Oak Tree — Restaurant in Mansfield

Wow, how this nice pub has gone down hill. It used to be a regular pit stop back in the 00 and 10's.

Recently went with a party on 9 for a birthday meal and it was one of the worst experiences I've had at a pub in the last 5 years.

Booked table not ready, we had to put tables and move chairs ourselves. Missing cutlery on the table. No mixed grill on the menu any more. 4 out of the 9 food orders arrived wrong (two miss cooked meats, one missing gravy boat, one missing hunters upgrade). Onion rings missing across all meals, said they had no onion rings (either get your stock correct or there's a Farmfoods a short distance on Oak Tree Lane, go buy a few bags... It's not rocket science). Two steaks were incorrectly cooked, and one ended up being full of fat and gristle so had to be returned. This meant we had one member of the party sat there watching the others eat. By the time the replacement arrived everyone else had finished. It really soured the birthday vibe and it made us feel quite awkward.

Some of the items are minor and I would have not even mentioned them if they were isolated... but together they add up to major failings, and it did put a downer on what was meant to be a nice family birthday meal. No apologies for the mistakes, no offer of reparations for the missing items or mistakes.

There seems little attention to detail, and getting food orders so wrong is a major failing. I guess it's a top down management issue, Greene King you need to do better. On the surface, based on my last experience this pub appears as now very poor and makes the brand look bad. Get it sorted.

My advice would be avoid this place, try somewhere else.

edit for response Thanks for the reply. Let me respond to your comments.

I understand the menu might be out of the Oak Trees control, the lack of mixed grill was aimed at Greene King and their menu choices, not aimed at the Oak Tree directly. A mixed grill is a pub staple dish and poor it is not included.

I see the excuse of allergies as the reason not buy products elsewhere as weak (but I understand it might be a Greene King directive and out of your control). I am sure the onion rings you serve contain no more of the FSA regulated 14 allergens you are legally required to inform customers of, than the labelled Farmfoods onion rings, but that aside... it is within your control to make sure you have enough of an ingredient that MANY of your dish's require? And at the least, should one of your dishes be incomplete due to lack of ingredients maybe offer to discount that dish by a proportionate amount or offer a different side, I would have been more than happy with some garlic mushrooms or chicken wings instead of the missing onion rings.

Your waiting staff did apologise numerous times on the night, but when you have heard sorry many times, it just feels like a hollow platitude, almost like they are used to say it and its on autopilot, one mistake is sorry, four+ mistakes is incompetence. Is it acceptable to have so many mistakes and your staff not to inform the management on the night, even if just to let them know they had major issues with service tonight with a customer?

If the manager on the night popped over and apologised, maybe offered some free deserts or drinks for the mistakes and say they will do better next time, this would not only have made our birthday party less disappointing, but it would have been a much different review, one that showed there were issues, but the management were on the ball, awesome and sorted it out.

You are in the hospitality trade after all... maybe try to be more proactive and do better when the mistakes and problems are occurring, instead of trying to firefight when you happen to get a less than glowing review?

I am happy to discuss this with you as I know you need to know where something went wrong so to stop it from happening again. If you are interested, please edit your reply and let me know who you are, "response from the owner" on a Google review reply doesn't help much when I am trying to get in contact with a...

Usually me, my friends and my family have an absolutely lovely experience here. In the past we have experience great food and hospitality with the staff being absolutely brilliant to us. However, recently we have experienced occasions of an extremely rude member of staff. We first decided to visit the oak tree on all returning home for Christmas from university. A friend was understandably refused to be served by a member of staff due to him forgetting his id. This we completely understood had no problem with. However, on leaving, a member of staff sarcastically waved us goodnight which originally did not bother us until we returned the following night to watch the football. This time we were left extremely annoyed by this member of staff. A friend was first refused due to him having a Polish ID, which may I add, is accepted all over Mansfield and Nottingham leaving slightly annoyed and confused. What broke our patience was when we witnessed the member of staff be very rude to an elderly gentleman. Whilst a man was at the bar, the elderly gentleman approached, recognising him. They spoke rather loudly in greeting each other which the man explained was because his hearing was not the best. The member of staff replied with "Stop shouting" and "can you be quiet, I cant hear him" rather rudely. The lack of respect for customers is rather odd for the oak tree and we are usually very pleased with the staff. To add to this, a bar fight also broke out which was very poorly handled almost causing our drink to go flying and several customers to be pushed within the drama. This may hinder our decisions on where to spend our money in the near future, however I have full confidence that the issue...

Wow. Total disaster and what a bad experience. Booked Boxing Day lunch for 10 during October and checked several times thereafter, ‘just to make sure’ as online booking failed a few times. Called pub and emailed numerous times but to no avail. Eventually manager called and explained that online was down and they did not have our booking. Booked food orders again verbally. Then on Christmas Day we received panicking call from pub to establish correct order. Arrived at 1.15 Boxing Day and basic mediocre starters randomly appeared (not together) over 20 minute period which was tasteless drab unappetising greasy ‘pub grub’. Almost two hours after booking time and after several visits to bar to ask where are main courses, these eventually arrived which were so so bad. Dry slabs of turkey, soggy sprouts, cold mashy roast potatoes which were obviously frozen cooked before, rock hard chunk of stuffing, congealed cold gravy all delivered on cold plates. My sons Hunter Chicken was just as bad and totally inedible. I refused mine straightaway as did one other of our party. We decided to throw in towel and here and then and not risk the desserts. (Christmas) Hats off to struggling staff and assistant manager who refunded whole bill as she accepted our experience was a grim one. Staff very pleasant but appeared to be very short staffed. Sadly quite common with GK pubs. As Nickelback would say ‘Never Again’. In all honesty the post McDonalds replacement was infinity better and far quicker. Grim Boxing Day lunch which was as bad as the mould in gents loos. Something has to be done....