The Lookout — Restaurant in New Forest

Seemingly convoluted social distancing procedures and cleaning, quite unlike any other place visited, made visit more stressful than necessary especially since I was concerned about no obvious place to lock bicycles. I didn't understand their system of waiting, or why they were serving the food to extra separate tables for each customer, which resulted in having to wait for lots of tables and chairs to be cleaned (I was alone, surely only one chair and table?). Being later in day I was pushed for time and tired - not their fault, initially the food I asked for was indoor only menu (they were then flexible on this to be allowed as takeout when I explained I didn't have a huge amount of time to sit in and linger, waiting for loads of tables to be disinfected) and I sat and finally ordered when one table was ready.

Coffee is from a machine prefilled with cows milk so no soya/oat/non dairy latte or cappucino. Ultimately everything else was fine and sorted.

Great location on a busy beach, visited before many times before covid...

I waited in the queue for takeaway for 20 minutes, i was expecting to wait as it was quite busy but once I got to the till to order chips, it took 40 minutes for them to come out. There was no communication that it would take that long. The 2 people in front of me were also waiting a very long time for their food. When one of the ladies questioned the staff to check if her food was coming the person was very abrupt and didnt apologise for how long the food was taking. If I had known the food was going to take that long to come out I wouldn't have bothered! I just wanted some chips for my children and it took 1 while hour to get them! Crazy! Also I was lucky to the the last person to beable to have hot food, everyone behind me who had also been queuing for 20 minutes plus weren't able to order hot food and were only told once they got to the till. So they had waited that time in the queue to then find out they couldn't order hot food once they got to the till. Very bad...

Great views, but bring a picnic! Queues in this place are appalling,whatever time of day. Incredibly poor planning for food service. 30 minutes in the queue, another 40 waiting minutes for food (at the start of the queue the sign said 15 mins). By the time we'd eaten what turned out to be one of the worst lunches we'd had in a long time (overcooked rubbery tasteless chicken burger, inedible chips and greasy all day breakfast bap) we had no time left for walking, so ended up having to accept the cost of all day parking (is that their plan, I wonder?!?) Came back for a cuppa after the walk to find queues were even worse, so in the time everyone else took to queue, we left, drove to Beaulieu and went to a lovely tea shop and had tea and crumpets! Bring back the old café, it was tiny, quaint, but lovely with a much better gift shop. Improved visitor facilities?? I don't think so. You are strongly advised to give the "Look Out" a miss. There are much better...