The Springfield Inn — Restaurant in Newark and Sherwood

Eating out as a family of 5, 2 adults, a pre-teen and a 5 & 4 year old can sometimes be filled with dread. However, Springfield Inn has given me faith that as busy parents, we CAN enjoy dinner out together! We were welcomed by Myles and Jess, who made fuss of the small children, engaged in some light conversation about how much they might eat, which usually makes me laugh as they "normally" don't like anything on the menu, and even when I order what they've asked for, it's not right! Leaving lot's of food on the plate. We then found a beautifully set table out the front of the restaurant, shaded by the umbrella, to where the kids were given some crayons and a menu for them to choose their own dinner, easy set up and many options. Drinks and food ordered, I filled with fear that the drinks alone wouldn't right! However, much to my surprise, he drinks came perfect, kids didn't complain as they were given glasses, ice and straws, just as the adults did, making them feel very included! The activity sheet was very age appropriate for the smalls, crayons in good order, and kept them entertained untill dinner arrived. Our Pre-teen was being awkward, sat on their phone, not wanting to engage in the world let alone with the menu. Eventually they asked if they could have a cheese burger, no bacon, no BBQ sauce. When the food arrived in 20ish minutes, on a busy Sunday afternoon, everything was PERFRCT! The fussy 5 year old demolished his sausage, bean's and garlic bread, finishing the crusts and ends of the sausage! (Unhead of at home) The loud 4 year old thoroughly enjoyed her Sunday dinner, eating parsnips with passion for the first time ever, covered in gravy from head to toe, Yorkshire was amazing, and the beef held in one hand, torn to shreds whilst singing Happy Birthday to anyone who'd listen, she was honestly in her element! And the pre-teen.... custom buger was "the best I've ever had! And I need to know how to make these chips!" Finished her dinner and asked for pudding!!

Our trio of meat dinner, topped with fluffy yorkers, roasted veg and greens, fabulous gravy, condiments of cranbury sauce, apple and mustard to go along side beef, pork and turkey just phenomenal! It speaks volume when no salt and pepper are required! And the roast potatoes are to die for!!

Willow, the pub dog came over to say hello once our plates were cleared, which all the children thoroughly enjoyed.

Pudding of Jelly and strawbs, ice cream and strawbs, lemon tart, Eton mess and sticky toffee pudding, shared across the table, with spoonfulls from each plate just hit the spot for an afternoon of football in the garden!

Springfield Inn has really changed my perspective of eating out with with the whole family. 2.5 hours later, and the kids were only just ready to leave. What a wonderful afternoon! Huge thank you you the staff here, the hospitality and huge compliments to the kitchen team, who were able to get my children to eat entire plates of food!!

We'll definitely see...

Four of us visited The Springfield Inn on Saturday 26th March. Service was pretty slow, in fact my daughter had to call someone to take our drinks order, even though the establishment was not busy. We have been coming here on/off for 15 years & that evenings meals were the worst we have ever had the pleasure of. 3 members of the party ordered the house burger (standard, nothing fancy) & I ordered Hunters Chicken, of which I have had this particular meal numerous times in The Springfield over the years. I really wish I had taken photos of the meals that were served to us. I was shocked. The burgers came on a dinner plate served with a ‘few’ anemic looking fries & two ‘scabby’ anemic looking onion rings.. No garnish whatsoever.. My husbands burger was that messy, he ended up eating it with a knife & fork My Hunters Chicken, which in one way was my own fault as I failed to read the ‘Schnitzel’ part (which I still can’t quite get my head around) was diabolical. I might aswell have been eating a piece of cardboard covered in breadcrumbs! This is the description on the menu;

HUNTER'S CHICKEN SCHNITZEL chicken schnitzel, topped with mature Cheddar, pancetta and a smoky BBQ & tomato sauce served with triple-cooked chips

Well, I never tasted the ‘mature’ cheddar cheese (think the ‘Chef’ forgot to add that) & the pancetta - tasteless & very hard. The smoky bbq & tomato sauce was pathetic! I make this meal at home, quite often. The chicken should have pancetta wrapped around it, topped with cheese that you can taste & smothered in bbq sauce. Because you now seem to think that veg & garnishing (good presentation in my opinion) is not important anymore, I opted to have an side of ‘seasonal greens’ at a cost of £2.75. What I received again was laughable. 2 carrot sticks about the length of my little finger ( greens?) a couple of small, mushy broccoli heads & about 4 Asparagus sticks, of which two of the heads were missing. All in all the meals were extremely disappointing & of a very poor standard. My 15 year old granddaughter cooks & presents meals 10 times better than the ones we received on that evening. Last summer my husband & I had Sunday lunch here, sat outside in the glorious sunshine & the meal was fauItless (thoroughly enjoyed it). But it appears that in such a short time your standards together with your meal presentation have slipped quite considerably. Is this now the result of ‘cut backs’? I understand that both my husband & daughter have contacted you on separate occasions, but are still awaiting a satisfactory reply. As a family we have always enjoyed dining at The Springfield Inn, but I feel the standard of food served on this particular evening, costing us £60, was not enjoyable & a total waste of money. Sadly, we won’t be enticed to return, which is a great shame as it is very...

We love going to this pub, for a drink, we like the atmosphere, the fire place, staff are very nice. We come here all the time, today we said we will try some food. How disappointing. We had soup, which was spiced carrot, I mean more like spiced coriander, I really do not like coriander, but after salting it to death I managed to get it down me. We had those beetroot balls which were probably my favourite thing, with the hummus. I really enjoyed them. Last and least we paid £6.75 for !3! Burnt Brie bites, they added some cress which died and got reincarnated for my meal. After telling the staff if there shouldn’t be more on for that price, she said “it comes like that”, well thank you I can see that, but I’m not happy about paying nearly £7 for 3. She just left, I was wanting to send it back, but my partner said it’s not very British, so I ate it. There should definitely be 5 on there for that price! Also they were burnt as you can see in the photos. The bread was stale on one side and no butter in sight to put on, was good tho, as I was able to soak my coriander/salt (salt is my own fault) soup up, which made it edible. No one came and checked on us, which I wasn’t too bothered about anyways, but would have been nice to explain why I’m a bit unhappy with the meal. People dont go out as much anymore, so on rare occasions I feel like we deserve a good meal and what we pay for. Maybe it was an off day, but definitely off enough for us to never eat there again. I am 38 weeks pregnant and we wanted to have a nice meal to celebrate “not having a baby yet”. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked to and paid a high price for something mediocre. Wish we would have saved our money and gone somewhere else. Also I don’t think the Tv needs to be on, that kind of ruins the country style vibes I think. That’s personal preference of course. All in all, we won’t be eating there again, although the chips from the fish and chips were delicious. Paid £33 and just felt that was too much for what it was. Hope that this will be taken care off and my feedback makes sense… Unfortunately we will only be coming for drink and probably won’t recommend the restaurant to our friends or family . They should have comped the Brie bites as I’m sure you can see how dark they are, but sending them out regardless and then be cheeky about it, like I have eyes in my head, I didn’t expect them to come wrapped in gold and being delievered while doing a handstand, but I expect at least that they’re not burnt and the “leafs” aren’t from 2 weeks...