Three Magpies — Restaurant in London

We visited for food in early November, 2019.

In short... Nasty coffee, awful service, worse food.

Tried ordering mixed grill... None available. Tried ordering gammon... then was told that the grill was broken, and anything requiring the grill was basically off menu.

The service... Was basically when the staff took the order/payment at the bar, and when they brought the food out from the kitchen. We had to get our own menus, napkins and cutlery (was not even informed). No check-back until we were finished eating. I had to take my plate up to the bar to request to have my steak cooked to requested spec. Very informal and unprofessional.

Having been told 'not available' to our first (and second) choices from the menu, we eventually ordered 1 medium Sirloin steak, and 1 medium-well Rump steak. The meals arrived within a fair time, but reversed. The Rump was pink and bloody, the Sirloin was medium-well (too tough). The chips were either oven-cooked or microwaved... A matter of taste, but I thought the chips were disgusting. The half tomato tasted unripe and sour. In hindsight, we should have ordered from the '2 meals for a tenner' section.

Drinks... I did not try their beers/wines/spirits. Soft drinks range was limited.

I ordered a cappuccino... Which tasted like watery filter-coffee with frothed milk. I did not order a second drink.

Parking... There was a limited but camera'ed car park behind the pub, with direct access to the main road. The parking fee was deducted from our order cost at the bar when the ticket was presented (free parking for customers).

Feel & elbow room... Spacious, and a lovely building. Could argue that it was a bit dark, but I liked the lighting level (where we were sat anyway). A quiet rainy evening.

Small smoking shelter out back (tight squeeze for 10?), along with a few wooden tables, a small paved area, and carpark.

I will NOT be returning (unless paid to revise - but that would be a pricey proposition). Very disappointed, especially considering...

Given my experiences of the Park Inn Hotel, I thought of eating out rather than staying there... but this nearby pub soon felt a mistake before long.

We grabbed a couple of drinks at the bar before sitting in the dining room to decide upon meals, and once meals were ordered things went downhill. There was a till problem taking my order so whilst I stood waiting for it to be fixed, the three bar staff gathered around it attempting to affect some fix eventually wandered off one by one, serving others and leaving me wondering what was happening about my order. Eventually one of the bar staff wandered over and was shocked to hear my issue hadn't been sorted - meaning that for the two of us, the meals came out at different times (only one dish had been ordered before the till issue and nobody bothered to check if it was complete - I had an additional 30-min wait for mine).

The chaos didn't end there; when I went to pay I noticed that two more drinks had been added to my tab, which I complained about. Other people were complaining of issues they had encountered; drinks undelivered, wrong orders taken, some requests going awry, etc - all of which took up more effort to correct.

I ended up having to return back later to get the right receipt and sort payment but was perturbed at the amount of errors and lack of customer service: the tall blonde barmaid (which wasn't of British nationality) seemed to behave curtly and sulkily to a group of Germans visiting the UK, and although errors were made there seemed to be little incentive to fix it nor any apologies forthcoming to bewildered diners.

The meals themselves were fine, I have no issues there - but the way in which ordered were processed and the general attitude some of the staff behaved to paying customers doesn't encourage...

Went with a few friends and was pleasantly surprised with the "Two classics for £13" offer. Decided on the scampi and was excited to order.

We entered the queue. There were 3 people in front of us. After waiting for 10 minutes for the waiter to process the orders of the people in front of us they closed the register and instructed us to order from the bar. After waiting another 5 minutes we ordered.

The scampi finally came and check out the photo how it looked like. Not only were they fairly disgusting, but the portion was laughably small.

My friend ordered a vegan dish with peas on the side. I am sad I don't have a photo of his dish, but he literally got 10 peas as a side. He called in the waiter and asked whether they are seriously expecting that 10 peas as a side dish makes sense. They said yes. He said the actual main was quite good though.

So, from my experience, terrible service and disappointing food.

The Strongbow dark fruit cider was very tasty though.

EDIT: was dragged to the pub again by the same friend from the review. I ordered a cheeseburger with sweet potato fries. The burger came lukewarm. That being said, it was tasty and the sweet potato fries were great. On the other hand, we waited more than 30 minutes for our meals even though they told us there was no wait for the food. Reheating a pie and preparing a burger shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. Also, my friend's french fries came cold and hard as a rock. The staff was nice to give him fresh ones after he complained. To conclude my edit, yesterday's experience was better than my previous one so I'm increasing my review from 2 to 3 stars because there is still a lot of room for...