Potters Arms Cookhouse + Pub — Restaurant in Harlow

I booked this hotel a few months back as my brother was getting married, I booked a family room for myself and 3 children. There were 2 others of the party who had a separate room. The hotel was very lovely, clean, well stocked and in a great location. I've never had any problems when booking premier inn's, untill this weekend. I'm absolutely gutted with the service, food and outcome of our meal on Thursday 20th We hadn't booked dinner but could see that the place was pretty empty and was told we had to wait for a table which was fine. We had drinks and waited. When our table was ready we got seated by the very rude supervisor on shift and was left for about half hour until he took our order, again the restaurant was almost empty at this point with only about 2 other tables in it. He took our order and then disappeared.

I ordered scampi and mine came out before the other 5 meals. The waitress put it down and walked away. I sat there for about 5 minutes and no other food came out. I sent the food back as I wanted to eat with the rest of my family. After a while the food started coming out including my scampi that had just been put back in the microwave. My daughters had 1 lasagne which was cold in the middle hot around the edge, 1 chicken burger with cold burnt bacon and a warm coleslaw and my other daughter had sausage and mash which was cold. The 2 other adults had a chicken curry and a pie. The pie was cold and the chicken was a slimy texture. Half the food got left as it was uneadable and by this point and the lack of service and interest from the staff it was pointless saying anything else because it felt like our custom wasnt welcome. When I did bring up some of the issues with the supervisor on duty when I paid, the man with the tattoos was extremely rude and arrogant and as a supervisor myself in the industry I wouldnt have him FOH he let's your team down.

So after all this I was apprehensive to come for breakfast the next morning, which I had pre booked and paid for, for both mornings.

But I didnt need to worry about that as I was violently unwell in the morning with sickness and diarrhoea. The day of my brother's wedding!!! I felt absolutely horrendous and it completely ruined my day. I strongly believe that it was either the scampi that had made me so unwell or dirty beer lines? I'm absolutely gutted this has happened on such a special weekend for my family and children. I've never experienced service or food like it.

This place is definitely not being...

Potential customers beware...

We have stayed at the Premier Inn over the road and foolishly pre-booked breakfast here for £25 (two people).

We arrived at the pub which is in a retail park. (Clean tidy, looks pretty standard but nice).

As we walked in there is a sign that asks you to wait to be seated.

Despite the pub being empty, it took a while for someone to realise we were stood there. We were eventually greeted by the manager who sat us down and told us he would be back to take our order shortly.

We then never saw the manager again and no one took our order for 30 minutes until we collared the one waiter who was on. He apologised and said his manager had kept doing this as there were several other tables that had been seated but hadn't been told.

He took our order but they were out of black pudding, out of fruit salad and the coffee machine was broken. They also had no orange juice...

Whilst we waited for our room we looked around the pup and I can honestly say that the walls, carpets and seating were all filthy and needed a good clean and a repaint.

After seeing this we were worried about what breakfast would look like and surprisingly it was very nice with good presentation.

I asked the waiter for a coffee from behind the bar (a different machine). He agreed but then forgot to serve it. I reminded him 20 minutes later and he made it but unfortunately it tasted really strange.

In all I would suggest customers look elsewhere for breakfast. I feel really sorry for the waiter, he was the only one doing anything.

On the way out they said goodbye and thank you but honestly we won't ever be back. In fact, I don't hink I will book breakfast with premier in every again it...

I work away from home a lot so small luxuries like fresh cooked food not from a chain restaurant is always welcome at the end of the day and when staying at Premier Inn the restaurants attached usually offer this except on this occasion. Breakfast was fantastic and can’t be knocked, always a seat plenty of stock and a smile from the morning waitress. This all fails unfortunately in the evening when different members of management try to run the place and the chefs must be working with a limited a budget or food as whilst I was waiting I heard people complain about certain dishes served and my food, well you can see what I was served. Something was missing off the dish every night, presentation is also not top of the list either for premier inn guests choosing to have a meal in there room even though it is advertised at the premier inn. Food is wedged into an un recyclable container and the lid wedged down. Experience taught me to hunt out cutlery condiments and napkins otherwise the serving staff just disappeared. Whilst I understand this industry may be short staffed after the pandemic this then doesn’t allow for what looked like the manageress to sit with her friends whilst waiting times for main meals exceeded 45 minutes . I had high hopes for this restaurant being in such a prime location and next to a new (ish) premier inn. Part of this visit was to see if we could set up for an in company training centre with candidates staying at the Premier inn and eating every evening at the cook house but after seeing this past week we will need to reevaluate our options as we can’t have candidates waiting 45 minutes or food served below what is your...