The Swan Holme — Restaurant in Lincoln

On arrival, we took the last space in the car park so we expected the service to be slow, as it always is when it's busy here. We were pleasantly surprised to be served at the bar in record time, despite it being extremely busy in the bar area. We were seated and our lovely waitress took our order. She was very good, very experienced and very busy!

All started well. The starters that my husband and dad ordered were both very good. I skipped starter and waited for my main course to arrive.

The wait between courses was quite long, but as I said, we'd expected this. Sadly, the quality of the food was not good. My rare sirloin steak barely looked like a steak - it was almost anaemic on the outside but overcooked on the inside. It was dry and with no hint of the slightest bit of pink. I mentioned this to the waitress when she came round to ask how the meal was but said that it was late and I was too hungry to send it back. My husband's ribeye was supposed to be medium rare and was almost black on the outside and again, no hint of pink on the inside. My dad's hunter's chicken schnitzel was so dry and unappealing. He ate around half of it. The melted cheese looked like hard plastic.

We had waited so long for the meal that none of us wanted to send it back and wait again for another.

We told our waitress how we felt at the end of the meal, simply so she could let the kitchen know. She spoke to her manager and they didn't charge us for dad's meal and then added a 20% discount to our bill. It was very kind of them - we didn't want a fuss.

So overall, the service was excellent that night, but the food was awful. We've had a lot of issues with the quality of food here in the past few (maybe 5) years and we always say we won't go back. But we always give in and think it must be better by now, let's give it another try. Sadly, we were not correct this time. Surely, we can't be the only ones to have this issue. We surely can't be this unlucky?

We certainly won't be back any time soon. It's such a shame as it used to be so good there and it's local to us, but it's just a...

Awful, awful awful. Went for lunch, beautiful setting, next to the river, nice looking pub (which is why we were keen to try it out). The staff were rude and the service was slow. It was busy (Saturday lunchtime) but wasn’t heaving so I’m not sure why the service was so slow. Food was below average - none of us really enjoyed our meals. Waitress did come over to ask if everything was ok and then walked off literally 1.2 seconds later so we didn’t even have a chance to respond. We didn’t bother with desserts as the people next to us ordered their desserts when we arrived and they didn’t get them until after we were served our meals. Our chips were cold, another table complained about their chips being too cold too. My mum tried to ask one of the waiters about how something worked on their app, she got 2 words out before the waitress cut her off and told her that OUR waitress would be with us in a moment (we had already tried to get OUR waitress’ attention several times to ask but had failed). When leaving, we went to the bar to pay because we didn’t want to sit around trying to get the staff’s attention to ask for the bill and we thought it would be quicker to get up and pay but the bar staff proceeded to serve someone else before even acknowledging us. Instead of then speaking with us she picked up a bar tray and mouthed something to another staff member behind the tray about us wanting to pay. She was right, we did want to pay but why hide behind a tray? Very strange! I felt very uncomfortable. No management presence which is extremely evident. Needless to say we won’t be back and certainly would NOT recommend this place to...

Such a shame, because the refurbishment on this place is wonderful, in a great location, but we won't be back. Dropped in on Monday at 11.40 (Advertised as open from 11.30) and were greeted by a reasonably friendly waitress/maitre'd whose second sentence was to abruptly inform us that we couldn't order until 12pm - No problem there - However we were asked what we would like to drink as we sat and asked for 2 coffees, and the same waitress had to come back and apologise for them taking so long, because the machine hadn't been turned on - All of which begs the question as to why they open at 11.30 if they're not ready for customers. The menu itself is well thought out, reasonably priced, with some good options for all. I went for the Signature Burger "loaded" with Smoked BBQ Brisket (one tablespoons worth isn't what I'd call loaded) which came with luke warm onion rings from the freezer (no real problem with the bought in rings, but at least serve them at a decent temperature), and my wife ordered the Chicken, Bacon and Avocado Salad - complete with rotten avocado! It would have been far better for the chef to say they didn't have any avocados, than serve up food not suitable for consumption.

The waitress who served our food and table checked us was very apologetic and offered to take the salad back to the kitchen (my wife declined as the rest of the salad was tasty enough), and she spoke to the manager who took £4 off the bill, but unfortunately, serving rotten food is definitely a good enough reason not to return to an...