The Highwayman Cookhouse + Pub — Restaurant in Huntingdonshire

Back in St. Neots, staying in the Premier Inn for another site visit.

Well, in the last few weeks, the Cookhouse has been missing a number of basic ingredients from dishes... sausages, fish, gammon, etc, and breakfast ingredients (to my horror, a good breakfast sets you up for the day).

To which they are apologetic, but to my surprise, when a meal is ordered excluding the missing ingredient(s), then you are charged the same price for the meal???

Now, after asking for a replacement ingredient, I was quietly ignored. Well, I could hear the response. My meal came with no replacement item, to my surprise..not.

Surely, somebody could briskly walk over the road to Aldi and purchase the missing ingredients. I do appreciate that there will be a supply chain and preferred suppliers, but surely to maintain happy customers (who don't necessarily complain), there could be a compromise.

I mean, would you buy a meal deal? Be told that the prawn sandwich is minus the prawns....

Oh yes, you can have the BLT instead, but we've run out of bacon and tomatoe.....

Ah, wise choice, the bacon, egg, and sausage sandwich, but sorry, there are no sausages..

Oh, a three cheese triple, sorry, no cheese... and the missing items continue on!

But you'll pay full price!

Take the meals off the menu or reduce the price accordingly, please think of...

We arrived after making a short notice booking, but there were plenty of empty tables. My two sons instantly sighted the soft play area, which was quite large and in order to let them play we decided to move from our booked table, to the dining area at the soft play. This was mistake number one. There was a member of staff monitoring the area, however kids were just wandering in and out without paying after we paid for our boys (2nd mistake). We ordered our food at the counter, because table service doesn't exist in the soft play. It took close to 30 minutes for our starters to arrive and then 10 minutes on top of that for our drinks, that were ordered at the same time, to show up. The chicken wings we ordered for our starter were nice. Then another 20 minute wait for our mains. Mine was not as described. My wife and sons carried on and ate theirs, whilst they took mine away to replace it (3rd mistake). After 15 minutes my showed up and my family was nearly done eating theirs. So they replaced mine in 15 minutes and still managed to overcook it. The kids desserts then arrived 30 minutes after that. My son said the brownie was very nice. Overall, they gained a star for the wings and brownie, but total the experience of eating here was distinctly unpleasant. Maybe others have had a nicer time here, but we won't...

Just got back from a very disappointing meal out. Myself and family (5 people) arrived at 16:20 and got shown to our table where we sat ignored for 20 minutes, finally someone came to serve us so we ordered drinks, starters and mains in one hit. We’d normally order drinks first but thought we might get left too long again.

Drinks took 10 minutes, starters 20 minutes. After finishing these we waited and waited. We sat on a table that had a window into the kitchen and my son noticed 3 children’s pizza meals on the hot plate and said “ooh I think they’re ours”17:45 the mains came! An hour and 20 after we’d arrived. 2 of the children’s meals had chosen salad as a side but where they’d been under hot plate for so long the salad was hot. My wife’s smothered chicken had no bbq sauce and her salad was also hot and inedible. My children wanted dessert but by the time I’d got someone’s attention, we’d had enough and just wanted to go home. I’m not one to complain and want to be polite but the service and quality was shocking. The restaurant wasn’t busy but unfortunately some of the staff seemed more interested in chatting. I felt I had to stand up and look around for staff to notice.

A real shame as we go regularly for breakfast which is self serve. Didn’t realise the table service...