Flying Horse — Restaurant in Manchester

A dreadful visit here on Sunday 5th January 2025. I had to stand in a single queue reaching to the door, then when I reached a till I was told non of our choices were available, no chicken or fish! This happened on a Sunday afternoon and has happened on a few previous visits. Also the pub was freezing cold, no radiators on in our area. I then had to make choices of meals we didnt really want and rejoin the single queue. This made for a very uncomfortable experience and frankly it felt like hard work.

When informed a team leader about our experience he was non apologetic and said thee was a supply problem with food and we should check the app. I replied why should we have to do that? Couldn't there be an insert in the menu or a notice at the bar informing customers about non availability? Why waste customers time like this.

We have been customers here for years and enjoyed great Family celebration meals here. Now we feel very disappointed that on each visit, lots of items on the menu are not available, we are not informed of this and there is no apology for this.

My Mother informed the team leader as we left we would not be returning after years of custom and he just walked away, obviously not concerned. Im personally very upset and disappointed very upset following our visit today as are my Family and we will certainly not return.

As a footnote we used to enjoy a game of darts at this pub, but a giant go cart has been placed in front of the board for some months preventing play. We asked the Owner and staff a few times if it might be moved to allow play. The Owner said he would move it but there it stays, blocking the dart board.

We had just sent invites out to for a meal at the Flying Horse to have a meal celebrating a landmark Birthday. We will now be looking for another venue for this meal and future Family meals. It's a shame because this pub was so much better in terms of service and food quality and choice just 9 months ago and indeed just a few years ago. I've left glowing reviews in the past. The front of house staff are Professional and friendly. it's the management, team leaders and Chefs that our letting it down. Standards have consistently and dramatically fallen and its no longer a good experience visiting here.

As a late addition to my review : I'm just responding to the reply from the owner below. I've worked for decades in customer service roles and I've never once turned a compliant around and said to a customer the fact they are complaining "isn't a good look" for them. How unprofessional! Most of the points I raised in my review have been ignored in the owners response and there is no attempt to put things right. This is a very poor response and poor customer service to a long standing customer of the pub. Even if I were a new customer its a rude, crude reply and the angry sarcastic "Happy New Year" at the end just confirms they don't...

My friend and I visited with our children, I can say this is one of the worst meals we have ever been out for. The children didn't eat, chicken nuggets and chips as they said they were disgusting, not really sure how you can manage to make that disgusting, but they didn't eat it. We ordered some chicken wings for them as a starter, one portion was overcooked and crispy and the other was sloppy and looked as though someone had spat on it and then kicked it round the kitchen, before serving it to us. It said that they came with veggie sticks, Peppers, carrot and Cucumber, but came with 3 semi circles of Cucumber 🤣 when I showed the waitress the sloppy, vile chicken wings, she apologised and went to speak to the chef, she came back and said he won't re cook them or give us a fresh portion as that's how they come, I showed her the other portion and she said he won't do anymore. Then our mains came, which said they had fresh salad on the burgers, that was one Lettuce leaf that wasn't even as big as the burger, 1 piece of onion l, not even a ring slice, just an inch long piece of onion 🤣 and no sauce 🙈 the onion rings still had soggy batter, so we asked for fresh ones and the waitress came back and said the chef wanted to see them so she took them from the table to show him and eventually someone else brought us some more! We ordered a coffee as we were waiting for my friends children to be collected by their father, we asked for 2 Americanos, 1 with hot milk, 1 with cold, the lady then added the milk to the hot one, poured so much in that it overflowed, passed it to me as it was spilling all over the bar and I had to pour it in the beer drip tray and then had to drink what tasted like a latte. Overall terrible food and even worse...

The menu promises they are big on flavour but we experienced the exact opposite.

I understand it was very busy and I feel sorry for the staff as most were clearly very young but the quality of the food was honestly abysmal. It was mostly over cooked bland microwaved food. The soggy veggies on everyone's plates looked like they'd been soaking and lost any goodness they once had. The chicken looked like it was made from playdough, unseasoned and overcooked.

The mashed potatoes were almost solid, you could have used them as modelling clay. They didn't even try to disguise that it had been plopped out of a microwaved dish. The pizza had obviously been microwaved too long as the dough was pale and solid. The green beans were rubbery and tasteless and the gravy was incredibly thick and salty.

We also had an "Ultimate Big Combo" sharing platter as a starter which was pathetic. Nothing was Ultimate or Big about it. The menu said it included 2 garlic ciabatta slices. They came as a quarter of a halved ciabatta, cut into 2 pieces. Almost hilariously small. Soggy battered mushrooms, a couple of stale fried pieces of tortilla, 2 (of the smallest you could possibly get!) slithers of chicken breast strips with scraps of iceberg lettuce. Literally scraps, not even a piece of green leaf. I don't know how anyone could serve it without feeling ashamed.

Also the menus were in desperate need of a wipe down. Pros were the children's playground and fast service. But I'm guessing it's only fast as we were just waiting for the...