The Bluff Inn — Restaurant in England

I don’t know where to start so perhaps best to get the good news over with. The staff are excellent, really caring and trying their very best with the utter disorganised chaos their management (invisible) have left them with.

We arrived about 1330 and were told by the girl at the door there was a 45 min wait for good..ok I guess. We were shown to our table and there we were left for 30 mins. I tried waving etc but no go. In the end I went up to a really stressed hard working waitress and asked for her to come over. It took another 10 mins but she did. She said she was trying her best but they hadn’t done table service post Covid and they are still getting used to it. I could see! There was no system for them to work to that worked.

I ordered our drinks but was told there was no draft as the fridges had broken so we had to have bottles of lager - not good. We gave our drinks and food order. 15 mins later the drinks came but only half the order. I had expected the rest to follow but 20 mins later nothing. I asked 3 times for them and then eventually I got the answer why they weren’t coming - the bar pour the drinks and only when they are left on the bar can the waiting staff come get them. I saw a huge queue at the bar and said to the guy why I couldn’t just go up there - the queue was there because the payment machines had broken so the only way to pay was for people to queue. Painful! I eventually got the rest of the drinks.

The food in total took 1hr 20 mins to arrive from the kitchen. Why we asked the waitress? Because they are working at reduced capacity - ok, but why not close service when too busy? Just needs some organising and management which was lacking.

The order was wrong on a few accounts - cheese pizza instead of pepperoni etc. There was no way we were going to ask them to change it!

Some people have reviewed the food as good - it wasn’t this day.

I had the crab and I found only a few flakes in a very watery sauce. The spag Bol was so full of salt even I couldn’t eat it - I eat most things. In fairness the burger was ok and was good quality meat and trimmings.

In total for 6 of us it was £85 - 4 of the party were kids having kids meals and there was 1 round of standard drinks. I think the pricing is steep for the low quality offering.

The place just lacked communication, processes and a clear management presence.

Using the Covid excuse doesn’t work - businesses have to step up to the challenge to keep going. When old processes and ways of working change then management have to be present throughout to help and keep things going. Also to change things that aren’t working.

Well done to the staff. No doubt these underpaid people are utterly under appreciated but be clear - without them trying their best then the pub...

Weird experience at this restaurant. We were greeted rather quickly at the restuarant and shown to our table. The person who did this advised that someone would be over to serve our table soon. After waiting 20 minutes a waitress came to our table to take our order, we ordered our starters mains and drinks all at once. After a long 40 minutes, I decided to chase the drinks up at the bar to be told by our waitress that they hadn't been made and they will be over soon.... After another 15 minutes I could see our drinks sitting at the bar , so once again I asked our waitress if I could have them. At this point I took the decision to pick up the drinks myself and bring them to the table. We then got our starters and the scallops were luke warm. We were also told to give them a nod when we were ready for our main meal. Again we had to wait and shout to the kitchen server as our waitress was not seen again. Our mains were served and the kitchen server asked if we wanted our plates taken away!! The mains came out and the seabass was nice. The Messy Lasagne was served in an old army rashions tin, was tasteless and the spaghetti parmado was very undercooked! I personally think the service was awful, which is a shame. The restaurant could really work if the staff were managed efficiently. There was staff standing around chatting at the bar, where as others were running around frantically cleaning tables! I saw the security guard clear more tables than the waitresses. I did raise my complaint with the manager and it seemed it wasn't out of the ordinary as we were quickly given a reduced bill. Pretty disappointed...

ASK ABOUT THE OFFER OR YOU DONT GET IT AND DOG URINE ON THE FLOOR We came here a few times over the week we spent at the haven sight near by, kids eat for £1 and although we had both children present with us we were never given this discount until our last meal there where we had to actually ask for it! the girl who served us Erin looked like she’d rather be anywhere else, she just looked at us gone out with the most morbid face i’ve ever seen. She completely messed our order up and missed an item off, my partner asked for just cheese on his burger no salad etc so instead she put it on mine and i believe we were charged extra for it! granted a replacement was sent out fast but instead of a new plate of food they’d just replaced the burger as there was still cheese all over the plate and my chips were cold, for the prices you pay it’s not really acceptable. To top it all off there was alot of vacant tables, none of which had been wiped down and there was evidently dog urine all under our table which as a family restaurant with children running around just isn’t acceptable. Both my children had dropped things on the floor which i then had to wipe with sanitiser because the dog urine didn’t fill me with much confidence on the cleanliness. I get it has beach access but there was sand all over the table which we had to shuffle out of the way. Overall i know its convenient if you’re staying at the haven site but you’d be better spending your money elsewhere, preferably...