The Bessemer Arms — Restaurant in Lewes

it’s a mixed bag, so to start with the positives - the staff are polite, professional and friendly, the establishment is clean and the location is perfect for travellers on the Bluebell Railway. There’s a reasonable selection of drinks at the bar and sufficient seating for most days.

Now to the issues - it’s very expensive - sausage, chips and peas for £12… and that was the cheapest option on the menu! The food quality was okay - definitely not worth the price charged - it’s premium prices but economy products - the sausages definitely tasted frozen and processed. Portion sizes are also quite small, further bringing into question value for money. The kick in the teeth is that there’s no table service for that price, you have to queue up for quite some time and collect your meal from the hot plate. There’s a very limited choice (3 meals) - so it’s not great but with a captive market and no competition at that end of the line it’s given them the freedom to overprice because they know people will still pay.

All in all, i’m not likely to eat...

Service was friendly enough and luckily plenty of room for all 8 in my group to sit. However, there was flies everywhere which made it a fairly unpleasant experience. There was also a dead fly in my son's beans. When I took it back, they found more dead flies in the beans 🤢. Disappointed by only 3 choices on the menu, Also, no mention of allergies/what was in the pies. If I had known there was mushrooms in the pie I would not...

Stood around not sure of set up..no menus or cafe instructions..went to bar.. waited to be seen and pointed left for fridge or right hot food counter...chose n had to queue again..🥱 sandwich was mediocre and 330ml coke X 2 . Bit pricey for low quality..glad for snack but wasn't an old fashioned experience I'd hoped for. The hot food looked nice when plated going by...felt very...