The Red Lion — Restaurant in England

Firstly the pub was understaffed, the bar was messy with menus and drinks scattered all over. More people were joining the queue than were being served. And the manager was nowhere to be seen, I felt sorry for the two staff who were serving.

I spent 50 quid on 3 meals and 3 drinks, the glasses were filthy with lip marks and grime. I had to clean them the best I could before drinking. The staff were constantly roaming the garden with peoples food asking did you order this even though table numbers were given when placing the order. My food arrived with no cutlery so by the time I waited for them it was almost cold. The salad advertised with dressing but served dry and out of the box, the garden was scattered with serviettes and litter. And to top it all off there were two cat hairs in my food! I asked a member of staff before complaining “do the landlords have cats upstairs” and they told me yes.. my food was almost eaten by the time I saw this and I was most upset ..

Credit where due! If you go to this pub off peak, the experience can be okay.. But when most people work and can only go afterwards you find the place busy. The experience will leave you frustrated and that’s a understatement.

The management should be keeping on top of what could be and (was) a nice pub. The staff are working very hard but are being let down by an obviously ignorant and naieve captain. If this ship sinks it will be there sole responsibility and everyone affected will also go down with it. Staff your doing a great job, it’s the maestro who’s letting you us and the establishment down.

Pubs, cats and kitchens don’t belong in one sentence let alone on a plate together.. management take heed and run the place like your being paid to do so and stop letting the staff who are not being paid to do so run it for you....

Well Red Lion what can I say!! Our booking last night was a complete shambles. The table I booked online over a week ago was not ready and we had to wait for it to be set up…a lot of items on the menu were “out of stock” meals finally ordered and it went from bad to worse. After 1hr 30 mins One starter came out. The others followed 30 minutes later. Then the mains started coming out when the starters hadn’t been finished. 2 x chicken gyros from the ultimate plate range - both had hardly any chicken on…I’d asked for no jalapeños but it came out with them. Scampi came out with beans when peas were ordered and came out as a child’s portion when it should have been an adult portion. Finally a manager appeared after no one had come over to apologise who offered us a free round of drinks. 20 minutes later drinks appeared. Followed by another manager who again offered us a free round of drinks as they did not know the other manager had been over. Lack of communication!! Icing on the cake was the young waiter lad who told me that at the end of the day it’s not his problem and will just go home without a second thought of the situation. Great customer service there. To be fair we were given 50% off our bill but after using this pub over the years, it was a real let down and disappointment. Especially as it was booked for a family birthday. Need to do better Red Lion. If you don’t have the staff and there’s going to be a long wait at least have the courtesy to come over and inform us. Nothing was done until 2 members of our family had to go look for a manager. Not sure if any of us want to visit again. Not keen on the new menu as most things come with hot sauce or jalapeños and a lot of the old favourites have gone. Very very...

Disappointing Lack of communication with customers is the reason for the low review. We unfortunately didn't stay to eat. We arrived at about 12:30 the restaurant had a scattering of customers throughout but definitely were far from full capacity. We were seated by friendly staff. Our daughter has multiple allergies and eating out is a rarity due to how difficult it can be to find something suitable. We were given the allergen menu on an iPad which had a dirty screen, looked like it had been wiped cleaned with a dirty cloth. We were advised that they would double check our order and the allergens when we have made a choice which is great. We managed to find something suitable for our tricky customer (it took us about 30 minutes but our needs are complicated) and went to the bar to order the customers in front were placing an order for food and they were told that several items weren't available. When we were next to order the bar lady said she wouldn't be long. As she finished up an order another member of staff came in and explained to the bar lady there was a 30 minute wait on food. By this point we had been in the restaurant for almost an hour and the food I wanted wasn't available and I wasn't willing to re-look through the allergen menu again. If the wait time and missing items had been disclosed at the beginning then we probably wouldn't have left but entertaining a hungry 4 year old for an hour and half is tricky in a restaurant. We'll maybe come back when we're in...