The Drummond — Restaurant in Guildford

We visited the Drummond for Sunday lunch on Sunday 21st Jan and despite having high hopes were rather disappointed. As three out of four of our party are vegetarians when I made the booking I specifically asked if their special menu veggie/vegan for ‘Veganary’ would be available and was assured that it would be only to discover on arrival that this was not the case for Sunday lunchtime but in all fairness when I mentioned what I had been told we were allowed to see the veggie/vegan menu. I had also asked in parking was available as two of our party have mobility issues and was assured that parking would be available to the rear of the pub only to discover on arrival that few spaces there were already taken fortunately with it being Sunday we were able to park on the main road. The Drummond appears to be a popular venue for families with small children and while I realise that this is beyond their control it would be rather nice if there were a segregated area for those of us who wanted to enjoy our lunch without constantly being jostled by small children running around and being able to hear each other above their din. As for the food itself this was the biggest disappointment. As a very long-standing vegetarian (45 years to date) I have constantly been on the search for a pub that not only offers a good choice of vegetarian meals but is also aware of which of the of drinks that it serves is also suitable for vegetarians. From the promise of the menu I thought that at last I may have found it but unfortunately despite the potential choice being available what was eventually served up (the food took its time to arrive which I think was down to the fact that there appeared to be only three members of staff who between them were trying to run the bar and serve the busy restaurant area) was very poor. My wife and I both ordered the nut roast from the main menu and both were served with roast potatoes that were solid and completely inedible as were some of the other accompanying vegetables, I like my vegetables al la dente, but these were literally solid and in the case of the potatoes discoloured. The nut roast itself was like something that had just been dolloped on top of the potatoes and quite bland. The one non veggie in our party opted for the ale battered fish which when it arrived was in a very soggy and inedible batter rather than something crisp and fluffy that you would normally hope for. The other member of our party chose the veggie burger with which there was no problem and he enjoyed. So one out of four for the food. The one redeeming feature of the Drummond are its staff who while desperately trying to cope with a very busy Sunday lunch time remained polite, friendly, helpful and...

I don’t want to be too harsh although I did have a really poor experience my first time at the Drummond. I was recommended to go here by a friend, as I recently moved to Guildford and heard great things particularly about the food and I have to be fair, the food was really good standard and for the most part, the staff were really cool and welcoming.

The reason to why I have given one star is really down to the quality of projector and the particular bad service from one individual who works there. We booked a table way in advance to watch the first england game and was really excited to be with our friends and celebrate the start of the tournament. For me personally, watching England is a really big deal to me, having played football and watched football my whole life. I politely went to the bar 10 minutes before the game to understand what was going on and asked the staff member, if this could be looked into and the reply I got was just extremely nonchalant. He said to me that ‘’ this has been an issue all day and we got people earlier in to fix it although unfortunately had no luck’’. He then mentioned ‘’that he is not an IT engineer and that if I was really desperate to watch the game, that I could go to a local pub called the stoke’’. To be fair to him, he probably has had multiple people ask him the same question but I think he needs to have more empathy and understanding that this is a pretty big event for certain individuals and even though the Drummond didn’t purposely do this, the end result stays the same, it did ruin my night in all honesty.

I would also mention, if this was an issue from much earlier in the day, why didn’t anyone drop us a call or an email to say that this particular projector was causing real issues and that it may be better to go elsewhere? It wouldn’t have been that difficult and would have at least given us the opportunity to have time to look elsewhere! We ended up having to go home at half time due how bad the quality was. In a large group, there was no chance we could have got seats to watch the first England game at that time and would have completely ruined our experience even more.

I would be happy to change my review, if the pub reached out to me and showed me better service than what was given. I don’t like giving pubs like The Drummond a bad review that clearly has great standards for the large...

I have never been made to feel so uncomfortable having a meal. Booked the meal for 2 adults and 2 children. Having a lovely relaxed time until a member of staff rudely approached and said that 'it was not a playground'. We were taken aback, why let us book a meal with children, but then not be ok having children around. Our children were either seated or nicely wandering around, not bothering anyone, just playing. Other tables actually liked having them around and were waving etc. The same member of staff later came over again and rudely said he didn't want them in the way. I felt so upset and unwelcome and ended up crying to another member of staff (embarrassing!). The rude staff member came over to apparently apologise and again was incredibly rude! It just kept getting worse. We left and will definitely not go back. We are intelligent, respectable people and won't be spoken down to like we are nothing, it was horrible. Complained to the manager when leaving, but that didn't do much. I used to like this pub years ago, haven't been for a long time and won't go again.

Our main waiter (wearing beanie) - brilliant, friendly and made us feel welcome. Told us that we had been lovely guests and our kids had behaved really well, which they had. If the other staff had been like him,...