to see it from our point of view, she again just said there’s nothing she can do, that the email can take 72 hours to arrive and she’d had quite a few other annoyed families. We understand things like this can happen, and would have still been happy to dine there if we’d received a simple apology, or an ‘We understand this is frustrating’ or the like, but the passive aggressiveness was dripping off her. We explained we were leaving to find somewhere else on principle. As we left the hostess and manager could be heard saying to each other, too cheap to pay for a kids meal and laughing. Not that it matters, but we were staying at a 5 star hotel and went to another restaurant and spent far more than were would have at this pub, it was purely the complete lack of customer service and rudeness that was the issue....

my husband and myself spent nearly £900 on Christmas dinner 2023 for 15 people (inclusive of 4 tiny children ). We waited for a while before the drinks order was placed but the place was packed so we accepted that. We had to ask for starters to be brought and although there was a mix up, we accepted that too. After a while, we had to ask if we could go to the carvery to get our meals as no one serving mentioned it so 50 minutes later we started to get up to get our meals. Admittedly, the dinner was lovely and so after we had all finished our meal, we waited, and waited, and WAITED, for the dessert. At least 3 people from our party went and asked when it would arrive, and was told that someone would be along to take our orders shortly. So we waited, and waited again for just short of an hour before some of our party couldn't wait any longer and chose to leave because of the children. At this time,my husband, who is on oxegen 24/7. checked his oxegen and it was running low. This was the second bottle that he'd used (we took 2 bottles with us which should have been quite sufficient for a starter, main and dessert.) Eventually we were all so fed up with the service, myself and my husband had to leave because of his health, we asked to have our desserts in boxes to take home. We had to miss out on the mince pies and coffee, (apparently the coffee machine was out of order). All in all, although the main was fine, the whole time that we were there, it was nothing more than a shambles. We didn't know who was serving on our table as .we had to stop anyone serving and ask what and when we were going to be served. I feel that a refund should be made towards some of the meal, especially as my husband and myself paid over £900 with the drinks order. We paid the price in good faith expecting a great service that...

Great parking easy to find as near large junction. Staff couldn't be nicer. Very helpful genuinely happy to oblige. The tables are clean and the place average in size which suprised me as looked huge from outside. The noise hits you as you walk in but it is what it is, full of children running round screaming so if you don't like noise don't go. The menu is good as has a range if pub food. I went for the carvery only so my review is solely on this. The queue although long went quickly. Bless the meat carver, as per her looked very sad like over worked sad which seems to be the norm unfortunately. The meat was beautifully presented and tasted lovely. The veg was unfortunately bland. The choice was broccoli, cauliflower which had no taste whatsoever, red cabbage and parsnips which were beautiful. I had to wait for a long time for parsnips making a queue form and if it hadn't been for the nice meat carver asking noone would have known. Parsnip man had a face like he wanted to go home. I thanked him for bringing them, a queue had formed and mentioned there was no cranberry sauce or mint sauce (as I moved up) he was still around so I said oh excuse me just to let you know there's no sauces, he just muttered ok. I didnt wait for any as by now I could tell the queue was getting fed up and although my plate was lovely n hot it was getting cold. Needless to say I sat down to luke warm veg meat and potatoes so was not impressed. I spotted a microwave near the kids play area but just ate it, I didn't want another queue. It was lovely meat but everything was spoilt due to the long wait for parsnips. The carrots were the best I've tasted though, cold but nice and parsnips my favourite. Won't go back as I don't expect to be made to feel uncomfortable...