Travellers Rest — Restaurant in England

Shocking attitude, be warned don’t go there, go to the excellent ‘Rose and Crown’ in Slaley village itself, a friendly, welcoming community owned pub with excellent food and service, (5 stars). My wife and I have eaten in the ‘Travellers Rest’ on two occasions in the past six months and the food has been ok and the staff courteous, although I did notice the chef does spend a lot of time behind the bar surveying the customers rather than in the kitchen, even during fairly busy periods. I pre-booked a table for two on the evening of 22nd July, 2021. On being seated there was a bit of a delay with the drinks order but made no comment about this as I noticed the manager appeared to be under a degree of stress in working with an inexperienced waitress. Two other new customers entered the premises seeking service, obviously looking for a table, but were ignored by staff, eventually sitting outside. My wife and I ordered drinks and two different fish dishes. Although the premises were fairly quiet the chef himself then took a party table order including fish and chips on a table next to us. After about 15 minutes the waitress informed us that there was no fish left as the last meals had now been allocated to the later party order. I pointed out we had placed our order prior to this and asked to see the manager. The manager came to our table with the two chit orders and informed us that the chef, (his partner), had decided to prioritise the later party order over ours. I told him I was not impressed by this and he immediately flounced off, throwing the two chits on the floor, saying over his shoulder ‘you think it’s the end of the world because we ran out of fish’. I was gob smacked at this petulant and unprovoked attitude, followed him to the bar area and suggested to him that good customer service may involve offering a customer alternative menu choices rather than being rude. At this point he began to shriek hysterically repeatedly yelling at me to get out of the pub. I told him I intended to place a customer review on social media at which point he insulted me calling me a ‘d---head’ and screamed at me to get out and that I was barred. All of this behaviour could be clearly heard by customers inside the pub and outside in the car park. At this point the chef, his partner, came out of the kitchen came up close to me, with his ample stomach touching me and said ‘I’m going to put you on your back’. I told him to step back out of my personal space and not to threaten me with physical violence as this behaviour and that of his partner swearing at me was unacceptable, unprofessional and unbecoming of responsible pub landlords. I left the premises having conducted myself in a calm, reasonable manner, not raising my voice and at no point swearing or threatening physical violence. My wife and I retired to the nearby ‘Rose and Crown’ in Slaley village itself, and had excellent meal and service where we were made to feel welcome by friendly staff and customers. I wish we had gone there in the first place. We later discovered a number of locals no longer frequent the ‘Travellers Rest’ under its present management due to a raft of customer service issues. Further research has revealed that other previous customers have experienced rudeness and inappropriate behaviour from the management who frequently run out of multiple food dishes on the menu. We certainly won’t be visiting the premises again and advise others to give it...

Back in September, I had travelled down to England, from Scotland to attend a wedding. We had arrived very early for our check in, but the owner kindly allowed us to get changed for the wedding before they had cleaned etc. prior to the previous comers. When we returned back later that night, our room had been cleaned spotless and everything was tidied up for us as we left the room in a bit of a mess as we were running late for the wedding. Our make up etc that we had lying about was all nicely organised on the table for us. I was quite embarrassed that I had left in a rush and had no time to tidy up after ourselves, but I was more than happy to return to a nice clean room! Our room looked out into a field of sheep which I really like, it was lovely to see the country rather than busy cities. We had a full breakfast which was included in our booking, the food was lovely and the service was great, with the waitress being very polite and attending to our needs. We were very happy with...

A convenient stopping place at the end of a journey, in a pleasant building with a warm fire and and quaint historic decor . The staff weren’t all smiles and we felt a bit as though we’d intruded on some of the customers standing propping the bar up. The food was adequate but not exceptional - and a little meagre: three new potatoes per plate if you chose the new potato option. And I wouldn’t trust the attention to allergy care, if that’s important to you. My order clearly stated ‘no peas’ but the vegetable dish was a mixture of peas and other vegetables so that I had to carefully pick out the peas. The food tasted good however, and filled a hole. We did not stop...