The Old John Peel Inn — Restaurant in England

Celebrating our joint 50th birthdays, visiting an area of The Lakes that holds a special place in my heart, my partner and I only 'nipped in for one' and a game of 'Free pool on Wednesdays' while waiting for the bus back to our hotel in Rydal. We were welcomed with a smile, not only from the lovely lady serving us (apologies, we didn't get your name!) but from other customers already in there having a drink 😊 this place was sold to me already! Being an experienced hospitality Manager within a large brewery chain (Joseph Holt 😉) back home in Manchester, I know how important first impressions are and we cannot complain. As soon as we entered this cosy, friendly establishment, it actually felt familiar even though, in all my 40+ years of visiting Bowness, id not actually been in before. Being in a celebratory mood, we more than willingly sampled the homemade Werthers Toffee Vodka Shots which did not disappoint (only the one....again!!). Well the lady on the bar could quite easily sell ice to the Eskimos and we went back for more, they were so nice! This visit was topped off by the young son of the Lady on the bar, casually yet shyly, tinkling on the ivories and giving us a couple of tunes on the house piano. He ran away when he got a well deserved round of applause from everyone in the pub!! What a lovely young lad and a credit to the place 🥰 We eventually and begrudgingly, supped up and ran for our bus but after a mix up with the bus stops, we ran back down the hill, past the John Peel, to be met with the lady running out to shout us, concerned that we had missed our ride back. Going above and beyond seemed to come naturally to this lovely lady and she was already checking her local bus app to help us get to where we needed to be. We will definitely be reccomending this place to other frequently visiting family and friends and will be popping 'in for one' again very soon 😂...I wouldn't mind but we never did get a game of free pool anyway as the amount of people waiting to play was clearly another testement to this little gem of a place. Thankyou, Sue and...

Me and my partner had a meal here this eve. My partner got the steak pie needless to say it was perfectly obvious it had been reheated in the microwave so all the gravy had dried up in the dish! The vegetables were cold! And frozen not fresh at all. I had the burger and chips which was all made from frozen. None of it was fresh. The chips were more like McCain oven chips that I would have at home. I couldn't believe it when the bar staff collected the plates and didn't even ask if everything was ok with the meals, nothing just complete silence which said it all Really! It was a complete waste of money! Really poor quality! I have had better food made at home! Last time we eat there about a couple of years ago it was really nice but it's gone downhill since last time we eat in there! We won't be returning! It...

Not a very nice experience. Two of the three meals were ok. The third meal (steak pie and chips) had disgusting chips. They were soggy and greasy and pretty much inedible.

Now the main problem we had here was that two of the bar staff (both wearing john peel inn shirts) were sat on the table next to us giving each other manicures. This was a proper set and while we were eating they were filing nails, buffing nails and you could visibly see bits of nail flying about.

The owner or manager then popped out and joked I hope you're offering this to the customers too. Then walked away laughing. This was really disgusting and there's no way I'll be eating or advising anyone to eat...