The Three Horseshoes — Restaurant in England

Arrived 20 minutes before our reservation in order to enjoy a drink at the bar beforehand. Collected and brought in the daily paper that had been left on the doorstep, despite it being 1:40pm. Sat on the cosy sofas but even being set with kindling, the fire was not lit and being end of October after a muddy dog walk, it felt chilly. Came to the bar to order drinks but ended up sitting back down after 10 minutes standing there as only one bar lady and she was taking an in person reservation and deposit before answering the phone. There was a young lad hovering and cleaning tables but perhaps he’s not of age to serve alcohol as he didn’t jump behind the bar except to answer the phone which he then passed over to said bar lady? Another 10 minutes later my husband went back up and managed to order drinks and say we had a booking, which we were now bang on time for. They confirmed they had our booking and we asked if we could dine on the sofas which they said would be fine. Sat down with drinks finally in hand but a menu didn’t appear. By half way through our pint and large wine we decided we’d pay for these and go, having now been there for 40 minutes. At this point bar lady appeared and asked if we would “like to look at the menu”, which seems like a given since I’d booked the table 2 weeks in advance and had been sat for 20 mins with drinks. However, we declined and headed out. Luckily, this isn’t the first time we’ve been here. We come around once a month and love the seasonal and local menu. Pie of the day and cheesecake of the day are usually a firm favourite! Also usually have superb service, particularly from the dark haired, bearded guy? However, based solely off today (a Tuesday afternoon), we’d be unlikely to return. Fortunately managed to snag a last minute table at Three Daggers and headed there.

Edit: there is no intention to engage in “ranting” whether it be courageous or otherwise, and I understand and acknowledge hospitality and customer service can be challenging and thankless tasks. Rather, I’m just using a specific review platform to provide honest feedback on a recent experience. I apologise for not being pro-active enough in asking for a menu nor the fire to be lit once we were sat, though to be honest in the 40 minutes we were there we’d only just about managed to get two drinks (ordered at the bar, we didn’t expect table service for this). I only wish local pubs and restaurants the very best in the...

Terribly disappointed

Having read recent reviews, we were very pleased to have got a table for lunch today, for 3 adults & 1 child. The menu looked very appetizing, WELL..........having placed our orders, unfortunately from then on it went rapidly down hill, my wife & i both chose the parsnip & apple soup with warm bread & butter for starters, this was brought to the table almost cold apart from the butter which had been warmed and when we opened the butter it just ran out!!!!!!!! all over our fingers & onto table. Went down stairs & spoke to staff to explain, the staff took it away, soup was returned but was still only tepid. So we gave up on the starters.........but the mains would be better surely?????, well NO.... my Sirloin of Beef meal and veg was barely warm, my wife's Lamb and veg was the same just warm, & our cauliflower cheese 2 portions.... YES... you guessed right. My Sons starter of Squid was lovely, but his mains of Liver & Bacon was the same as ours just warm. The Manager came up (approx 3/4 mins) after the mains were brought to us, and asked if the main meals were much better, i offered him to touch or try the food, well... the look on his face said everything he offered it to be returned to the kitchens to be heated but we said no, we would eat as much as we wanted, it was then he said the bill would have a 50% discount. When i went down to pay the bill he apologized again, and said he was very sorry, I said it was such a pity as it was a lovely place. Maybe they could just not cope with all the people who were there eating...

This review is in response to Ben’s comments on a review written by Debbie Harris. I was the friend having lunch with Debbie on that day (in fact I had eaten at the Three Horse Shoes on several occasions and had told her how nice the pub was). In Ben’s response he states that I (the friend) drank my coffee and enjoyed it, I would like to clarify this by saying my coffee (a latte) was bitter and was returned to the bar where I told the barmaid it tasted bitter but if she could add more milk it may help which she did, (I don’t use sugar and don’t like to make a fuss,) it made it drinkable but not good, (the cost of the coffee was deducted from my bill.). I don’t like to contradict you (Ben) but when told by Debbie about her worries over the curdled sauce no explanation or any other comment was made by you (Ben) or any other member of staff. The other contradiction to your response is that I PRAISED you about how much I enjoyed my meal I don’t feel my response of 'fine' when asked if my meal was ok can be classed as praise, it was an ok meal a bit overpriced, but we all have different expectations from a meal. I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I was horrified to read the personal response you sent to Debbie, (it does read rather differently to the one posted on this site.) I have suggested to her that it should also be made public. ...