William Foster — Restaurant in Lincoln

I'm writing this as l haven't had a reply from anyone since they asked for my review. Dear sir madam, I need to bring this to your attention. My husband and myself had a ' buyagift' voucher worth £49.99 bought as a gift by our friends. We decide to look through where we could have a nice meal locally and decided to make a day of it shopping in Lincoln and calling at William Fosters for our '2 course pub meal with 2 drinks for two Experience', l just had to PAY a little extra on the voucher. We rang the number to book the meal, it was automated and ended up putting me through to a very polite lady who took my details of the voucher for the booking and said we were booked in for 4pm that day which was MON 9th Dec 24. We got to the pub just before 4pm and was greeted by Shelley, we proceeded to tell her we had a booking and a voucher, she looked very confused, Manager Darren overheard our conversation and was also confused as he said they didn't do those vouchers and didn't know anything about them. So l showed them all our correspondence and we had an in-depth chat then looked on the booking and eventually found our booking for 4pm. He said they would honour it but needed to see what they had to do because they'd never done it before. We really felt for Darren and Shelley and my husband and myself was really, very embarrassed, it certainly wasn't the lovely experience we was expecting. BUT l do need to say that Darren and especially Shelley went above and beyond to rectify all this and we had a really lovely meal, but it was tarnished by all the confusion beforehand. I think there really should be more communication between head office and pub managers to prevent things happening like this, because as a customer we felt embarrassed and let down by the...

I don't typically like to leave bad reviews as I understand the impact it can have on a business, but I feel so strongly about this situation that I feel it is necessary.

I visited The William Foster in Lincoln and had the most awful experience. The manager in that pub is awful for trying to accommodate simple requests. The organisation within this company is atrocious, and I have still yet to hear back from them regarding my complaint. I had emailed the pub and asked for my complaint to be passed to higher management (since the person I had a bad experience with was the responsible manager at the time) and I had a reply from said person. Granted, he apologised, but the issues on the day were just not dealt with efficiently.

In short, I had booked a table for our family (13 people) on a Saturday afternoon. I had messaged prior to ask for a baby high chair as we, of course, had a baby with us. When we arrived, we were told by the manager that we were going to be seated on high stools. I explained that I had requested a high chair for a baby and hence that would not be appropriate. He then said 'well that's where you're sat'. I spoke to him separately after he'd accused us of not communicating that we needed a high chair, and so I proved that I had by showing him evidence. He still didn't accommodate.

We ended up sat in the sports area, with a leaking roof, not enough stools (which we did get in the end, just planted in the middle of the floor) and a mother having to stand up to feed her baby on her dad's knee. They couldn't even cook a medium-rare steak right and they were all overdone. Appalling.

I will never, ever be returning, nor will I ever...

We decided since William Foster was in a side road off the High St, that it'd make a good place to stop for lunch whilst on a Christmas shopping trip in Lincoln. It's a large pub split into 2 main areas, with a really good choice of beers & meals, and plenty of space between tables. The staff were pleasant & helpful, just as well, as unfortunately we were informed that the hand battered cod & chips we ordered had run out, so had to sort out changing the order. In the end we ordered: Double BBQ Chicken topped with Bacon & Cheese (Hunter's Chicken), Double Burger the 'Bacon Classic', and I had the Mixed Grill. We all had drinks, and the bill came to just under £33, which considering what a less enjoyable meal in McD's or BK would cost, is great value. Food arrived within about 10-15 minutes, and was not only nicely presented (see my pictures), but well cooked too, especially my medium rare steak, perfect! The only real disappointment was the grilled tomato, seared, but not cooked. I wasn't expecting a £9.99 Mixed Grill to be as good as this, but a good selection, decent quality and very tasty. The other 2 meals got a big thumbs up too, so all good, and left us ready to hit the shops again. As for the pub, I'd imagine it does get very busy judging by how many TV's were around for the sports, and the pool tables, but a pleasant, not rowdy...