Stanley Arms Anderton — Restaurant in England

Following my experience of this establishment I am surprised to see largely positive reviews. We went for lunch after a walk and made 2 transactions - one for drinks when we entered and another before we left for food. I was therefore surprised to see 3 transactions on my credit card bill. Two of these were for virtually the same amount (£5.45 and £5.65). After we paid for the drinks and sat down a young female employee came over and asked us to pay. When we said we had already paid she then said the transaction hadn't gone through but offered no evidence to support that. Like a mug I duly paid again not realising at the time that the amounts differed slightly which makes me wonder if she had even come to the right person. No matter as it was only approx. a fiver and mistakes happen but I rang the pub to let them know - maybe some additional training is required. I spoke to somebody who said that he would get the landlady to ring me and took my details. It has now been 4 days and needless to say I have not received a phone call. I would probably have just told them to put the fiver in a charity box anyway as it is a 40 mile round trip for us but a response was required. On top of that the chips served to our group were awful - burnt and soggy and the mash was lumpy. Will definitely not...

After reading all the great reviews we thought it would be a lovely place to stop into for dinner with our two daughters (8 and 10) on the way home.

The pub itself is nicely situated right next to the canal and has a huge outdoor garden with seating and tables. There is a good range of beer and wine etc and inside it has a very cosy, old school, kind of appeal. The menu looked good, although the kids menu is small and lacking any kind of thought. It's basically burgers and chips, chicken nuggets and chips etc.

If you look at the pictures I say again, the food looks fantastic, in reality it was nothing like that. The burger was tasteless with a bun bordering on stale, the scampi was not fresh (as you would expect from the prices) but was watery, tasteless and obviously made from frozen. The chicken strips were again bland, soft and obviously pre-frozen. The steak pie, although packed full of meat, was not fresh but was fortunately full of flavour.

This might sound ridiculous but there was no lemon with the scampi and no tartar sauce provided.

At this price point you don't need to look much further to find better food not too far away. Such a shame because it is...

We visited the Anderton Boat Lift on a sunny Saturday morning (22 Feb) and discovered this gem of a pub just a short stroll across the bridge. We hadn't booked which is always a risk and we hadn't looked at reviews before arriving. We were greeted with a warm smile and asked to choose a seat and they would bring the menus and drinks we just ordered over. We had a table with a view of the large beer garden. Plenty of outdoor seating including some huts with bench seating. Extensive menu choices, light bites, specials and kids menu. We were advised of the soup of the day when handed our menus and any availability issues (one dish). Easy access with a pram & high chairs available. Staff were really friendly, helpful and special shout out to Molly who our five year old took a shine to because she had a name badge and he was practicing his reading. As somewhere we never planned to go, it's taught us to be more adventurous - thoroughly enjoyed our meal which was all cooked fresh and with love. Also, great pricing! Highly recommend the salt & pepper chips!!! Lovely canal side pub and we'll definitely be...