The Goshawk — Restaurant in England

Hi Neil I’d like to congratulate you on having such appalling customer manners AND a very loud voice that booms across the dining area, letting everyone know how important you must think you are, how right you think you are, what a bully you think you are and how in charge you think you are!!! Yes I am being RUDE!!! As you were to me and my family today. There was NO excuse for your manner today, your customers were NOT in the wrong… YOU were!!!!. According to your lovely staff, I hear this is quite a well known failing of yours. No doubt you will make excuses, to yet again, blame the customer. But, you were personally responsible for ruining a day for a whole family because you LIED and had to try to back it up with….. ‘blaming the customer’ ‘excuses’. This could have easily been resolved, but you had a….’I WILL BLAME YOU FOR EVERYTHING’ attitude. Yes we had children, yes we needed a high chair, yes we had a dog (so what)…… but the rudeness we got from you at this point (on our arrival), laid the way for you to continue your rudeness for the next 20minutes and anyone with in 30 feet of you could hear it!! (Thanks for that). No matter what YOU said we should have known at the time of booking (which was not true anyway), we explained, very politely, why that wasn’t the case in our situation and how our complex booking had unfolded (which included several ‘mess up the booking’ emails from you and numerous follow up emails from you). But you were resolute on blocking your ears to these facts and the evidence shown to you. This was the point in which YOU should have apologised. YOU should have accepted that your full proof email system had failed and the situation was down to that, NOT the innocent customer!!! YOU, ruined my MOTHERING SUNDAY!!! BECAUSE YOU DID NOT ATTEMPT TO COMPROMISE, nor make any effort at all, to correct the situation, which could have been easily done, it was US (not you!) that demanded our deposit back and asked you to put it in writing (because you were not trusted at this point anymore) and it was US that decide to leave. Your lovely staff were so sorry, for how you had spoken to us. Take a lesson from them and learn some customer manners. YOU are clearly in the wrong employment!! Yours very sincerely R, H, B, T, R, A, J & J

Mmm…. this is not Tabatha! But another member of the party whose day you ruined and is reflected in the tone of this review. You have just confirmed your...

It is heartbreaking to write this given The Goshawk has been my local for 12 years but I have to say something. It’s now awful, just awful.

Of course it went downhill straight after the takeover. All the regular staff gradually left and the service became terrible. Having eaten there sometimes as much as twice a week (and would often take home food on a plate) I haven’t chosen to eat there in over 2 years.

The service had picked up a bit with some staff staying for a while and getting to know the locals. The atmosphere improved. We could walk in and our tab was started immediately, we were called by our name and then a new manager started and I was hopeful that with good leadership and the refurbishment that things might turn a corner. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

In the past 2 months I’ve been stunned at the stories from my friends about the pub and on Sunday I got to witness the awful customer service of the new GM first hand.

It was 2.10, the pub had maybe 20% of their tables occupied and no reserved signs on any of the others. Even so we sat at a drinking table as we just wanted some food before meeting friends there for drinks.

We were told by the manager that we couldn’t get any food until 7.30! He didn’t attempt to accommodate us in any way at all and there was no apology. Customer service score zero. I videoed the near empty pub. The staff we knew came up forlorn and apologised to us.

We got the 2.24 train to Chester and called our friends to say we needed to meet there instead. Our friends who had had their own bad experience with the GM the previous day called the pub and asked if they were serving food that day. The answer was ‘yes, what time would you like a table?’. So just no way to accommodate us then, nice.

I have a long list of other complaints from friends but the funniest was a local drinking at the bar who ended up ringing the pub to asked to be served a drink at the bar he was sat at 😆

The Goshawk used to be a destination pub. People would come from miles around and the locals cherished the place. I would love to see the turnover figures for the last few years compared to pre takeover. It was a great great pub and I was proud to have it as my local....

After arriving at The Goshawk on Saturday the 17th of July in blistering heat with 3 very hot pooches we grabbed the attention of a young waiter, very politely and informatively asked us to go inside to get a table sorted in the beer garden.

We fancied a few drinks and maybe some food as the weather was so nice. Myself, partner, friend and wife were rudely greeted by Neil the bar manger who seemed to take one look at us and decided he was fully booked. After trying to convince us he was booked up until 8pm I decided to take a stroll around the back to see how many spare tables were available.

I was absolutely shocked and furious to discover he had 18 empty tables with only a few taken. Being a middle age white middle class male I feel I have been very fortunate to not have had to experience much discrimination in my life, however maybe a baseball cap and sunglasses was too much for Neil.

What was supposed to be a nice weekend away was absolutely ruined by the actions of the so called manager.

Very sheepishly he allowed us to have a drink.

We were showed to the far end of the beer garden, what could only assume he wanted us as far away from the fun atmosphere as possible.

Just to make sure my suspicions were correct I then tried to book a table online to see whether or not they were fully booked, no surprises they could cater for a group larger than ours pretty much any time during the day we wanted.

I can honestly say I have never in my life been made to feel how Neil made me feel, furious, embarrassed, upset, disappointed … and all we wanted to do was effectively give his pub money and enjoy ourselves.

What a fantastic venue it is, seems to have everything apart from the right man managing it.

Appalling behaviour and quite frankly the worst experience within a public house I have...