The Friendly Forester — Restaurant in England

So very disappointed.

Last day of our holiday and we thought this would be a good place to eat and a nice treat for the kids. We booked a table for 7.15pm, and the gent was welcoming upon arrival and seated us. That was about as good as it got I'm afraid.

We were left waiting for about 20 minutes before anyone came over. We were about to order with the app but as someone eventually did come over we accepted table service.

Drinks came about 15/20 minutes later, and not by the girl who originally came over. In fact, she never acknowledged us again after first coming to us, even though she walked past us plenty of times.

In regards to ordering food, waitresses kept walking by, but eventually we had no choice but to wave someone over to take our order. Again they didn't seem too bothered by this.

Food came to our table at 8.15pm. which was ok, but my daughter's pizza was very small and bland. My son had to choose an alternative as they didn't have what he wanted. (I do understand that happens)

So, we all ate. Our original drinks glasses were still on the table which they hadn't bothered to take away upon bringing our food... Nobody came over to check on us or ask if everything was ok.

We wanted to get dessert to make up for it as my daughter's meal wasn't the best.

So we waited patiently ... And waited for someone to come over again to take our plates and additional glasses away and ask us if we wanted dessert.

Nobody came. We all took turns going to the toilet.. Still nothing.

There was enough staff over at the bar all talking between themselves, so at this point we are all getting very frustrated.

We then had to disappoint our kids who had waited very patiently for pudding. Even my 9 and 12 year old begrudgingly agreed it wasn't good, so why would we spend anymore money for such poor service.

We then decided to call it quits, and my partner had to go to the bar to pay, as no one seemed bothered to come to us.

Not the way we expected our last night to be.

Unfortunately, we all felt like one massive inconvenience tonight which is a real shame.

I don't take any pleasure in writing negative reviews. In fact I rarely bother with them at all, but this was not a great experience,...

Thought I'd give The Friendly Forester another go. Reserved a table on line waited a few minutes at the host station, I advised that we had a table confirmed and reserved online, gave my table number to be told someone is sat at that table so we've moved you onto another.... So what is the point of reserving a specific table!! I asked if we could order from the table as the bar queue was quite long about 8 people waiting to order drinks to be told no so my husband went to join the queue to order drinks. He was stood there over 25 minutes before he joined his mum in the food order queue. Once again not enough staff to manage customer numbers, the bar was full of glasses that needed washing & only 1 person serving drinks that were ordered at the bar he seemed to be managing 2 queues. The staff member trying to manage the customers at the bar then shouted if you want drinks you can order from the table so I was quite confused as was told we couldn't 🤔😠. Advised that food would be an hour but was a bit less than this. Two of the meals were fine, I ordered the sizzling cajun chicken with basmati rice, this has been sizzled to death, the platter was not sizzling, the vegetables were stuck to the platter and burnt, stuck underneath and the chicken was soo dry as it had been over cooked. The staff member that brought our food came back and asked if everything was OK, told him the issue with my meal that he had delivered to me himself, he even said it looked dry and did I want a fresh meal cooking. I replied no as I'd eaten what I could. Whilst we waited for our taxi we sat outside in the beer garden which was full of glasses on the tables. A staff member came out to clear them but seemed to be in no hurry. I like to leave good reviews as whole but was again quite disappointed by our second visit. One plus that seems to have been taken from my last review is that the wine glass was checked for cleanliness before being given but due to lack of clean glasses later on I received a glass of wine in a...

Unfortunately our recent visits have been underwhelming. We've been regulars now for the last few month and on the whole the food has always been value for money however things took a turn a few weeks back when we had too many issues to overlook and had to complain. Besides all the chips being served cold, the rare steak was blue on the inside while burn on the outside, the onion rings were almost black and the lasagne was greasy and unpleasant. The staff were apologetic and offered to have the meals replaced. On the next visit we opted for the burgers which were again burnt and crispy around the edges. Our last visit was a table of disappointment. Advised food would be around 30 minutes, we were getting impatient when our food finally arrived almost a full hour after ordering. The pork chop tomahawk came smothered in bbq sauce which my farther detests. He took to wiping it down with a napkin as this was preferable to waiting 30+ minutes to have it replaced. Two mega mixed grills were ordered, one rare and one medium. Both came with 2 burnt sausages, cold fresh tomato, cold shrivelled mushrooms, cold fries, over cooked chicken breast, the medium steak was past well done, charred and inedible. The rare steak was again blue but charred on the outside. The only enjoyable thing on the plate was the gammon. This latest disappointment was the final straw, I have no doubt that had we made yet another complaint the food would have been replaced but this is an inconvenience and not something we would expect. I can excuse things such as a steak being either undercor over cooked as these things happen but to knowingly plate up visibly burn items is not. Again with the pork chop, when it was sauced in error the customer should be informed of the mistake, nit simply served it to avoid the inconvenience of preparing a replacement. So for these reasons we will not be returning in the...