Royal Oak — Restaurant in England

We were really looking forward to a roast Sunday lunch and chose to the Royal Oak in York City Centre. We had pre-booked and arrived on time. Friendly staff showed us to our reserved table and efficiently took our order for food and drinks. The starters arrived and were very good. Then disaster struck. We were told there would be a 20 minute delay before our roast pork mains arrived. Yorkshire Puddings were mentioned. After approaching 30 minutes we were then informed there would be a further 10 minute delay. We were offered a reduction (non quantified) if we would accept our meal without Yorkshire Puddings. When you’ve paid over £5 to park, and are in York, 10 minutes seemed reasonable to wait. However after 20 minutes we had had enough – well actually we’d just had drinks and starters – and left, advising the staff and said we wouldn’t be paying for anything we’d had. They were apologetic and didn’t asked for any payment. If we had requested something exotic there might have been an excuse but this is a pub which uses its traditional Englishness (14th Century building etc). Surely they serve roast lunches every week and those will always include Yorkshire Puddings. I can’t imagine there were more customers than usual so how could they get their planning of meals so wrong? So after 1 hour 20 mins we were outside, hungrier than ever. Fortunately, on the corner of the street was York Roast Company. Ok so it was more McDonalds style in a cardboard box but we got an excellent pork roast and vegetables served promptly – and it was served in a...

Dissapointed that we went there as left hungry! Specifically asked the bar maid is the meat served at different levels of rareness as i wanted the beef dinner, she said no its all well done! Well it came out and the burned yorkshire overtook the plate but the beef was literally bleeding! I was fuming, my fiance said here have my beef its less bloody. He had beef chicken and gammon as there was no pork! To be honest the beef was chewy, the veg was rock hard also the potatoes, they tasted nice but needed another 20 mins cooking! We paid alnost a fiver for a tiny portion of cauliflower cheese and that was literally all i could eat!! The bar staff are not overly friendly no one came to check if the meals were ok. And the jist i got was that the bar is been run by students who literally have no idea how to deal with customers! I refused to pay for my meal after the young lass said all i can do is take 25% off the bill! I said actually no you can take my meal off considering it was horrible raw meat and veg and a burned to a crisp yorkshire!! Wouldnt bother going also very limited on drinks. As its real ale. Some of us like a...

I've never left a restaurant annoyed before.

Im a tour manager and I prebooked my meal for a family celebrating a birthday and arrived early to leave cupcakes and a candle with the instruction to serve after dinner.

The starters were average but ok.

The roast dinner the main course, something that Yorkshire prides itself on was rubbish. The Yorkshire pudding was burnt, veg under done, the roast potatoes awful, it was just boiled potato and the meat was also average.

There are no condiments offered... apple source, horseradish or mustard.

The waitress spult gravy all over one of the guests coat and chair but to be ho est it just added to a bad experience.

They asked if I was ready for the cupcakes and then just brought out in the closed plain white box they came in with the candle inside even though they said they would put them on a plate and light them for me.

I've never complained with a review before but I left the restaurant an hour ago and I'm still annoyed. It had great reviews and I talked up the Yorkshire lunch to my foreign guests and it was...