The Crofters Arms — Restaurant in Knowsley

Came for the Christmas day 3 course meal for £51.99.

Party of 8. As we arrived, we saw our table was located in the very corner - chairs squashed in, right by a flickering lamp. It was evident that the Crofters Arms were focused on profit rather than customer experience, because for one person to get out from the corner, everyone at the table had to stand up and move out.

First course. I had a roasted tomato and red pepper soup. I have nothing to complain about regarding my starter; it had crusty bread, melted butter cubes and a small, but filling soup. Several of our party ordered the prawn cocktail starter, which was a warm plate, with dry bread, a few prawns and some tomato and cucumber slices. Already off to a bad start.

Second course - the big roast dinner. I ordered the hand-carved turkey breast, which was nice, but everything else was to a poor standard. Raw carrots, raw broccoli, cremated pig in blanket (a singular sausage, by the way!), undercooked roasties and burnt parsnips. It was obvious that they batch cooked all their food, (as a waitress informed us) and put no effort into fixing these mistakes. As well as this, we were each supplied with a boat of lumpy gravy.

Following this nightmare, we had our third course. Lovely presentation, but not a great taste. I had the We Three Treats dessert. The salted caramel profiteroles tasted like they came straight out the box - the Crofters Arms only focused on presentation, and not the actual taste, as this ending "Treat" just disheartened us even more.

Nobody came over during our meal to ask if everything was okay. After informing multiple staff of our disappointment, we received no compensation. We were given an extra meal to take home, as someone in our party of 8 couldn't attend, but we still had to pay.

Overall, extremely discouraging experience. We won't be coming for another Christmas meal deal at the Crofers...

We booked a table to dine and to watch the Champions League final on the TV. When we arrived, the dining area was full. I told the waitress that we had booked and showed her the booking on my phone, with the request to seat us so that we may see the TV. We have done this in the past for various sporting events and had no problem. We do not have a sports package on our TV subscription at home.

As the area was full of people watching the football, the waitress looked very puzzled and said that someone must have moved the "reserved" notice on our table. I told her she had better relocate the people who had moved our reserved sign then, as we wanted to sit and dine and watch the football. She then said she didn't know which table it was. I asked her why she didn't know which table had been reserved... it MUST be noted down somewhere to which she just said "no". As we were not going to get to watch the football and eat, I told the girl I was VERY mad about that and left.

Our night was RUINED by the INEPTITUDE of your staff!!! I never got to see the football and we had to make do with takeaway pizzas. I should bill you for those!!!

I fully understand special requests cannot always be guaranteed but that is in circumstances beyond your control. This was WITHIN your control and you STILL failed. Not getting my request is inexcusable.

On a previous occasion, only a few weeks earlier, Crofters rang us to say they had to cancel a booking we had made, as they couldn't manage our meals because the chef had called in sick! I have NEVER encountered that before.

I'll never set foot in another Sizzling venue, there's plenty of other alternatives.

I'll be posting all these FACTS on any social media outlet I can get to, to tell everyone of my experiences.

I rated the experience with zero on this feedback form and you were lucky to...

Went with be family for dinner. 5 of us in total. Meal 1) mixed grill, evry meat overcooked except gammon, under cooked. Chips also overcooked. Meal 2) steak and chicken, steak overcooked and chicken had a funny taste, again, chips overcooked. Meal 3) simply chicken. Chicken that overcooked it was sent back. Meal 3) again..brought out 10mins later, chicken tasted funny, couldn't eat it. Meal 4) child's meal, was actually OK besides corn cob being freezing cold..brought jn 15 mins after original meal...child left waiting! Meal 5) BBQ chicken burger, brought out 20mins after the original meal when everyone besides the child had finished eating, with funny taste on chicken and burnt chips again! We where apologised to and given drinks as good will gesture. Ordered some ice-cream desserts for the teen and child. Well, you can't go wrong with ice cream can you, we thought wrong. The soup spoons we were given to eat the 'ice' creams where thoroughly appropriate....completely melted, at this point there was no point in complaining anymore. "The chefs called in sick" we were told by a waitress....that's why when we seen him come and say hello to his friend, we where surprised! Management approached us before we left saying there was nothing wrong with the chicken sent back...then why the free drinks!? He also said no one had had a problem with their meals, his wife had cooked and was a trained chef (chef 2...but the chef had called in sick!) but we didn't have 1 full good meal. I find this hard to believe. It wasn't out first trip as its my parents local and it's not been good in a while. The Crofters need to up there game and sort out the chefs or they will lose more customers, there are 5 more places in the area to compete with afterall, we will certainly not be...