Ye Olde Leathern Bottel — Restaurant in England

Unfortunately myself and my family had a truly awful experience at Ye Olde Leathern Bottel, to the point I reached out to guest relations (ref: GS2572155) who promised to look into the matter.

Visiting last July for my husband's birthday, we initially ordered starters, drinks and some water for the table. All starters apart from one came out at the same time, the last one came out 10 minutes later, the water took 45 minutes to arrive, within this time I ordered a 2nd diet coke and that came out before the water.

We all ordered our meals at the same time, several people had steak, which would understandably, take a long time to cook. The food took just under an hour to come out...but we were all very puzzled when once again all meals came out at the same time, apart from one person's cheese toastie (something that shouldn't take longer than a steak to cook). It took a further 25 minutes (at least), for his food to come out. At this point, those of us who were being polite and didn't eat initially, had cold food, and those that had started eating, had finished their meal and were sat waiting for the rest of us.

During the meal, we were asking for updates on when the last dish would be delivered and the waitress told us at least 3 times that the kitchen said it was on the way.

Fed up of waiting, we asked to speak to the manager. Instead of a manager, a chef came out asking "what's the problem here?", he was aggressive in the tone in which he spoke to us and said the waitress was now crying. This surprised the entire table, I would like to stress at no point were we rude to her, or spoke to her in the manner in which the chef spoke to us. He also said there was no manager onsite and that the kitchen was short-staffed (at no point earlier had we been told this). If the waitress had been checking on the cheese toastie, it wasn't with him as he had no idea we were still waiting for food, he didn't know why we'd asked for a manager at all.

In my view, the staff were understaffed, under-skilled and unprofessional. I don't think my party should have been penalized because the pub was short-staffed, yet because we dared to complain, we were spoken to aggressively.

I reached out to Green King enquiring about the service, the waitress (to find out if she was okay and if we had said something to upset her) and lack of manager. Although I received an initial response from Artur (name is correct), saying I'd be contacted as soon as the investigation is complete, almost a year on, I still haven't heard...

Went in yesterday with my family for the 1st time. We were in the area and ( 2 adults and 2 children) wanted to eat. We came at 5pm, and we were greated by a nice lady, although the restaurant was almost empty, we were told that all tables are booked and they only have spces in the pub.

We ordered at the bar, and meanwhile the food came, there were no cutleries on the table so for the first few minutes I was eating my squid with my hands.

For my daughter instead baked beans, they came with pees, although when mentioned it, they changed it.

No napkins were provided and table was sticky as a blue tag ( although it was cleaned before by the waiter )

I ordered for starters, fried squid, which was socked in oil, and even so, it was not cooked properly.

We than had to wait 40 min for the mains to arrive, and meanwhile we were hungry we thought the wait will be worth it, however the food was appalling and probably the worst place I've ever dined in.

The signature burger was horrible, and the meat being extremely low quality and even the lettuce in the burger were bootom cutts which normally you through them in the bin, not in a burger.

My wife had double chicken which was rock solid, rice had no taste other than the chimen, and the fried chicken felt old and oily.

If you wish to eat outside than Stay away from this place, you better to anywhere else. If you're in just for a drink than OK.

I'll never ever return to this place. Waste of money and honestly I do not know how are they allowed to serve such a horrible food. When I got home I had a stomach pain from the burger and I had to have a shot of whiskey to drag my stomach to make sure I'm not...

After a number of visits over the years to YOLB it has always been a bit hit and miss. However, the Burns Night was by far the worst I've experienced and will result in us thinking twice before visiting again. The speed of service was appalling. We waited 45 minutes for what was a tiny first course. The total time in the pub was 3 hours which was not ideal when we have to get up early the next day. I can only guess that the pub was short-staffed. They should have known how busy it would be based on the number of bookings. If there were staffing issues then you have two options: find more staff or cancel tables so that the assigned staff can handle the workload. It would appear that the pubs priority was money in the till rather than seeking repeat business (which they'll now unlikely get from us). For the staff that were there, the team seemed very unorganized and a little bit all over the place. Having worked in busy bars and pubs myself I can only recommend further training for operating on these busy nights. Also, it was a great shame to see the waiting staff standing around chatting to each other even though there was food ready to be taken to tables (things you see when sat near the kitchen). It wasn't all bad. Two out of the four courses were delicious. And in fairness to the waitress she apologised for the speed of service throughout the evening. I can only recommend to management to look at how they operate these busy nights or you will lose...