The Cheshire Cheese Inn — Restaurant in High Peak

For clarity, this review is for a visit in July 2022; I wanted to respond to the owner’s response, and this has bumped it to the top. I see lots of 5/5 reviews recently, hopefully our poor experience was just a "bad day at the office" for them.

However, what is worrying is the manner in which the owner does respond to the odd complaint here, not just mine. It's always telling how a business responds to a poor review. The really good people take it on the chin, simply apologise with no ifs or buts, and look for any learnings. While the not so good take cheap pot-shots at the reviewer:

"Our staff felt brow beaten by you from the moment you arrived. They reported to me that you had an opinion about everything and wanted everyone to hear it." Could not be further from the truth. I bought two rounds of drinks at the bar, and had nice chats with the owner and a member of his team. I politely returned to the bar the trays given to carry our drinks to the garden, twice, and was thanked both times. I mentioned only ONE issue to staff, the missing piggies-in-blankets, and did so discretely. Hardly browbeating? It did need two mentions because the first time I was brushed off; that's why I had to point out what the menu said. Having to have a "oh no we don't [serve them with pork] / oh yes you do [according to your menu!]" is NOT what I’d describe as "a mistake which was rectified immediately". And to try to make a guest sound dreadful ("had an opinion about everything") is a cheap way to try to discredit a reviewer.

"Why didn’t you write a positive review for that visit rather than just a poor one this time?" [I see I’m not the only non-positive reviewer you’ve thrown this retort at] Because life is short? And many of us are juggling a lot? Both I and my partner do take time to write reviews when we're delighted by an exceptional experience, but we don't have time to do so every time we eat out and it’s just fine. Similarly, I wouldn't have taken time to write a poor review if there had been just one issue, but there were many with food quality, sadly. And it was the way my assertive but gentle complaint about the missing item was handled - I had to really push - that drove me to write.

"Your eaves dropping was not correct". What I actually wrote was "we overheard...". To suggest we were in fact eavesdropping implies deliberate intent to secretly listen in to a conversation, and is just being nasty. All of us at times simply overhear something, it's impossible for that not to happen.

True colours revealed, don’t you think? Be warned if you do have cause to complain.

{Original review]

Eating Sunday lunch here with friends all four of us opted for the roast dinner, three pork and one turkey. The meat was fine but the vegetables were overcooked, the portion of roast potatoes a little on the stingy side, the tiny dried-up ball of stuffing was barely recognisable, and the meagre portion of gravy in a boat arrived already weirdly gelatinous with white spots in it. Both meats were described as including piggies in blankets but the pork meals arrived without these on the plate. We politely mentioned to our server this was on the menu, she said the kitchen didn’t serve them with the pork, went away to talk to the kitchen and came back to confirm that.

It took us fetching and pointing at a copy of the menu to finally – and it felt somewhat reluctantly – be given two bite-sized pieces of bacon-wrapped sausage each; not even one whole small one. No apologies for the error or thanks for bringing this to their attention. If it’s a menu error then cross it off.

We overheard mention of a recent new chef in the kitchen and did wonder if this accounted for the marked change in food quality from a previous visit which I believe our friends had reviewed. In addition to the poor quality our meals were a little on the small side, and both men left a little hungry still. For the prices charged we expected more, and better.

It’s a pity as this is a lovely cosy historic pub, dog friendly, with a small beer garden some of which is...

We came here after a walk in peaks, however after sitting down we had to move as another group came over and their dog lunged and was aggressive to our dog who had been sat there. We moved to another table which was on a slant, as it was the only one available. After getting our drinks and ordering food we sat back down. However within moments, both of our soft drinks had toppled over coating one of us completely. A waitress saw this, however did not offer any assistance (providing a cloth or towels) but she did say she would replace our drinks. However the bar man, Steve, came to us and told us he would not replace our drinks. He told us that they were not responsible for our drinks and we pointed out that we were sat at their table which they had placed on the slant, with no coasters or anything to prevent them falling. Whilst I can somewhat understand, Steve was incredibly hostile and rude. Offered no apology and was unflinching on his position. In the end we decided to leave, not because they would not replace our drinks, but because of the way we were spoken to. I asked if Steve was the owner or manager and was advised he was not, so I'm not sure where he got the gall to be so rude to customers. The poor waitresses clearly looked uncomfortable. If Steve had apologised said that this had happened before but unfortunately he wasn't able to replace we would have somewhat understood. However Steve was rude, extremely hostile and aggressive as if we had walked in and demanded free drinks. We had our food refunded and left. If the owners or management care about customer service I would suggest considering whether Steve is the type of person who should be customer facing. We had spent £40 on food that they had to refund, which feels like it's counter productive considering to replace two post mix drinks would cost the venue at most 50p.

Response to owner: Thank you for your response. As I stated in the first review, the reason we left was not due to our drinks not being replenished, but due to the way we were spoken to. As stated, we would have understood that our drinks couldn't be replaced if it was policy etc but Steve's attitude to us was horrendous. Its worth noting that your waitresses were lovely.

Also at no point in my review did I indicate that an aggressive dog was the venues responsibility. I was merely stating our experience.

I feel your response speaks for itself and whilst I can understand you defending your staff, everyone has bad days and to completely dismiss our experience says a lot.

Thank you, I have learnt from this experience, and that is not to visit your establishment again. Which given your response, won't bother you at all. However our day worked out in the end as we went to the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Inn and had a wonderful time with exquisite food. So perhaps we should be thanking...

We booked in for a table for Sunday dinners and arrived an hour early, we were well accommodated by staff and given a table but unfortunately that was the best part of our evening. Three of us ordered the pork roast dinner which came out after about 20 minutes, without any vegetables. We inquired about this to our server who said they'd be out shortly. There was 2 carrots and 2 parsnips to share between us along with a small serving of green beans, all of which were rock hard and undercooked. One of the parsnips also had a large piece of a plastic wrapper inside it. The pork dinners were overall OK apart from the pork being quite dry. As a starter we had a whitebait, one of which we had tasted off and put one of our party off their entire meal. After we had finished eating, we ordered a second round of drinks which upon bringing to the table, our server accidentally spilled onto one of our party's starter and main. We were offered a free replacement starter and main but since the main was mostly finished and we were getting fed up with the overall experience we accepted the starter but refused the main. We were also brought a new drink to replace the one that was spilled. This was added as an additional charge on the bill which we noticed and had to request to be removed. We didn't receive any courtesies for any of our issues.

The organisation issues seemed to be evident across the entire restaurant as people on tables around us were also having issues with their food being outright forgotten out by the staff. One staff member even said 'Thank you for reminding us otherwise we would've forgotten.' As a sidenote there was also a chef wearing pyjama bottoms coming out of the kitchen - the entire place just seemed incredibly understaffed and unprofessional.

We will definitely not be returning until the evident organisational and managerial issues...