Lunch booked here for Easter Saturday - family coming up through the Lakes from Manchester, us arriving from West Cumbria. Our drive through Portinscale and back out again was horrendous. There was so much traffic. I reeeeeeally didn't want to come to Keswick cos I knew it would be mental as it was Easter weekend but blimey! It was utter chaos. A reminder of why I avoid Keswick and beyond during tourist season! (But, brother chose the venue so...🤷🏼♀️)
The Swinside itself has fantastic views, right down through the valley, over looked by Catbells (I think, I'm local therefore I don't know what each hill is called! 😆). Carparking is tight: once there are a dozen cars or so in there's not a whole lot of room left. Lots of outside seating, wooden tables and benches with parasols; lots of water dishes for the ubiquitous dogs. This weekend has been bloody glorious up here so sitting outside waiting for the rest to arrive was luvverly! So hot!!
We had a table reserved inside though and it was lovely and cool inside. We were a large group and pretty much had the restaurant to ourselves for most of the time we were there. Food was ordered at the bar - well, at the side bar as I cheekily asked the young girl where we order and she said she'd do it. Good job too as the queue at the bar for drinks was huge! 10 deep easy, ordering 4/5 drinks at a time for their groups outside. By the time we got served with drinks and sat back down, our food followed within minutes, we'd had to wait that long! There were only 2 bar staff on; this might be sufficient on 'normal' days but this was Easter weekend, the start of silly season in the Lakes and a heatwave to go with it. 2 staff?!! Come on! The lasses were doing their best but outside was heaving plus there's a window where people can come up and order without coming inside.
We had a variety of meal choices and, other than my lasagna could have been hotter, it was lukewarm at best, and the calamari rings were overcooked, there were no issues with our food. Food eaten, back to another lengthy queue at the bar for more drinks and to order dessert. Again, no complaints over the taste of the desserts - the salted caramel and popcorn cheesecake was yummy! My problem now was with how.long.we.had.to.wait.for.desserts.to.arrive.and.still.sit.at.our.table.with.all.our.dirty.dinner.plates. Yep, despite being almost the only people indoors for the whole afternoon, we were pretty much ignored the whole time we were there. Our dirty plates sat in front of us for a good half hour and, as I guessed would happen, our desserts were brought out to the dirty table. Not very good customer service, sorry. I know you were busy at the bar but there were another couple of girls knocking about clearing tables. All attention seemed to be focused on the guests outside.
All in all, I still WOULD recommend Swinside for a meal and/or drinks as its views are stunning, there's loads of seating outside and in and we did enjoy our food.
A couple of cautions - 1) the toilets aren't the prettiest. Because they can be accessed from outside without having to walk through the bar, not everyone who uses them is - how shall we say? - bothered about how clean they leave them. 2) there are steps everywhere in this place. Lots of steps up to the bar from outside seating, steps down into the restaurant from bar, steps up to toilets and into restaurant from the toilets. I don't know -because I didn't need to look - if there is any disabled access, you would need...
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