The Stoneham — Restaurant in England

Atrocious - the worst customer experience I've had

Sunday 25th January: as part of a large family gathering, we'd booked tables at the Stoneham for Sunday roasts. From there, nothing went well for the Stoneham.

We arrived at 3pm and were directed to a table (note: not seated) including no effort from the staff to offer highchairs for the two infants with the group.

Menus didn't then appear for 10-15 minutes, with a drinks order being taken shortly after.

No drinks had arrived 20 minutes after that, so a member of the group enquired about them; he was informed that they hadn't processed the order because they had to answer the phone.

So, drinks start to appear another 10 minutes later (we've been sat there for over half an hour at this point, with the afore-mentioned infants and other children starting to get antsy with boredom). Lo and behold, the drinks order comes out incomplete, and in filthy glassware. There was a chunk of something brown and unpleasant baked onto the inside of my glass, for example.

Once we got the 45 minute mark, another member of our group raises a complaint with the manager about the poor service, only to be met with feeble excuses and no effort to correct the problems. She didn't even ask what drinks were missing from the order - just smirked and walked off.

At this point it became clear that the staff had no interest in providing a pleasant dining experience, and the claim of being family-friendly is just that - a claim, which they don't bother to try and support.

Our group walked out in the face of the disrespect shown by the manager when the complaint was raised. Let's be clear here: there was no apology, no real explanation, no customer service at all.

I cannot state enough how disappointing the experience was, and frankly given the awful state of the place (gent's toilets awash with urine, filthy glassware, sticky unwashed tables) I'm glad we didn't end up having to eat the swill they may have eventually served us.

TL;DR - filthy pub, awful staff, an almost hilarious lack of customer service. Avoid.

Visited...

Booked a table a month in advance for 7 adults and 3/4 young children. On arrival a 4 seater table had been saved for us, luckily the pub wasn't that busy in the afternoon so another table was able to be added.

When the last member of our group arrived, she parked her buggy briefly to say hi to everyone before getting her sleeping child out; unfortunately she only got as far as hugging one person hello before a rude member of staff was very aggressive with her about where her buggy was and telling her to leave it leaving her so upset she actually left the pub as she felt so uncomfortable.

We ordered food which is way over priced for what arrives and the chips were so oversalted I ended up having to 'sieve' them off using one of the decorative mini fryer baskets one person's chips were served in so they were edible. A plate of £11 nachos was left half eaten as it was just a plate of tortilla chips with a small amount of cheese and a couple of dollops of salsa, sour cream and guacamole (no layering, really blah). The member of the group who ordered the burger seemed to enjoy it however. The same member of staff mentioned above was rude a couple more times whilst we were there to different people.

Overall the experience of the actual pub was disappointing and the food overpriced and lacklustre, don't think I/we would...

The worst drink I have ever had in Hove - and that's saying something. Gorgeous Friday eve, so went for a quiet pint in garden. Ale selection poor, with nothing summery. Took drink into the pretty garden to enjoy the warm evening, was not so busy. But all tables were filthy. The first I sat at had ants all over it feeding off the bits of old food on it the second was dirty also and wet with spilt drinks , the third, disgusting .. finally found one that just had empty glasses rather than filth -tho the chair seat was covered in ketchup. Despite it being late-ish there was a large noisy family, whose kids decided to run round screaming while a parent occasionally asked darling Hugo to sit down. After several minutes I couldn't bear it so went to sit at the front of the pub, with 'darling Hugo nearly tripping me up on the ways as he ran screeching in front of me. I took a seet on another dirty table full of glasses, where there were more children - this time skateboarding in the seating area at in front of the pub, accompanied by the sound of women cackling to the beat of half-price prosecco. I finished my pint gazing at the beautiful vista of takeaways and passing buses, the music of cackles, whining children and clatter of skateboards drifting into the night air, wishing i could be somewhere - indeed,...