Travellers Rest — Restaurant in Gedling

EDIT – to the owner's comment

It’s very telling how you’ve responded to other negative reviews compared to mine, especially when addressing the point about bias.

You didn’t immediately offer to change the incorrect dish, and your staff were insistent that we sit inside, despite us clearly saying we wanted to be outdoors because of the weather.

As for “moving the furniture around” – we simply put three tables together in the same area where we would’ve sat anyway. What difference would it have made if we’d sat at those exact same tables without putting them together? That didn’t inconvenience your staff or any other customers.

We didn’t have a booking because you don’t take bookings for outdoor tables – something we were fully aware of. Yet the group behind us, who did exactly the same thing, weren’t met with the same reluctance.

We visited your pub today without a reservation as it was a sunny day, and we fancied sitting outside for dinner. There were 10 of us in total.

I asked one of the waitresses if it was possible to have food in the beer garden – she said no, which was fair enough. We definitely wanted to sit outdoors, so we asked to put three tables together on the terrace. The tables were completely free – there was no one there apart from a couple of others just having drinks, as people usually do.

Instead, she suggested we sit at the front of the pub – right next to a busy out-of-town road, with heavy traffic on a Saturday! Or we could sit inside at a large table, but only until 6:30pm – not nearly enough time to have a proper dinner without feeling rushed.

I asked again – what’s the issue with the terrace tables? No one was using them. She replied, that there’s nothing wrong if you’re happy to sit inside or at the front. I asked again, “So what’s the problem with these tables, then?” Her response? “Nothing - I’m just thinking of everyone else.”

Sorry – but what about us? Ten people, here to have dinner at your pub. It honestly felt like we weren’t welcome. I can only assume it’s because we’re not local and have an accent. Later, a group of (clearly British) people came in, and two tables were pushed together with no issue at all.

To top it all off, the service was poor. One of us was brought the wrong meal, and instead of correcting it immediately, the staff tried to persuade him to keep it. Another meal (lamb) was served cold. My friend sent it back to be reheated – it came back still cold.

There was a clear attitude and I would seriously recommend avoiding this place. To be honest, the food hasn’t been great the last couple of times we've been – we had a lovely meal in November 2024, but we've now been back twice this spring and both times have been a huge disappointment. The quality has dropped, but the prices are still on...

Hi

The morning of 01/07/25 I received an email from you to say it's not too late to celebrate your birthday Tom, it was two days ago 29th June, pop in and you'll receive a complementary bottle of wine to have with your meal.

So on the spur of the moment my wife and I called up there at 15.00hrs to see if we could get booked in.

We stood at the usual waiting to be seated area. The one staff we saw was serving drinks and never even acknowledged us. To make matters worse more people came in and were served drinks. Another couple came in and were stood with us and by this time another member of staff appeared behind the bar. One of the people behind us asked if we had to be seated or could we just sit anywhere? There was only two people eating inside at this time. The staff member just said "sit where you want, the menus are there", pointing to an area behind using. She then said she'd get to us in a couple of minutes.

During this time I tried to book a table wondering if it would help us get served but 15.30 wasn't available although there was nobody in, so I tried 15.45 which was accepted.

We sat in full view of the bar and staff could see us but nobody came. After 15 minutes we got up and left but noticed one staff member cleaning some pots.

We left and felt like we were a burden to them.

We were quite disgusted by the way we were treated as we eat there quite regularly.

Not sure when will be visiting again though and as for the birthday treat, well I'll just put that down to experience.

I've written twice to the email address it gives but no reply so here I am.

I have to say we've left decent feedback in the past.

Absolutely shocking...

Ate here last night as a party of 3 and in all honesty, I very much doubt we will be back. The waitresses/bar staff were busy socialising amongst themselves and put very little effort into service. They did not smile once and it felt quite unwelcoming.

The food is decent but for the price paid the portion sizes are far too small. Two of us had the steak pie which had 5 or 6 "standard dice shape" bits of meat in it and about a third full of gravy with nothing between that and the pie top. I received 3 pieces of carrot no bigger than 50p pieces, 2 bits of tenderstem broccoli and a small amount of peas. The other person that had the same dish fared even worse as they got tenderstem minus the broccoli heads.

My son had the mixed grill which at almost £20 was absolutely scandalous. The steak must have been cut into thirds and the piece he received was about 1cm thick and around 3 inches x 2 inches. 2 mouthfuls of chicken breast, 1 sausage, 1 black pudding, 2 bits of Gammon similar in size to the steak and one fried egg. As he is a growing lad at nearly 6 foot 5 inches, he needed more to eat by the time he got home. A mixed grill of that nature is not worth £10 let alone £20.

The only reason it's getting 3 stars instead of 2 is because the food itself was relatively decent although nothing outstanding. This was our first time eating there and in all honesty, it will more than likely...