The Crown, Islington — Restaurant in London

Booked a table for 5 online for lunch on a Sunday. On Saturday at 6pm I receive a system generated cancellation email with no detail just that the booking was cancelled.

Thinking they must have accidentally cancelled my booking I called but the person on the other end of the line said they couldn’t hear. So 30 mins later I walked 10 mins in the rain to the pub to sort it out as I didn’t want my guests arriving the next day for lunch and there being confusion.

Bar staff said they needed to get the manager to look into it and went off to get him. Waited 5 mins and he came over and said the system shouldn’t have accepted the booking as they had been full at the time.

Asked why they wouldn’t call to inform me given the inconvenience and told that he had sent a system cancellation - note with no detail explaining why! I said that wasn’t it more appropriate to call and explain and needless to say apologise but he advised he had been too busy? When I said I felt that was rather poor he said he would have tried and called later in the evening - note it was 7pm the day So the lack of urgency was astounding.

Furthermore no apology, no acknowledgement that it might have been more appropriate to call given the last minute inconvenience. And note in the 5 mins I waited for the manager I was asked by the bar staff if they could serve me 3 times but finding 30 seconds hadn’t been possible or simply just not considered a priority. Establishments with no manners or regards for there customers...

Exceptionally poor manager with disgusting attitude. We were charged after our meal, the waitress accidentally put this through on the wrong table. 10 minutes later the manager comes over and tells us that the money has not come out of our accounts and asked us to pay again.

As I work in finance and am well versed in payment processing, I knew this payment had already been taken and would take 5 days for a refund and the manager was lying, a quick check of our bank accounts confirmed this.

We then made a second payment each. And over 2 weeks later we have not received our refunds for the initial payment. The managers attitude throughout was exceptionally poor as if it was our fault this happened and we were an inconvenience to him.

Luckily after days of failing and attempting to deal with this pond life manager, we initiated chargebacks through our bank and received immediate refunds.

Shame as the waitress was lovely and the food was great. Purely let down by poor...

Was just very average I’m afraid. All a bit confused between being a bit gastro and doing table service whilst neglecting those waiting at the bar. Back one horse or the other to avoid disappointed customers!

Don’t get me wrong it’s a lovely pub architecturally. However going full on gastro with the standard Fuller’s menu is a bit frustrating. I’ve seen enough owton bacon on a menu to last a lifetime!

After the the long wait at the bar two Prides came in at £6 each. Probably the most expensive Prides I’ve ever bought at a Fulller’s pub. They were short filled so had to ask for a top up which was met with a huff and a puff plus no apology. Not really acceptable for a chain that should have consistent standards. All a bit of a shame really as if it was better run it would rate higher.

A generous 3/5 but with better staff and organisation it could be...