The George — Restaurant in England

Have been to the George a lot in my life, lived locally and now it's a convenient place to meet for a few of us.

Went on Saturday to see the renovation which are fine, a good tidy up of the place.

So although the decor has improved I have to say that the service in the bar hasn't. Don't get me wrong the staff are friendly and seem to be good people just the speed of the service if there are more than two people waiting is dreadful.

This is an ongoing thing and is not exclusive to the George.

On arriving Saturday there were five sets of people waiting and one member of bar staff serving and looking very stressed. This lead to a ten minute wait for first drinks.

That's ok if the bar were heaving, it wasn't, less than half the tables were occupied inside and out, the other half were covered in glasses.

If they had been busy before then ok you can understand it but on leaving at 10:30pm some of the tables still had the same glasses on them they had when we arrived at 8pm.

I really don't think I have been to the George in recent memory and not had to clear glasses/table before sitting down and having empty glasses taken when finished while there remains a dreamlike luxury.

Checked out the new menu while there which looked like a step up from a two course for a tenner menu at somewhere like Wetherspoons.....all Lasagne, Fish and Chips, Hunters Chicken and Burgers. Maybe there was a specials board?

Honestly having worked in a pub restaurant 20 plus years ago the new menu gave me a very real sense of deja vu.

Anyway in short if you're local, the George is ok

As an update to my review not a lot has really changed at the George, you still get the same issues of service and cleanliness as above.

A couple of new things do seem to have started to happen though.

Firstly @ 10pm you regularly have members of the bar staff coming round to tell you it's last orders at the bar and then calling time similarly early.

Maybe they are closing earlier these days?

Secondly you never know what time food is served to anymore. The website says 9pm now but have been in their recently and seen people turned away for food at 8pm.

A week or so ago I saw a group of three turned down for food with "sorry the kitchen has just closed" only for food to come out 30 minutes later to two people who came...

Visited again on Thursday 30/1/25. Food average and chicken tasted burnt in the sandwiches we had. It was pretty quiet. Over charged for 0% peroni bottle (charged for 1 pint of draught peroni) and didn't get the right drink initially (0% Heineken bottle).Luckily the bill was adjusted to the right one when queried otherwise I would be complaining about overcharging. Original post from last year. I haven't visited for a couple of years but decided to go for Sunday roast today this afternoon. Service was slow took two hours for two courses. My dad and I had roast turkey and my mother had the Atlantic cod. She could not have the roast dinners as they had onion and garlic which my mother cannot eat and are not listed as usual allergies. The cod unfortunately was over cooked, very fatty, had very little fish which wasn't even white and was mainly batter. My roast dinner especially the potatoes and Yorkshire pudding seemed over cooked but my dad's was ok. Dessert was good I had a salted caramel sundae. Service has always been slow which is one of the reasons we don't go too often there. It is no good if you are on a strict timetable to do other things after. They also had lost the key to the disabled toilet and had to use a knife to open it. Toilets not that clean. Visited again for my birthday. Toilets hadn't improved but brought disabled toilet key this time. Stinky disabled toilet and toilet paper wasn't accessable. Staff don't listen to no onion and no garlic when it comes to dressing side salad. Also don't put dressing on salad that was part of the meal. Pie top hard and gammon over cooked. Smothered chicken was only ok as onion rings weren't great and salad was not dressed and only rocket when it should of had cucumber as well. Desserts were okay.Service still took over two hours even though only two courses ordered and it...

We booked with the automated phone booking system 2 and a bit hours before our intended arrival time (20:30 on Sunday night). Would have happily booked elsewhere if we had known it was going to be an issue. They had not checked their bookings for at least 2 hours so were surprised when me and my brother walked in. After going to the kitchen (which had aleady closed), the girl on the front desk came back 5 minutes later (I assume after having had some grief from the kitchen but I hope not) to inform us that we could have a small roast portion or fish and chips or pie and chips. We got fish and chips and I got the pie and chips. Gravy was cold. Vegetables were microwaved to hell. Pie and fish were very good. Chips were okay. Too expensive for the amount of care taken with delivery. I appreciate that the kitchen wanted to go home but having agreed to honour the booking we made, I feel like some care should be taken with food going to paying customers. The George that I am familiar with is clearly long gone. Whilst the staff are friendly they are painfully under-trained and inexperienced. Food was prompt (although without the option for starters or anything like that felt longer than it should have). Drinks were prompt but after that service was inattentive with constant apologies about not seeing our booking and complaints about the automated telephone booking system (which I completely understand!), as well as too much chatting amongst their colleagues while we sat there waiting to pay, the staff could do with reminding about some of their priorities. If management/ownership are reading this: please help your staff. They need training otherwise, ultimately, your business will fail. It is not fair on your employees to leave them as they clearly have been thus far. Hopefully some positive changes can be...