The Bell Inn — Restaurant in Great Yarmouth

I was one of a party of five women dining midweek 6pm. We meet up once a month and dine out and thought we would try the Bell as we haven’t been there for a long time. The pub itself is lovely, we had booked in advance, but as we entered we were met with signs up saying because of price increases no changes can be made to the dishes, so you couldn’t swap, example chips for say onion rings. What happens if you have an allergy to a food and want to swap? Our waitress was lovely and we all had questions about dishes as they weren’t very well described on the menu. I had asked if I could swap fat chips to skinny even though they are the same price but was told no if I wanted them I had to pay extra as a side. My friend had ordered the chilli and they then came back and asked her if she wanted the mozzarella cheese!! Well that was on the dish she ordered, so obviously she wanted it! we gathered they were trying to make savings on the dish. I had ordered a Pepsi but it was flat so I told the waitress and she said she would check the gas and bring me another. Another lady brought me over a can of Pepsi with a glass and slammed it down in front of me and said there was nothing wrong with the other drink. She had a face like a slapped arse, she never smiled or spoke nicely to us. After that kind of service and being met with those notices I wanted to leave and go somewhere else that was more welcoming. But we stayed and gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking she might be having a bad day. Our food came and we were all very pleased with it. Three of us ordered dessert which wasn’t the same standard as the mains. The Apple Betty was tasteless and I had sticky toffee pudding which was just wet and soggy the sponge didn’t hold it just disintegrated. We then had misery take our payments, we decided to not leave tips as we felt the service was terrible and unwelcoming, suffice to say we will not be returning....

My family travelled from different areas in England for a Father’s Day meal at The Bell St Olaves. We have been before and enjoyed the food atmosphere and the staff have been great. Unfortunately this time June 2023 it was different. We could not book a table despite there being 8 of us, so we travelled down early to make sure we got a table. We arrived and the ramp for which my parents needed to use to step into the pub was not available at that time. We then found a table and sat and waited, upon which we were informed it was no longer table service. We then took our order to the bar qued for a while, we didn’t wait too long for the food to arrive, but I think the staff albeit very young need some customer service training. they did not know how to serve at a table and their manners need some work. The food was nice though but I think some training is needed they all need to be trained properly and follow what we were told, we never received cutlery with our dessert and had to source it elsewhere and ask the staff who looked as if they had no idea. I do believe it needs to go back to how it was when we used to go there. We also had a member of staff shout at us ‘are you lot having a good time?’ We found that particularly rude as this was from some distance from the table and we thought down right rude. We will not be going back to this particular...

The location of this pub is lovely but that does not make up for all their other faults. To start with a positive, the drink selection is very wide with a good range of gins. However that is where our positive feedback comes to an end as the service was poor, the staff were not accommodating especially when it comes to food. I asked to swap the sausages on a dish for pan fried chicken (something that was on the menu anyway) which I didn't think would be particularly difficult but I was told they couldn't make subsitions because it was too busy even though that was an obvious exaggeration. When we received our food less than 10 minutes later (which is unusually quick timing for any restraunt which isnt fast food, especially when they said they were busy) the meals were steaming as if they had just come out of the microwave. They steak and ale pie pastry was chewy and the gravy soon separated to water and oil while most of the steak pieces were cold, surprising given the amount of steam. The chips tasted as if they had been reheated. The sausages from the special were only cooked on one side, the gravy was watery, The Yorkshire was shop bought and the mash was lumpy. Both dishes were oddly served with curry powder on top. Overall a very disatifying meal with no customer service as they didn't even check if the meal were ok. If I could give a 0 star...