Toby Carvery Hopgrove — Restaurant in Huntington

Well… I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this one!

I didn’t have amazingly high expectations of a chain carvery, but our local Toby is always spot on, cheap and good food.

However my experience at the York chain was less than adequate. Upon arriving, the place is run down, condensed windows, peeling paint, dead plants and rotten wooden exterior, hardly inviting, but it’s the food that matters right!?

Well… if you’re a fan of food that is either undercooked or burnt with no in between, I suppose you would enjoy it here. Raw Cauliflower and what I can only assume was swede or sweet potato, mac and cheese that would rival the texture of any Dunlop tyre and vegetarian gravy that had clearly sat there all day as it was congealed and barley warm.

Understandably there is no veggie alternative on the carvery and these can be bought separately, but we opted for a ‘veg only’ dinner, which there were only 2 choices of veg to choose from, peas or sweetcorn (as well as the mash, gratin ect.) - another and probably biggest annoyance was the fact we visited during a Dad’s Army Convention, well that’s all I can assume it was, as we were on wartime rations! On the website and menus in the pub it advertises unlimited vegetables AND Yorkshire puddings… well when you are told it is ‘One Yorkshire Pudding per person’ you feel a little cheated especially paying a premium for essentially a side of veg with no meat. I’ve honestly never known this at any other Toby and I’ve visited a fair few up and down the country on our travels.

No soap in the Gents, and a leaky ceiling and rubbish all over the floor in the Ladies which were also atrociously dirty!

The staff didn’t fare make eye contact with you, or come over to ask how your food was, and believe me, I wish they had!

We had to wait around 15 minutes for a table to become available, which I really didn’t mind. However we had our drinks, food and were given the bill and shoved out in 30 minutes, as they evidently wanted the table for other people! Again that was understandable as our party of two, were given a table for six, and parties of six shoehorned onto small tables.

It would have been nice for them to ask how our meal was, and let us finish our drinks before implying it was time to go.

Feeling a little short changed, disappointed and...

If you value your dignity, avoid this place entirely.

This was, without exaggeration, the most hostile “welcome” we’ve ever received at a restaurant. On a slow Tuesday evening at 5:40pm, with the parking lot practically empty, we stopped in for a drink and dinner. What we got instead was rudeness so blatant it felt intentional.

The heavy set barman treated us as if serving us was beneath him. Sarcasm like “do whatever you want” was tossed at us for the audacity of ordering a drink before asking for a table. That’s how paying customers were greeted.

We thought maybe it was just one bad apple — but no. The host was equally unprofessional. Eye rolls. Condescension. A dismissive “30-minute wait” while the dining room sat nearly empty. We went online while sitting there and booked a table for the same time, instantly confirmed. So let’s be clear: they weren’t busy — they just didn’t want to serve us.

This wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was disdain. Pure unwelcoming arrogance that made it impossible to want to give them a penny, even if they had sat us immediately.

We had planned on dining here multiple times during our trip — including breakfast — and we are heavy tippers. Instead, we walked out and happily gave our business to Pear Tree Farmhouse, where hospitality still exists. We recommend everyone else do the same.

And to management: we are IHG Platinum Ambassadors. Thank God we didn’t choose to stay at the Holiday Inn Express attached to this property, because if this restaurant staff is any reflection of the hotel staff, the problems run far deeper. That would have been escalated much further. You should be embarrassed that this is the face of your brand.

Until staff are replaced and customer service is treated as a priority, this place deserves to be skipped. There are too many restaurants that actually want their guests — this is clearly not one of them.

Final word: eat anywhere else. You’ll leave here...

We went here for some drinks and a famous carvery while we stayed at the nearby Holiday Inn Express. The drinks were a good price and all the staff were friendly, polite and helpful. A big thanks to them. But the is the Carvery is disappointing.The queue for the carvery is just stupid can't they come up with some other way to serve people with their food. Finally we came up to be served as we came up to the carvery the kitchen ran out of lamb so instead of five meats we had four meats to choose from them on the carvery station needed a quick clean because there was old scraps of meat everywhere it looked really bad. Next on to the vegetable station and again that looked really bad and that needed a clean and also please do something about the spoons. Someone is going to be in pain with those hot spoons and l know guest can be unhelpful for making a mess but someone from the kitchen surely can clean it sometimes. Next on to the gravy station again that was really bad and can't Toby replace the dishes instead of pouring new gravy into old pots of gravy and also replacing the ladles once in a while.Next to eating the food well how disappointing that was the Vegetable had no seasoning and there was one vegetable dish which tasted disgusting truly disappointed about that. Next on to the "Famous Rost potatoes there were nice but again needed seasoning,the Yorkshire pudding was hard probably being on the carvery for a bit. Next on to the meat tasteless bland thanks for the gravy saving the carvery and also the salt and pepper. So overall very very disappointed with the carvery.The two stars are for the staff who work there they were polite...