Royal Oak Pub Poynings — Restaurant in Mid Sussex

Nice place, just a short drive from Devils Dyke. Had late lunch/dinner with my partner here.

Then good:

Great atmosphere, layout and exterior and interior design, garden seating area is spacious and comfortable. Menu is short, clear and easy to understand. Staff friendly and engaging. Very helpful and kind. Soap and clean water station is nearby to clean your hands. Food was great when it arrived, we had the mixed pasta and some steak. It was tasty and well cooked. We also had sticky toffee pudding with ice cream, that was very scrumptious.

The Bad:

They have a lot of wait staff, but it seems like they have short staff in the kitchen, order tickets pile up and service is too slow. Orders come out in any order. So you watch as people after you get food first. They unfortunately didn't listen to our order preferences. I was given the wrong drink, I ordered a coke pint with no ice. I got given a lemon soda with ice. I managed to grab the attention of a lady waitress and she quickly fixed it which was great. Also, the food was atrociously slow. My partner asked one of the senior wait about the delay. He said the kitchen was backed up and was very apologetic. Know we are very patient, but this is positive feedback to owners, they need to speed up the kitchen and hire more cooks. The final unfortunate issue we had was that in my partners sticky toffee pudding order we found a huge lock of hair. Somewhere between the kitchen and our table some hair got on the food. So that wasn't very nice.

All in all this place is great, but they just need to make some adjustments to thier service and things will improve...

My friend and I decided to take a trip to the country on Sunday 8th October. I prebooked a table for 3 for a Sunday roast. I’d not been to the Royal oak for a number of years, but remember having a nice experience the last time I visited.

We arrived for 3, stood in the bar for some time there was no acknowledgment by the 2 young girls who were making coffee and drinks, not even a hello.

After an uncomfortable few minutes an older man came over to us and said very insincerely “ I’m afraid there are no roast dinners left” he then showed us the 4 options still available chips, bean broth stew and some other awful choices. We could not believe it! Never ever have I experienced anything like this when I’ve reserved a table somewhere. We said to the man “ surely in situations like this it would be courteous to give us a call so we don’t waste a car journey up here, in all honestly it was apparent he couldn’t care less.

After making some calls we headed back to hove and got a fabulous roast dinner at carne.

Due to this experience I will never return to this pub so unprofessional, also there were so many reservations still on the tables, I’d imagine there were many more very disappointed customers after us.

Surely when people prebook it should give the kitchen an idea of how busy the day is...

Booked table for 3 people for Bank Holiday lunchtime. We're put in room near kitchen on own despite there being lots of spare tables in other areas. As a result we felt rather isolated away from the hustle and bustle of the main room. It didn't help that we could overhear the chefs/waiters arguing in the kitchen. We waited over 40 minutes after ordering for food to arrive, when we asked how much longer our food would be we were told they were busy cos lots of people were in the garden. We would have liked to have known the wait times when ordering to at least manage our young daughter's expectations. When our food finally arrived the pastry on two of our beef pie dishes was badly burnt. We complained and the waitress told us they liked to serve it "crispy"! We duly sent it back and had to wait a further 15 minutes for a replacement pies which was also overdone, although the beef inside was very delicious. The staff were pretty clueless. After our pies were sent back they brought out of vegetable side dishes as if we were going to eat them as a starter! They also waited until we were underway with our food before offering to move us into the main room. The food was expensive for what it was and we will...