Black Bull — Restaurant in Mansfield

Me and my partner had a date night here last night (15/7/23).

I phoned up earlier in the day to make a reservation, and the lady on the phone seemed lovely and polite enough. I booked the table for 6pm, when we arrived we were greeted by a barmaid with next to none customer service experience, she couldnt give a friendly smile, chewed gum whilst talking directly in your face and really was not enthusiastic about being there at all. There was a young lad walking around in scuffed up joggers and t-shirt walking about sending food to tables, but for the benefit of the doubt I looked over all this.

We were shown to our table that wasn't laid out for a reservation, I'm still 50/50 on whether it had been cleaned or not. We ordered our food which to be honest, I can't argue with the timing on the food, we had the loaded fries for a started which honestly was really really good which got the second star on this review alone, our main meals however were just... awful.

My partner ordered the classic burger, which is apparently 2 prime beef burgers with shredded iceberg lettuce, fries and a dipping pit of burger sauce. What she received was as she described, 2 microwaved burgers, a flake of lettuce and a cob made of sand... luckily she's 6 months pregnant and craved chips!

I on the other hand ordered the bbq chicken burger... honestly I'd never thought I'd have an inkling on what the illegitimate love child of a square of plasterboard and a dish sponge would taste like on a sand cob, but I guess in your late 20's you get more than you bargained for. The "cheese" was an aldi cheese slice, that had clearly been in the microwave with the plasterboard sponge, as the "cheese" formed a concrete layer around the "chicken" hurting my teeth to bite.

To top this off... the way the "food" was presented... honestly, I'd expect that level of presentation to come from a soft play centre... both meals were £9.95 and £10.95... and honestly I could of got the same quality food from UK Chicken for £3.50... with a drink included.

I decided I wanted a refund.

Now, when I spoke to the barmaid who chews gum and gets paid to smile to the staff and not customers, she spoke in a voice suggesting of "are you serious?" I'm glad she got the manager, whom honestly. Was faultless. She listened to my quarrels and issued my refund, and apologised for the food quality.

This pub, whilst small and quaint, should stay away from the food side of things and stick to being a local for those who enjoy it.

Would possibly return for a drinks...

My partner and I are currently waiting for our food that we orderd over 45 minutes ago. There is about four tables sat down, with us included. Two of those have received their food, one of which has had to be taken back to the kitchen. We've heard them complaining about the wait for food also. My partner and I cannot remember the last time we have waited that long for food at any establishment, even places that have been packed with customers!

We ordered at 2.45pm and it wasn't until 3.40pm In that time, we've both finished our drinks and my partner has had to order another. My orange juice itself (a small Britvic bottle) cost £2. If I had of known that, I would had ordered something else!

My partner also asked to upgrade my chips to cheesy chips for an additional 75p with my steak. When our food finally arrived, 55 minutes later, we were given a side of cheesy chips and told it was an additional £3.70! I'm currently 25 weeks pregnant and wouldn't be able to manage my own meal, let alone extra! The waitress said there was nothing she could do and that my parter had DEFINITELY required a side of cheesy chips, which was not the case at all. She told us she would get her Manager to have a word with us, but five minutes later instead came with £3.70 in change with a not very sincere apology.

My steak looked, tasted and smelt horrible - more like pork if anything else, and the garden peas tasted awful with them being from a tin. The chips obviously needed less time or an oil change in the kitchen as they were rock hard.

I've literally just finished eating, leaving over half of my food and my belly hurts!

We shall not be returning here, and for those that say they've found a hidden gem in this place obviously haven't travelled very far or live under a rock.

Utterly disgusted at the wait time, the customer service...

I’ve waited before posting a negative review and given the Black Bull a chance to respond and rectify the issues, unfortunately this has not happened. So the head office of Marstons was contacted and again did not resolve the issues. It is clear that the Black Bull is unable to cope with large parties as a number of errors were made with communication and timing. The main issues that I will highlight are the fact that they overcharged us for 4 meals that we did not have, one of which was never ordered by us. An alteration was made to our original booking due to members of our party having covid but this was communicated to the Black Bull the day before. The other major issue was that we were charged for the desserts that we did not get, our party were sat ready at 1pm, the service was extremely slow and sporadic. After having mix ups with the starters and main courses we made a list of the desserts that we had ordered and handed it to the staff a 2.50, but were still waiting for the desserts at 3.45, we’d asked a number of times how long they were going to be but as a group we decided to cancel the desserts as we’d been 3 hours already and the wait was ridiculous. All but 2 of the desserts were cold and needed little prep. After some confusion about the bill, the pub called the police. The bill was paid with a 25%discount applied which for the many issues we had was acceptable. However this 25% was applied to the overcharged bill, meaning we were still over paying by a substantial amount. The landlady was extremely rude and would not expect the mistakes even with proof laid out in front of her. The other issues that I have referred to include extremely poor food quality, poor hygiene practices in the kitchen and the unprofessional behaviour of some...