The Bear — Restaurant in England

I have stayed at The Bear many times over the last decade, but in the last couple of years standards have dropped so far that I won’t be staying there again, despite it being the most convenient location for me.||My most recent stay was beset with problems. Firstly, the soap and shower gel dispensers in the room were both empty. This has happened in the past and requires a visit to reception to ask for a replacement. Surely this is something that the cleaners should be checking. Secondly, talking of cleaners, the state of the carpet in the bedroom was not good – the photo shows the carpet right next to the bed, where it was covered in ‘bits’ – I didn’t like to look too closely to try to identify what it was! Thirdly, the tissue dispenser in the bathroom was empty, which can be seen in the photo – again, surely something that cleaners should be refilling. And the final photo shows cracks in the sink that had dirt ingrained in them – not pleasant to look at when washing your hands or cleaning your teeth.||On the first night of my stay I was awoken at 3am when the fire alarms went off. Obviously this causes immediate concern, so having leapt from bed and very quickly thrown some clothes on, I headed out to the meeting point at the car park with many other customers. At that point the alarms stopped – everybody stood looking at each other, but there was no indication of a fire and the alarms stayed silent. Now I perfectly accept and understand that false alarms can occur. However, the extremely concerning aspect was that there was no sign of a representative from the hotel anywhere to be seen. I am a fire marshal for my company and know that you should only re-enter a building when instructed to do so – but at 3am with no sign of anybody official, everybody just took the option to return to their beds. The alarms didn’t sound again, but I, for one, didn’t sleep for the rest of the night – not good preparation for a day’s work.||Moving on to the food, which is another area that has deteriorated over recent months. A couple of months ago I opted for smoked salmon and scrambled eggs – while the salmon wasn’t ‘off’, it certainly didn’t taste like good quality, fresh smoked salmon – it had a definite ‘slimey’ texture. A few weeks ago I had the eggs with hollandaise sauce – on this occasion the bread used for the toast seemed to be stale, and the sauce came in a separate pouring jug which must have been sat on the side before being brought out because it was more like a solid lump that I had to scoop on to the eggs.||A couple of years ago, with a group of work colleagues, we pre-booked for a Christmas lunch, sending our orders with our deposits a few weeks before. When we arrived we were told that there was no booking under our name. After much discussion, we were given a small table in the corner, with no decorations or Christmas crackers. After a short while the waitress came to us with our list of meals, proving that they did have the original booking after all. We then waited an interminable time for the food to start arriving, and even when it did, it didn’t arrive at the same time meaning that some of us had already finished our starters before others had arrived. Then we had another very long wait before the mains started to arrive. The verdict was that the food was very hit and miss with some people enjoying their dishes and others not – the lowlight being the one person who had ordered rump steak, which was presented with all the Christmas trimmings of parsnips, roast spuds, carrots, stuffing, pigs in blankets, etc – certainly not the sort of thing that you would usually expect to accompany a steak!! By this time we had been there almost 2 hours, and various of our group had to leave – this was a Christmas lunch in our own time and many of us had to return to work for meetings, calls, etc! – so that by the time the desserts arrived there were only a handful of us left.||Therefore, for all of the above reasons, I have decided that I will only use the ‘other’ hotel in Hungerford moving forward – and if they are fully booked I would rather travel to Newbury than experience...

First problem is that the wifi does not work in the room unless you put a cell phone on the door glass window and tether, I asked for help in the bar as there was no reception, told wifi is fine, true but not in the room.||Second problem when I woke up in the middle of the night coughing nose blocked and head ache, the next 2 nights the same thing, Then I see the mold/mildew in the bathroom, pictures in the link below. Every time I went to the room I would get a head ache breathing issues. Mold mildew and the damp smell.||Third thing was breakfast, the bacon and sausages are so tough I left them as they are uncuttable and I needed a steak knife.the coffee machine is dirty and needs to be flushed and deep cleaned as the coffee is stale from a none washed machine. I had tea the next morning and the water in the silver jug was not hot. Never saw the lady to ask for any hot water as she was on reception then seem to not see me, The bell would go for ready food and my food came late warm and bought by a lady from the kitchen. I skipped the Breakfast on the third day, the second day the poached eggs were over cooked. Warm tea again, no service to be found. Also the breakfast menu where I sat has little light and the text in the blue part of the menu is hard to read.||Fourth thing, #19 the first day house keeping came in and gave new towels and a cup but did not make the bed. Weird and a first for me.||First night as there is no internet in room 19 so at the bar I could charge my room BUT night 2 not the case, told I could not so I gave my CC to pay. Why ?||First morning not much hot water. The next 2 mornings no hot water.|I was flying home on the third morning a cold shower at 6am really is not nice as there was no heating in the bathroom or bedroom. Once I felt the warm radiator in the bedroom but the bathroom towel heater is dead and rusting.|i emailed 3 departments, got an email that said this||On Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 7:00 AM GK Guest Relations wrote:|Dear Andrew | |Thank you for taking the time to contact us, with regards to your recent experience at the Bear Hotel.| |We take all complaints and feedback from our Guests extremely seriously, and will therefore be conducting a thorough investigation with both the pub itself and our Risk Management Team.| |Please note that a thorough investigation may take up to 10 working days.| |Also, should you require any further clarification, or would like to leave us any additional comments, please feel free to contact us via the telephone number listed below.| |Yours Sincerely|Lorraine|Guest Relations|0344 8006605||well 10 days have gone by, they don't care. staff are nice in the hotel but...

Having previously visited on a number of occasions and had bad experiences,agreed to give the bear another go as I have lived in hungerford all my life and we are desperate to have a decent affordable place to have a meal. The bear is a stunning hotel and well laid out , main bar is a little small and a wedding in the function suite so bit of a que for drinks, ordered food told 20 -30 minutes wait which was ok as out with friends. 1 hr later food began arriving (slowly) eventually all had meals but 2 peppercorn sauces £1,99 each extra to go with a £14.99 mixed grill consisting of steak,sausage ,gammon and black pudding and a dozen or so chips ,no salad ,mushrooms etc(always consider a mixed grill an over indulgent treat) but not today,complained and told sorry no peppercorn sauce,agreed substitute dianne sauce but it arrived when one meal was finished and I had a cold steak because I waited for the sauce. Complained again and the waiter said he would do an extra big pudding for the finished steak guest if we ordered puddings. Ordered puddings and discovered after that this wasn’t a free pudding as we had assumed,so back in the que again.at this point a conversation was had about the situation with waiter and bar staff and still no free pudding but got told kitchen did have peppercorn sauce but forgot it(insult to injury) so got a bit grumpy and explained wasn’t good enough ,back to table puddings arrived (slowly) some with spoons ,some without , extra spoons arrived, not enough so my son eating with a fork and still not enough spoons so one more request and finally all fed. Conclusion ! Honestly the bear is stunning ,the food mostly value for money, we were a party of 8 spent probably £250 ish pounds, enjoyed good food but were let down by service/organisation so that free ? Pudding that didn’t happen and indeed was no bigger would have not even really have redressed the situation. We don’t dine out often and to be let down when we do by silly mistakes is a big shame, give it a while we might dare to return to see if things have improved as sister pub the Royal Oak in Marlborough is brilliant,we just need the same in the bear ! Hoping this helps towards...