The Running Fox at Kirkharle — Restaurant in England

Wasn’t worth the drive or the wait

Kept seeing signs for this place, so arrived, just after 3pm in the hope of a cuppa and scone. Initial impression was that it looked lovely. Nice stone buildings and log burner inside making it cozy and warm. Though reasonably busy, we got a seat quickly, caught the eye of the waitress… and then it all went down hill from there.

Firstly told by the waitress that she couldn’t take our order but would ask someone to come over.

She then came back about 5 minutes later to take our order.

We sat, chatting and watched as three groups of people, all of whom came in after us, had their orders taken and were served hot food.

As nothing has arrived after about 20 minutes of waiting, we spoke with a different waitress, who went to chase the order for us.

The first waitress then came back and asked if we still wanted our order (??) and when we said “yes” went off, we hoped, to get it, however we waited a further 10 minutes, as they continued to serve other people.

Finally, at a quarter to four,nearly closing time and just over half an hour since we arrived, the 2 scones and hot chocolate arrived.

The waitress then proceeded to tell us how she had forgotten our order because she served someone else after us.

Sadly the food wasn’t even worth the wait, as the scone was dry and the hot chocolate was more like warm chocolate…also we had ordered the Black Forest version but don’t think we got it.

On way out had to ask 2 staff where to pay, as the shop you are directed to on all the signage was closed, and then, on paying found they added an extra...

ODD… Really disappointed with our visit. We booked for lunch and selected the option of the ‘no dogs’ dining area. Then when we arrived we were shown to our table in the dog friendly dining area… confused we went to question this and we were told that selecting this option doesn’t mean you won’t be sat there….. so why is the option to select which area to sit in even available?! Then we asked if we could move and were told yes there was a table in the main dining area (so why didn’t they put our reservation there in the first place?!). From then on the service was.. ODD. Friendly but totally unorganized! New customers kept walking in (without a server stopping them to say hello) and sitting on vacant tables only to be told they were reserved (but these tables had no reserved signs on which we knew they had because they were on other tables). Gravy was brought with one of our dishes even though we said no we want the option without as we were veggie. The atmosphere was a bit stressful and distracting. Once finished our dishes were only half cleared and then we were forgotten about for 15/20 mins (it wasn’t busy!) and finally had to ask to pay at which point a card machine was brought and we were told our total (no chance to even check a bill to see if we were charged for the...

We just went in for snacks and drinks. We were quickly guided to our window table. The view of the garden and a bit of winter sun was very picturesque. I'm dairy intolerant so I ended up getting black coffee and the wedges with roast garlic and thyme. There were pieces of caramelised garlic with a lovely mild taste. The combination of hot garlic, thyme, salty wedges and cold mayonnaise was really good on a winter's day. My partner got tea and a roasted vegetable frittata and salad. The frittata was a good size and filling. Many of the options I fancied contained butter and milk which is a sign of quality. The waitress helpfully got out the allergy file, but I just chose the obvious option. In cheaper cafés I can eat more things, but I was happy with the wedges. My partner's tea came in a pot with an interestingly long tea bag. This added a bit extra to the experience. Everyone must have a short conversation about their tea bag on the first visit. We paid for the food with a gift voucher and had some change, so my partner added a pound to it and got a fantastic cake to take away. I wish I had taken a photograph of the cake in it's box, because it looked like something from a food magazine. We enjoyed the trip out into the...