The Willow Tree — Restaurant in England

Intro:

The Willow Tree by Stonehouse brewery is a cheap and cheerful eatery with live music and actively supports local charities which ,for me, makes it a little more appeing than other similar places.

I'm writing on the Tuesday after the second May bank holiday and I arrived just before 2pm.

Exterior: *

On pulling up into the car park and walking in, the first  wry noticeable aspect is that the building looks a bit drab. Closer inspection shows that it looked generally unloved with lots of poor cosmetic work. Paint daubed on the wall in various colours, paint flaking off the windows and doors.

Interior: **

On entering the lighting is great, just right in fact. To the left of the door is a lectern where I assume I order and I'm soon approached by a staff member. I ask to be seated and he tells me I can sit anywhere then order at the bar making me wonder what the need of the lectern was. I'm also greeted by a table with cleaning chemicals, a dustpan and cloths as well as a yellow wet floor sign which, frankly, shouldn't be front of house.

I looked around for a table. There are 3 main areas, to the left and right of the long bar situated at the back wall and directly opposite. It's not busy, maybe 30% of tables have customers and a few "reserved" tables has already left.

Sadly, the majority of the remaining tables were all messy with plates, glasses and unwiped cleaned. My table had no cutlery. There are 2 totally different types of salt and pepper pots, one for each but it's a gamble as to what you'll get in which. Thankfully they're glass so you can see.

I go back around 25 mins later for more vegetables and all but one of the tables are all cleared. However, the gravy spills have congealed and are starting to dry under the heat and the sauces still need topping up.

Main: *

I had the carvery and it's was ideal. You can't really go wrong with a carvery right? The food was great! The gravy area had splashes everywhere and the sauces had all but run out and hadn't been replenished. The food was hot, the potatoes were crispy and the gammon just right.

Dessert:

Didn't have one this time.

Service: **

Overall the service isn't terrible. During my visit I saw One waiter clearing tables and serving behind the bar at times. 2 guys behind the bar I assume we're managers as they were in plain clothes and not a uniform and 2 chefs behind the carvery pass.

The general impression I got from the few interactions I had and observing them with others is that no one wants to be here which is not the attitude to have in the F&B industry.

I get it, everyone has a bad day but this looks like everyone is having a bad day together.

Value for money: *

Carvery £8.99

Madri £5.15

I came here to get a decent meal for good value and to leave full which was achieved.

Conclusion:

The Willow Tree is a mixed bag really.

In one aspect, it's a budget eatery providing a decent environment to get a great meal for a good price that also does live music and supports local charities.

On the other it's just like every Toby's out there once you get in. This is a shame because it could be so much more if it was just loved a little more, spruced up and didn't look like the brewery and the management had given up on it.

Front of house in any F&B business must be neat tidy and well maintained and not have cleaning materials lying around, spillages being left for ages and domestic signage in full view of customers.

With a little TLC and a smile or two from the staff and management this place could be...

We were really excited to visit as we have used the too good to go app to collect take away roast dinners from the restaurant in the past and they have always been good. However, we were very disappointed in our visit. One if our waitresses seemed very annoyed from off the bat, muttering about his she has to do everything, not very welcoming at all.she then goes on to complain to us about our daughter who wanted to play. We understand there is hot food being served and she might get walked on, but we were very attentive and in a family restaurant, you expect children to want to play. Another child of similar age was playing a couple of tables down and yet nothing was said to the family.

Our food was dissapointi g also, especially considering the costs.we ordered the nacho share to begin with and I'd say it was hardley a sharing size, just over a single persons size. For our main my partner ordered the roast which she said was good barring the beg was very over done. I had ordered a burger and was very disappointed to find the burgers were not fresh and very cheap! The quality was that of a average take away restaurant, not of a dine in restaurant. Extremely disappointing.

My youngest son ordered desert from the childs menu which said it was included in the price, but we were charged extra for it. I ordered a floater coffee which was topped with whipped cream instead of condensed cream and no biscotti.

Over all we were left deflated and disappointed from our experience and will...

Always waiting for our food 30 - 45 minutes wait Even when it’s quite we always seemed to be waiting so long for our orders to arrive. Even when we order we have to ask one members of the staff where are order are at! Huge lack of communication between staff! Not happy. Wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone who wants to wait 45+ minutes for a carvery ticket!! Not happy. We ordered on the app few months ago it was fine until last month or so. Apparently it hasn’t gone through properly apparently!!! even though we ordered on the app on multiple occasions before with no issues. Yes we had to wait 45 minutes for a carvery ticket! We wouldn’t of got a ticket if I didn’t asked a member of staff where was our tickets for a carvery ticket after we ordered on the app which also had the correct table number in place. But we gave them the benefit of the dough and again we didn’t receive our food the other time until I asked again a member of staff and there excuse was it didn’t go through the system properly even though we had evidence that we ordered on the app and with the table number. I get some days it can be busy but I seriously just seeing members of staff chatting away and walking like zombies they could see we were waiting for extramarital amount of time for our food to arrive. Food was waiting in the counter to be collected yet no one bothered to collect our food until again I asked a member of staff that we ordered food. It’s every time this is...