The Jolly Farmer Cookham — Restaurant in England

It used to be a great place, but the new management has introduced a more basic menu and the whole team behind the bar seems to be completely inexperienced. When I called them on Friday to reserve a table for today, they called me back after 10 minutes because they forgot if my reservation was for Saturday or Sunday. As I got in today, it turned out that my table was used by someone else just because he had the same first name as me although he booked for 12:30 while I booked for 1:30pm. Service was extremely slow and I went twice to collect drinks at the bar for me, my wife and a friend. Food is average, as in “just right” or “not bad”, but weirdly sized. Starters might seem expensive but they’re actually larger than expected. OTOH mains are indeed slightly overpriced given their size. In the end the bill was allocated to the wrong table number although the dishes were correct but the drinks were missing. I told them, they came back a bit later and still a couple of drinks were missing. They told us that they were on the house, and for this they deserve 2 stars for service instead of a single star. It feels like the entire new team working there, with the exception of the people in the kitchen, has never worked in a pub or restaurant before, they’re very nice but somewhere between naive and clueless. I’m pretty sure I’ll come here again given its nice garden and the adjacent playground for my son, hopefully they will have learned their...

"Nice little pub, with great food" - that was my previous review of this venue. We've visited this pub maybe 5 or 6 times since hospitality started reopening after Covid restrictions and unfortunately our experiences have gotten progressively worse - to the point that we've now agreed not to return. The food is still pleasant but wait times have become unacceptable. 3x pizzas and a kids spag bol took nearly an hour from ordering to eating. £80 including 2x beers and 4x kids drinks - it's far too pricey for that kind of service!! We also recommended it to friends recently and met there under a reservation. We were beyond embarrassed at what transpired. Wait times for each course were ridiculous, we ended up having to cancel desert. The barman took our deserts order without writing down any of it (8x adult deserts and 3x kids!!) - we weren't suprised to find 30 mins later that none of it had actually been ordered!!! We asked for teas and coffees and were brought over take away cups - when questioned why we couldn't have proper cups and saucers we we told that they were in storage and not clean??!! This was to a table that had spent over £200 on lunch. No management was onsite that day either and the staff were beyond stretched.

As mentioned at the start, we used to like this pub but they need to seriously reset their service before we'll return....

My wife and I were out for a long walk with our one year old last bank holiday Monday and we had planned to stop along the way and hopefully get something to eat. Admittedly, we had not booked a table but we got there at 2ish to find it pretty quiet. The landlady was talking to 2 people on the front so we waited, masks on until she had finished her conversation to then have her ignore us and walk inside. We waited for a while and then ventured in.... We were then told in no uncertain terms that we cannot order food unless we have booked. "You can have a drink out the front". Landlord ordered us to check in on the NHS app - we already had whilst we waited inside.

Dreadful service, ignorant staff almost to the point of rudeness - not the girl who brought our drinks, who was lovely.

I poked my head around the side to see what the situation was like in the garden and there were many free tables, only 3 taken!

Cannot understand why people running a pub at the moment would not be more accommodating and at least have a vague grasp on the concept of hospitality!

Real shame, as the pub itself looked lovely, beautiful day and gorgeous village. Will not...