The Dog Beck — Restaurant in England

We visited the dog beck (against our better judgement) as we thought it would be a straight forward and easy process. We had family visiting with a small dog so sat outside as the signs said “Assistance dogs only” I noticed one of the part time duty managers sitting behind us as we chose our table, he didn’t mention anything about dogs. We ordered via the app as usual - no issues. Our cups got brought out to us some time later but a young tall thin boy who quite rudely pointed out that dogs “aren’t allowed anywhere on the premises” and pointed at the assistance only sign. When I asked what were we meant to do as we had placed our order he continues to just say dogs aren’t allowed pointing at the sign and offered no solution to the customers problem. To rectify the problem we moved tables so the dog was by the railing approx 2 feet away from the roadside, we thought this would be sufficient seeing as we were the only people on the front area. The young thin boy came back with food a while later still obsessing that the dog want allowed on the premises and that he had already told us what to do. He whole attitude was poor, insulting, unnecessary, dictatorial and embarrassing for both you and me. By this point we were missing 1 breakfast so my visiting cousin went in to check on its status. She was met with the response that the customised breakfast had been added together with one of the large breakfasts. In honesty it did look like too much toast had been added to one of the breakfasts but nothing else. The duty manager (actually pleasant and ok) went to try and sort it out and came back with the breakfast (minus the toast) stating he had to “fight hard to get this” to which I was quite surprised as it was a simple customised order. All in all my judgement was correct and I shouldn’t have visited here. This is the worst spoons i consistently come across on the very rare occasion I decide to give it a second chance, there will be no further chances and I will be telling everyone I know locally what a shambles this place still is. Extremely disappointed and annoyed but not...

What would we do without the internet! I currently sit inside the dog beck, sipping coffee and reading the paper, sounds idilic right?

Wrong

Yet again they’re short staffed, running at a bare minimum, tables are left uncleared, queues forming at the bar, disgruntled unmotivated employees passing infrequently, oblivious to the dirty cups cluttering 50% of the tables.

One employee drifted round collecting the breakfast flyers that litter the place again ignoring the volume of dirty crockery.

Shortly afterwards a different (albeit a slightly more senior member of staff) wandered around dealing out a specials leaflet.

He ignored the cups too.

Over my should I overhear a couple moan about how dirty the table is and how it needs a wipe.

My reasonably priced breakfast arrives, missing a mushroom, beans drying out and developing a skin, eggs with a solid yoke and without butter, the staff member didn’t hang around long enough for me to highlight this so I wander over to the kitchen serving hatch area to ask for butter, the guy I speak to asks the cook for butter, only to be berated for not saying please.

Why should he have to say please to rectify a mistake you made? I thought to myself.

The cook has an attitude. The waiter was stretched in all directions. The supervisor was disengaged. And no one in any sort of control, and all the while standards slip.

Staff turnover is high, and I’m not surprised, it must be awful working here. it’s now nearly one o’clock and I’ve been here and hour, and the cups are still there.

(You’ll be asking yourself: “why do you bother coming if it’s so bad”, well, it’s it’s because it’s reasonably priced, and convenient, and used to be better)

One star:...

This is Cumbria - home of many fantastic local foods : cheeses, meats, vegetables - why on earth would you eat here when you could be at any number of local restaurants, pubs and cafes being served fresh, lovingly prepared local produce?

I've been twice in the last two weeks - family choice, not mine. On the first visit, we had booked weeks in advance and paid a deposit - there seemed to be no record of this however and table shuffling was done on the day, to fit us all in. I had a chicken burger that was dry and tasteless, with "cheese whiz" instead of actual cheese in burgers, unimaginative salad and dirty cutlery. On the second visit I had an avocado salad and more dry chicken. The staff have no training and don't know how to "own" an issue because the managers are untrained too. It took five minutes to get clean cutlery on the second visit and they left the dirty cutlery on our table. When we ordered puddings, the table was not cleared and we had to move our dinner dishes to a nearby unused table (which still had the remains of a previous meal that had been finished shortly after we arrived. Even the "help yourself" coffee bar is a disaster. On my first trip the latte syrups were all almost empty, sticky and the coffee bar area unattended. A week later, nothing had changed. The same almost empty bottles and no sign of anyone cleaning or maintaining. Children's menus are hidden unless you ask, there are colouring activities, but no pencils or crayons. The only thing that recommends this place is they know how to keep beer - but then so do the Fell Bar and Dockray Hall and the latter's food is much better and not that much...