Royal Oak — Restaurant in London

Absolute disgrace of a pub. Early Friday evening and the pub almost had as many staff inside as customers. 5 or 6 members of staff visible and all by the coffee machine talking. One member of staff then serves the queue that is forming and the rest stay talking. It is a pub not a social club. The revenue clearly does not justify the “labour costs”. Utter utter mismanagement from site on staff and area manager.

Some great managers in the past like chris, John, Josh. Not surprising 5ish pm on a Friday pay day and there were less than ten customers inside than previous 50+ when it was managed well. What is the point in having a bar where the staff don’t even go and ask customers there orders. I have gone from visiting daily to once or twice a year. Every visit is shocking. The Chingford community deserves better, the pub industry deserves better, the young staff deserve better than to be allowed to think that you go to work and spend most of the time chatting at a coffee machine, mcmullens are letting down the local community, the pub industry and staff who are being taught bad practise rather than trained to work in often their first ever job.

Tom McMullen you are letting both your ancestry and Irish heritage down. Shame on you. Shame on you. I went past another Mcmullens site before I worked at chambers last week and outside was a pitiful rag on a flag pole instead of mcmullens flag.

p.s. as for complaining about photo it is clearly showing lots of staff standing around but nobodies face is shown. Lots of photographs on reviews with staff members in full view. Do they get responses with “inappropriate” or is it only negative reviews that are attacked rather than focus on just doing a simple job serving guests drinks?Disgrace of a pub with management to match for many years now. Good to see that on busy nights there was not a single member of...

Our visit to the Royal Oak for a Sunday lunch was yesterday, however I did not want the review to read as reactive so I waited to politely express our disappointment.

We went as party of four, arriving in two pairs. We purchased drinks at the bar and waited for a table to become available. As one party left, a gentleman from the waiting team advised they would like to clear the table before we were seated. It was rather busy so we were unable to sit in the meantime which was a mild inconvenience for our heavily pregnant party member. Once cleared, we were seated and a young lady approached to take a drinks order for the latter pair before cutting-off mid-flow.

The earlier gentlemen then returned and asked if we had booked. We answered no, to which he said we would have to give up the table. Understandably we stated the obvious that we had been seated by him to which he challenged us to say we had lied about a reservation. He was corrected by us that no enquiry was made about us making an advanced reservation, to which he rather aggressively snapped back that it’s irrelevant, “we do not have a table for you”.

There was no follow up offer to find a suitable place at the bar for us at all. We were simply left to stand in the entrance, with no form of an apology.

We shan’t return. Nor shall the venue be considered for the Christening by the expecting parents.

Tip; we travelled a short distance along Sewardstone Road to the Bakers Arms; a wonderful selection of roast dinners on their menu, dim lighting, familial yet rustic ambience, service was wonderful and a large selection of parking. Highly recommended and worth the above disappointment...

I am extremely disappointed by the service I received recently at the Royal Oak Pub in Chingford. We had booked a room for a funeral and paid £520. Food was included in this payment which was paid in advance the staff were told that 50 people would be attending. We arrived to receive a bowl of under cooked sausages a plate of sandwiches, two bowls of sweet potato fries and a bowl of salad. Half the people who attend were unable to have anything to eat and when we asked staff for more food they were very ignorant and told us that we got what we paid for. They said we would have to pay more to receive more food and chanted us away. They were extremely unwelcoming and rude they showed no respect and poor service considering that we had just returned from the funeral. We asked for some of our money back or a refund they told us to leave and we should have paid more, if we wanted more. We had to drive to tescos to buy additional food to feed half of the people who attended. Once again the staff approached us in a unkind manner showing little respect for there customers. Overall we have been extremely disappointed in the experience we have received and many of the people who attended the pub have written various reviews detailing the level of poor service. We would like this to be resolved so this does not happen again and would like some sort of refund or compensation as this experience made it a very difficult day and many people now feel extremely uncomfortable attending any of your pubs in future especially when customers who are morning the dead are...