Telford Lodge Brewers Fayre — Restaurant in England

Sadly you take your chances when you eat breakfast here ! This review refers to the staffing team on duty on the 10th February 2018. We arrived at about 9:45am, to the tables out side the building still piled with glasses and coffee cups from the previous night, many containing the remains of watered down drinks from the nights rain. Inside wasn't much better, bar piled high at one end with last nights dirty glasses, right next to the till where one orders at the bar. After a couple of minutes wait finally someone came to take our payment. Went to a table near the window, wiped and cleared, napkins there but no cutlery on the table, no sign of staff so took cutlery from another table to use. Orange and apple juice dispensers, empty. Up to the counter to get fried food, no hash browns available at that time, the eggs ran out as we got to them and the sausages were grey, the outsides had not been browned at all. Got what we could, went and sat to eat, went back after 5 to 10 minutes, hash browns had turned up, grossly over cooked, still no eggs. After standing there for 3 or 4 minutes, a cook came out, wandered along the counter, saw the lack of eggs and went back to the kitchen again, came back a minute later to say they were being cooked and wouldn't be long, after another minute gave up on eggs entirely. During this time the rest of the staff were missing, in the kitchen, not available to assist in any way. Having eaten what we were able to get, we went for coffee, one cup left with lipstick on the side, the machine was complaining it needed it's grounds emptying and it was out of milk, stood there for 5 minutes, no staff around again, finally one walked past carrying dirty plates, when asked about the coffee we were told, "one second", he went to the kitchens and didn't return. At least 3 or 4 minutes later a waitress arrived with a tray of cups, we had to point out to her that the machine needed attention ! Then stood for a couple more minutes whilst the machine was topped up with milk and the overflowing grounds tray was cleaned out.

Now please do not take this as the norm for this restaurant, we eat breakfast at the weekends here quite a lot, a few weeks ago we were there, when it was actually much busier, everything was excellent that time, the food was perfectly cooked and the staff were running about doing their jobs properly, no waiting for food or coffee, tables clean and set properly, generally an excellent experience, however, that was a different staffing team ! The team who were manning the restaurant on the 10th February 2018 are lazy, slovenly, disorganised, missing a lot of the time and seem to have no regard for the customer experience whatsoever. They couldn't even be bothered to pop outside and fetch the dirty glasses in from the night before ! We encountered this particular group of breakfast serving staff before, about 3 or 4 months ago, we thought then they were having a one off bad day, but sadly not, as it was just as bad if not worse yesterday. Several customers were commenting upon it and discussing it whilst we were standing around waiting for whatever shortfall we were experiencing at that time, see above !

Other teams of breakfast staff at this place are superb ! If the staff are this bunch you will likely not enjoy the experience at all, if it is one of the other teams, then you have a much better chance of a lovely breakfast and helpful, hard...

This was my first time having lunch out on Christmas Day. We were 7 adults and 2 children, at £55 per head for adults, for 3 courses. Our booking was for 12.45. The rest of family arrived on time and let them know I'd be a few minutes late. From the minute they arrived though the starters were pushed, pushed, pushed. And on the table by 12.48. They barely had time to get their coats off or order a drink and felt very much under pressure from the staff. Within 2minutes of finishing the starters we were told to go up to queue for the main course. No time to let the food settle. As it happened we had LOTS of time as we queued for the mains for about 15 minutes. The queue was snaking round the restaurant and some older family members had to leave their place and go and sit down. Why one table at a time wasn't invited up I don't know. During the time in the queue we were treated to hearing every comment the staff made whilst they were hurrying around us, including one comment about an older customer who felt unwell and wanted to change their desert; staff member 1 in a very unhappy huffing tone of voice "he wants to change his f* dessert". staff member 2 "oh ffs". Nice!! When we eventually did get served the chef was very friendly and didn't scrimp on the meat and we were allowed to have as much of the other dishes as we liked, and that food was tasty so ok from that side. Again when we had finished our mains though it was whisked away very quickly. So much so that the waitress dropped a load of cutlery. She said "that wasn't me" so we asked a family member if he had done it. When he said now she said "Ok it was me but don't tell my manager". No apology or acknowledgment that my niece now had cheese sauce all down her leg and my nephew had gravy down his trouser leg aswell, even though we made that very clear and asked for extra napkins to clean it up. When we finished our desserts staff kept coming to the table to ask if we were done. It was clear from the start they wanted us in, sat down and out asap so they could turn the table. Regarding the atmosphere: couldn't have been less Christmassy with pop music playing (why no christmas music). The starters were disappointing: some of us had "cheese fondue" which was basically a bowl of cheese sauce with nothing to dip in it (I suspect the same sauce doubled up and used for the cauliflower cheese). My soup was thin and lukewarm. And the people that ordered the 'berry crumble' couldn't eat it because there was a few bits of non crispy crumbs on the top and then just a bowl of runny fruit. I had avoided paying to have christmas lunch out in the past because of the cost. And this has put me off doing that ever again. In fact i'm so disappointed by the service and the food that I wouldn't return to this pub again on principle. Need...

So, I don't give 1 star reviews lightly. Myself and my family had an early evening visit to this very large establishment which was fairly empty for bank holiday evening. We were seated straight away (which you'd expect when it's quiet). Food. My party was 3 adults and 1 child. We ordered food which took a very long time to arrive and the child was served their food last which is a little annoying. 2 adult meals were fine but one was incredibly dry and looked incredibly anemic. The child's meal was far too over seasoned. So was amazed they ate as much as they did. The deserts took 40 minutes to arrive and we had finished our desserts before the child's even arrived, the child's dessert was not even complicated to prepare as it was a singular pancake cut into quarters and served with squirty cream and a chocolate dip and a diced strawberry. So wasn't really sure why it took so long. Service. Considering we had soft drinks which were refills and also self service and take in the fact it was fairly quiet (plenty of free tables). We saw very little by the way of service. No one was rude, but they didn't really get the opportunity to be rude as we barely saw anyone. No explanation as to why the food was late and no real reason why our table remained unbussed for at least 45 minutes after we had finished. Atmosphere. There wasn't one.

Kids play area was great. Plenty of parking. Cheap food, but I suppose you get what you pay for.

I recommend finding...