The Three Brooks — Restaurant in England

Breakfast with Santa... my child's first ever Santa experience, absolute shambles. Arrived exactly at time stated on the booking confirmation, doors were locked, but opened by woman within a couple of mins. Outside hadnt been tidied from Friday night, litter, cigarette butts, vapes, ashtrays, overturned chairs, rubbish everywhere Greeted with "he's getting changed a min" in front of the children, who, by the way, don't need to hear that santa has arrived from the north pole, not dressed! (not hello, welcome , come in, Santa will be joining us shortly, etc) We were given no welcome, not told how anything was set up, or how it worked. Not even christmas music, or kids music, i personally enjoy a bit of Salt n pepa on a night out, but not breakfast with Santa. We were then sat waiting, zero attention, for 40 minutes, until i asked at the bar, when either Santa or breakfast were likely to arrive, considering we'd prepaid, emailed preorders, and paid for hot drinks ..other customers not there for breakfast with Santa, had received their breakfasts, and arrived a lot later than us.. no updates from staff at all, a further 30 mins later, 2 extremely bored and hungry kids ( it was over an hour since arrival, this was supposed to be breakfast) we asked again about breakfast and/or Santa, and asked to speak to management, to be told, "sorry Santa is running behind, I'll ask about breakfast, and there's no member of management here" 10 mins later, our food arrives, which was not too bad, but we were hungry . Santa arrived at half eleven, stayed 5 mins , didn't even ask what they wanted for Xmas, just if they've been good. It was an embarrassing situation, felt thrown together and very unprofessional. We felt sorry for the staff, as there's zero management, communication or effort. The female member of staff dressed as an elf was great, given the circumstances, and I felt for her, she made an effort with the kids and is a credit to herself. I frequent other pubs, under the name Ember Inn , and has been great, I've had more than a couple of relatively bad experiences, in the three brooks, as its on my doorstep, I've given it more chances than I would anywhere else, but never again. It has the potential to be a fantastic local, but not in current situation. I got a partial refund, but...

They ignored my allergy. I have an unusual one, I can't have tomatoes. It gives me horrible stomach pains and makes me ill for a day or two (if I'm lucky). So when my Mother in Law ordered my hamburger, she requested that there be no tomatoes and no burger sauce. When the food arrived, the burger had nice thick slices of tomatoes on it (they looked really great! But I can't have them!) and I said that I can't eat it, it has tomatoes and I'm allergic. The server then said, "We weren't told it was an allergy." WHY do I need to disclose my medical information every time I dine just to NOT get tomatoes on something? I usually do tell people it's an allergy, but, honestly, I shouldn't have to. Then she asks, "Well, can't we just take them off? Are you that sensitive?" No, we can't, because I am that sensitive. She tells me it'll be a while. I tell her no problem, I'm used to it, but would she please bring out some chips for me to eat while I wait and I thank her for taking it back and getting me a new one. I have no problem waiting, this happens frequently and I am fully prepared to have to have my meal 'to go'. A few minutes go by (my Mother in Law isn't even remotely done with her food and I've not even eaten half the bowl of chips) and she's back with my food. I comment, happily, that "That was fast!" and am pleasantly surprised that they brought me more chips with the burger! Great! I thank her again for bringing me out a new burger, how much I appreciate it, and just in general, "I -know-it's-a-pain-thank-you-for-being-kind" sort of things. I even thought about finding the manager to let him know how much I appreciated his staff taking care of me. Now I'm glad I didn't as I am at home with horrible stomach pains and feeling awful. We've decided to never go there again because we can't trust them to not poison me OR to be honest and correct their mistake! In the interest of fairness, I've eaten there plenty of times before and enjoyed it thoroughly, the food has always been delicious. I'm going to miss going there, but it just...

Food was really good, but service was disappointing. I have specific dietary requirements so wasn't able to order through the app (as there is no space to add notes or extra requirements) I needed to approach the bar and give them my card to be able to order not on the app. The server then took my order at the table and I asked for gin and slimline tonic. She then brought over a gin and FEVER TREE tonic which I didn't want. I asked her if they did BRITVIC and she said they did. Unfortunately, she didn't give me the option when she took my order and she'd already poured the FEVER TREE into the gin. She then told me that next time I needed to tell her what I wanted as she had wasted a drink. I didn't realise they sold multiple tonics, so feel that it was her responsibility to ask which tonic I'd prefer and also she could not have poured the tonic into the gin and would then have only had to dispose of a tonic, and not a gin as well. There were only three staff on duty and the pub was full (they were turning people) but we waited for over half an hour to pay the bill. Eventually, I had to approach the bar and ask for someone to bring over the bill. I was snapped at for approaching the bar and explained that we had already been waiting over half an hour to pay so they could have the table back. A different server came over with the card machine and quoted a price, we then told him we had a voucher code and then he snapped at us to say that we should have paid on the app! We explained that we had dietary requirements so couldn't order on the app. He then went away and came back with the discounted price. We paid and left.

I appreciate that this is a very difficult time for many businesses, but I eat out frequently and the staff here were too few and stretched too far. My dietary requirements are always dealt with professionally and I never have any issues but it felt like it was just a bit too much for the Three Brookes last night. I don't think I will visit again which is a shame as the food was lovely - particularly the...