The Stretton Fox — Restaurant in England

I am posting this review now, just an hour after leaving because I am absolutely furious! I attended the restaurant with my husband, 17yr old daughter and 19 yr old son for a family meal. As we ordered drinks, my son was asked for id. As this has never, ever happened before in all of the pubs and restaurants in which we have eaten, he hadn't brought it with him so the waitress (who turned out to be the duty manager) refused to serve him. She said it was their policy. Although we were not impressed by this, we accepted it and proceeded to order soft drinks. My husband ordered the beer that he had been looking forward to. Shortly after the drinks arrived, my husband offered my son a sip of his drink because he was disappointed that he couldn't have one himself. The waitress/ duty manager saw him and decided to come to the table and publicly humiliate my son. Speaking loudly for all to hear, directly at him, in the most condescending tone imaginable, she told him that he was not allowed to do that and if he did it again, she was "going to take it off" him. Initially, I was too gobsmacked to retaliate. That anyone in her position thought it was appropriate to speak to a paying customer like that is beyond me! We cancelled the food via a different manager, paid for the drinks and left. I will never go there again. I'm sure that she will defend herself by pointing out that it was policy, but there is absolutely no excuse for speaking to anyone like that and publicly humiliating him. And we all know the definition of a jobsworth don't we? I have now read Chris' response and as expected, it was policy. However, I think he may have missed the point. There is absolutely no excuse for the way that she spoke to my son. I'm interested in the comment that he "spoke to multiple people who witnessed" what happened. I didn't really notice multiple staff members in our immediate vicinity so the fact that so many of them were apparently able to hear what she said in a noisy, busy pub, simply illustrates how loud and inappropriate her manner was. She could very easily have discreetly explained the situation to us but she chose to shout, point and draw attention to him in front of everyone. (And apparently in front of multiple members of staff.) If she didn't intend to humiliate him, why did she make that choice? I now see that the owner has replaced his original response with a new one that appears to suggest that my "actions were not in accordance with" "protecting the public and business from harm". I'm afraid that I really struggle to see how an adult taking a sip of beer in a pub may put anyone in harm's way! I'm also not appreciative of the lack of a sincere apology. "we MAY have approached" and "IF you found" - I'll be clear. You DID approach dealing with it very badly and I DID find that being shouted at and pointed at in public was unequivocally offensive. May I also add, in response to the manager's third comment, that the situation was not embarrassing for me. My son is almost 20 and definitely doesn't look under 16. There was no reason for him not to be served other than over zealous enforcement of policy (jobsworthiness). There was even less reason for a loud and very public (as admitted by the manager) humiliation of an adult, sipping beer in a restaurant. Just to be clear: I was not embarrassed. I was angry and disgusted that a waitress/duty manager thought it was acceptable to shout at a customer in front of a busy room full of people and threaten to take the drink (which was my husband's) away from him. This was totally inappropriate. What makes it worse is that the manager doesn't seem to be able to understand this to the extent that he is not able to offer a sincere apology and seeks only to blame me for her inappropriate...

Shame I can't review lower than 1 star Beyond a joke. I can't remember the last time I had a bad meal, but I won't forget this one. Before arriving to the pub, my Nan had been here numerous times before and commented how lovely it was the last time she went, so I was looking forward to our meal today. Upon first look at the menu it looked great, lots of choice, classic pub food everything you could want and more. This however created the illusion of the quality of the food being served. After 40 minutes from when we ordered, we finally received our starter, however mine had to be sent back as it was clearly sat in the window for too long and it was lukewarm. I got a replacement after 10 mins. The other issue was that my partner ordered the deep-fried brie bites and got 3 tiny brie bites which wasn’t worth it after waiting such a long time. This happened alongside being served after people who sat down after us. For the main course, I ordered the duo of lamb, and the waiter asked me if I wanted my lamb pink or well done, I requested pink. The mains then took a further 45 minutes to be served. Mine was well done and dry... Again, I requested for another one, when I told the waiter they took my food and didn’t apologise on the quality of the food or give any further comments. Additionally, I was never asked after both incidents whether the replacement food was better and cooked how it should have been. A man (presumably the manager) in a checkered shirt handed me a sharp steak knife three quarters through my replacement lamb with a large grin on his face which felt almost more like a joke than anything at this point. We asked for a dessert menu which I didn't order to avoid a 3rd potential disappointment. When receiving the desserts my brother had hair in his brownie, which again, was sent back and replaced. At the end of the meal, which was 3 hours after we first came in, I passed my comments across to a member of staff and she explained they had a lot of staff who called in sick today which explains the lack of service. Another table had similar complaints about the food to which I had next to us. They did take off the affected food items from the bill, but it still felt like we robbed for the overall £140 for 5 people for small portions, mediocre food and awful service. Clearly run by someone who doesn’t understand his/her role very well and let me assure you I will not be returning to this embarrassing establishment. I just hope they see this review as constructive criticism as they definitely need it for the lack of professionalism...

Christmas dinner. Lovely experience. Meg served us who gave us great service. The food was lovely and it was a lovely cozy setting. TIP - have a drink at the fire place when you finish. Friendly staff lit the fire for us.

Above is my Christmas dinner review which had full marks and the pictures are from Christmas . so we just came back for a valentines meal and it was an absolute disaster, hence the change in score. Got there at 730pm with no table saved when we booked (told to just sit wherever we wanted). Nobody told us we needed to order at the bar, so we waited for 15 minutes for someone to come over. We could hear staff telling people arriving about 8 ish that they had run out of bread, scallops, lamb and steak (not great). After ordering food our starters came with no cutlery and was sent back due to it being nothing like it was on Christmas despite being the same dish (was meant to be a creamy cheese sauce, but was watery and tasteless). We then waited so long for a member of staff to clear our starters from the table that I took our plates to the bar and cleared our table for them. Then after 2 hours of waiting our mains arrived (by this point the music had ended) my pregnant wife's meat came bloody when I informed them she was pregnant and it had to not be bloody. Got sent back. They cooked the meat longer and then gave it back to her cooked thoroughly this time but put it straight back onto the same plate that was swimming with blood...... Ridiculous! Lots of people were complaining all night about their meals either sent back food or the time it took to be fed. People also walked out. It didn't help that while we was all waiting ages, all we could hear behind the kitchen door was all the staff laughing and messing about. May try coming here again in the distant future but it's such a shame after such a triumph at Christmas for standards to have dropped so badly. On a positive note.... the manager was polite and understood the issues we had and reimbursed us on the account we had hardly eaten. None the less a ruined valentine's Day meal and a McDonald's on the way home to finish. Shame. Music was great...