The Buddle Inn — Restaurant in England

We booked the night before our lunch time booking. The website didn't confirm the booking had been recieved or accepted so I called to confirm our 1pm table for Sunday lunch on Saturday evening, approximately 7pm to Jayd. The experience was painless.

The following day, we arrived 3 minutes before our table booking & the first thing the hostess said was "you're late." On telling her we booked for 1pm she attempted to tell us off because there were two bookings under our name & that she had emailed changing our booking from 1pm to 12.15pm. She continued in her attempt to belittle us saying she's now got one empty table because they double booked us. I'm not entirely sure why we were being held accountable for her personally double booking us but I saw no value in stooping to the hostesses argumentative manner so simply asked if she would show us to our table.

Eventually the hostess took us to our table & gave us the wrong menu (half of which you cannot order on a Sunday).

A matter of minutes after sitting down & before we were even able to order drinks, the hostess reappeared and in a very confrontational and aggressive matter, asked me if I'd checked my emails for her earlier email in which she changed our time - this confrontation was done in a quiet dining area with 3 other tables turning round to watch the hostess tell me off. It was at this point that I mirrored the hostesses stinking attitude & told her I'd not come to this restaurant to be told off and no, I had not checked emails in the last few minutes.

Thankfully and (finally) demonstrating some level of emotional intelligence, suspecting I was losing my patience, the hostess left us in peace.

The rest of the experience was fine. The remaining staff were very friendly and the food was decent but to the owners & senior management, teach your hostess to be mindful of her tone because after a significant period of the hospitality industry suffering due to lock down, a patronising hostess with a stinking attitude is not how you encourage people to spend money, return or refer friends to your pub/restaurant.

We will not be visiting again thanks to the rude hostess, who I have since discovered, is the manager (Jayd) - the person who took our booking over the phone the night before yet still managed to double book us and reprimand us for her...

Not great experience here sadly. We visited the Ilse of Wight for the day and stopped in here for lunch. The table we were sat on and surrounding area were really dirty.. I did mention this when leaving and the managers response was that she acknowledged this was true but the cleaner had been off for the week. I would have thought maybe someone else could have had a quick wipe around..! Seemed a bit odd to blame it on the cleaners absence. The kids menu was scrawled on a bit of a5 scrap paper and had been written in blue colouring pencil with biro scribbles on the paper. We were told there were no specials. We ordered a fish finger sandwich for our 5 year old but requested no tartar sauce as she wouldn't eat it. Unfortunately the waitress forgot to communicate this with the kitchen and so she got it with, we sent it back and asked for no tartar again, they obviously just chucked the fish fingers back in the fryer as they were really hard and looked over fried when we got the sandwich back. The lady serving us said the kids could have their mains come out as soon as they were ready and so the kids could eat while we were having starters. Great we thought.. the problem was the second waitress got confused and thought the kids were eating starters after our starter plates had been collected by the other waitress. We sat without food while our kids very slowly ate. Eventually when they were finished the waitress brought us our meals which she said had been sat in the kitchen for ages! The mash and veg were stone cold and bits of the burger were so burnt they were inedible. Our kids then had to sit with nonfood while we ate bits of the meal. No one came to ask us how our meal was. Eventually we spoke to the manager who agreed that the food didn't look great, apologised and refunded just two of the meals that couldn't be eaten.. still a bit gutted as we paid £50 for disappointing food, poor service and in a dirty restaurant. Put a damper on our day out- needless to say we won't return but wanted to leave a review with some photos so others don't also feel the same...

This pub used to be nice, however now it's just a chain-pub tourist trap with unhelpful staff.

We've been coming to the Island and loving this pub for 11 years now.

Today we visited at 5pm when there were heaps of empty tables, and nobody in the outdoor seating area with around 20 empty tables. We waited at the entrance with the podium only to be gawped at by staff at the bar, who looked stressed as they were constantly touching their faces and ignoring us. Nobody came to us so we assumed we were at the wrong entrance for the bar.

Went to the front door, as it had a sign with a huge green tick and 'entrance' written on it. A floor marker said 'this way' and pointed at the door.

Our 'warm' welcome was a member of staff exiting the lavatories grunting at us with "you've come through the wrong door" in a patronising manner. She then explained that she had been using the toilets.

When we said the door had a big green tick on it and that we'd been at the other entrance for 5 minutes without being acknowledged she just shrugged her shoulders.

Looking at the empty tables she told us she was fully booked and there was nothing she could do. When we said we just wanted drinks in the garden she said "I've lost lots of crockery in the wind" and gave us a flat no. After suggesting plastic glasses she just said she didn't have any so that was tough.

After being flabbergasted with her lack of flexibility or willingness to serve (and make some money from) us we gave up.

She helpfully told us to go to the White Lion or Wight Mouse, which are both competitors, for some decent service. I'm happy to say that one of these places provided much better service.

In such a competitive industry it frustrates me with the inflexibility of some workers to actually serve customers and make money. I'm sure the owner wouldn't appreciate the unnecessary loss of custom due to laziness of staff.

Not impressed and after 11 years...