Waterloo Cross — Restaurant in Mid Devon

After a successful car boot sale with my mother and little brother, we decided to pop in for a late lunch on the journey back home. On arrival, we found a tidy little establishment which wasn't too busy so we took our seats.

It did take us a while to find the children's menu as they were not provided to us upon being seated. Though my mum was ecstatic to see the wide range of variety on the gluten-free menu (although no prices were listed on this menu which seemed a little odd) their standard and children's menu also provided many different options.

Service initially seemed fast, though with only a couple of waiters moving around they seemed a little understaffed. Our drinks were ordered and provided fairly quickly. And while our mains did take longer than they should have to arrive we were offered additional drinks during the wait so we didn't mind the extra 10-15 minutes. While waiting we did notice that the table next to us had multiple issues with their pudding order and had to have them sent back with a decent 10-minute wait before they received them again.

Once our food arrived it was excellent with my mum again being surprised at the quality of their gluten-free roast. And even my little brother ate most of his meal which is out of the norm for him.

This is where the problems started. Our waiter ended up taking quite a long time to get back to us and offer dessert/remove plates, despite walking past us a multitude of times. Once he did get around to us we all ordered. About 20 minutes later he came back round to say our deserts were on their way. Yet another 20 minutes past before we had to call him over to see what was happening, after which he went off to check. During this, a large table all walked without receiving their mains due to the incredibly long waiting times. After yet another good 10 minutes or so our waiter finally got back to us to confirm they were working on them before a shorter wait led to us receiving them. Although my mum and brother didn't receive any cutlery with their order and had to go hunting just to find some spoons.

This order sorry to say had not gone well, my Sunday had been all but melted by the time it arrived and my brother's brownie was so overdone he ended up having to share from others' deserts. The gluten-free fudge cake seemed fine.

What really struck me with this final order though is how the poor girl handling the pudding looked to be on the brink of tears. I really genuinely felt sorry for her and I couldn't tell if it was how overworked she seemed or if she might have been new to this role and perhaps undertrained.

The lady at the till provided us with a small discount due to the wait and no charge for my brother's pudding. Although it does feel like this compensation could have been a bit better.

All in all, I imagine had there been sufficient staff our experience here would’ve been different as the strong start suggested. But all the waiters & perhaps cooks seemed to be overworked and too thinly spread to handle things in what seemed like a fairly...

Disappointed is an understatement. Always known this pub to be busy so booked a table early in the week for Friday evening thinking we'd need to book in fast. Got there at 7pm and it's quiet which was lovely as it's not always nice to eat somewhere that's rammed. Anyway, then comes the rest of our evening, seated by a window, again lovely, order was taken around quarter past 7 which was again fine. After 30 minutes our starters come out, "breaded mushrooms with a garlic mayonnaise, sprinkled with chopped chives" to quote the menu, and buttermilk chicken strips and popcorn chicken (surpisingly all correct and tasty), the garlic mayonnaise must of had the smallest amount of garlic in but fine, not everyone loves strong garlic taste and it was still nice, no chives to be seen and some of the mushrooms were so 'hard' (over cooked) I ended up eating them with my fingers as the fork wouldn't go into them. Another table is seated behind us (relevant later), this is around 19:45, anyway we eat the starters expecting the evening to get better (there's always hope), main course finally comes out at 20:30, ultimate southern fried chicken burger and cowboy burger, both with extra mozzarella and cheddar one with no bacon and one with no lettuce, bacon still on both burgers and no mozzarella or cheddar so I let a colleague know that we asked for extra cheese and I had asked for no bacon, he then takes our meals back to the kitchen, peels the bacon off of the burger and slaps on some American cheese slices, fine, at this point we are debating on leaving and I was absolutely not going to wait another 45 minutes for a fresh burger. The man says "sorry about that we've had a lot of burger orders at the same time so there must of been a mix up", it's okay, no worries, I'm just hangry by this point. The other table gets their mains and are told "sorry about the wait, dessert is on the house if you want anything" so now I'm a little salty. Our mains were actually very good, decent size, juicy burgers, no burger dip either though which is again stated on the menu. We finish up and decide not to get dessert since we don't want to be waiting another 30+ minutes and one of the servers comes over and asked if we want dessert as it would be free but we decline so he says they will sort something at the till. Get to the till to be told we've been given 20% off which is enough for me to not post this review until I question why we've been charged for the extra cheese that we never had, the lady says "you did have extra cheese" so I said "no we asked for mozzarella and cheddar but got American style" (not trying to be a petty B but I'm also not paying for something I've not had which the list is growing) the other server then laughs, out loud... I'm now P'd off, will not be returning (boo hoo amiright?), not recommending and now thanks to your server you can have my honest review on your once decent now downhill...

Excellent customer service. We love going to Waterloo cross as the atmosphere is great and they allow dogs. The food is good with a good range of choices. We have been many times here and generally don’t have any issues. This visit was slightly different but I haven’t marked them down because of it because the problems were handled well. We went for Sunday lunch but came quite late at 1.30. By this time the options were limited as they were running out of some of the meals. In the end we ordered three roast beef dinners and were told that they only had two Yorkshire puddings left which we accepted. They use a QR code system for ordering which failed at the last hurdle. I ordered at the bar instead and was offered a 40% discount. I was very grateful. We ordered extra roast potatoes instead of the Yorkshire puds. Despite being very busy the food didn’t take long to arrive. However the waitress then indicated they had run out of potatoes so they couldn’t provide us with the extra ones we had ordered. The portions of potatoes on the plate also showed that we had the very last available. They also had no Yorkshire’s in evidence which I queried. It turns out there was a miscommunication between the kitchen and front of house staff. They had already run out of Yorkshire’s when I ordered. The waitress owned their mistake and offered us a full refund which meant our meals were free. I suppose many people would have put up a really bad review, but here’s the thing. Mistakes happen to us all. It was handled with well with honesty and recompense to us. I can’t fault that. A couple of other things. My husband has recently started using a wheelchair. The facilities for those with disabilities were good and we had no problems with access or the position of the disabled toilet which is now a bonus and something else we have to consider when choosing a venue for a meal. Overall I couldn’t give a five star rating because on this occasion it wasn’t. However I want to thank the staff for the way they handled the problems which is a priceless thing. I know this venue is a great place for a reasonably priced meal out, with disabled husband and dog in pleasant surroundings and ample parking facilities I...