The Queen Victoria — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

I advise anyone choosing to dine here on a Saturday night to think again. The evening started well enough with friendly staff showing us to our table. Ordered our meal ( which took a while to come and one of our group was left waiting for their meal whilst we all tucked in to ours). During our meal we noticed that more and more people were allowed to take up dining room tables who were only drinking!!! The room became more and more noisy( if I'd wanted to eat with drinkers I would have gone to Wetherspoons). The meals were good but constantly interrupted by waitresses asking if we wanted more drinks. Even though I'd asked for the desert menu it never materialised. However as it was getting late and the weather was not inviting us to go elsewhere we decided to have drinks there. I know that times are hard for the pub industry but please let your future diners know that they will be sharing their meal with people who are not dining. If I had known I won't...

Thought we'd pop in on Friday night to see what it's like now it's reopened. First off it was sparsely populated probably a quarter full. I went the bar where there was only one person serving, however one of my party tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that there was a queue (yes a QUEUE!) of 7 people. I went to the back of the queue, (by the way since when did people start this?) and watched the single person behind the bar start to make coffees (at 19:30). This took her 10mins by which time nobody else had been served. We turned around and walked out so they lost a £40ish round. Others ahead of us in this queue followed. If this is how they run a pub on a Friday night I expect to see the doors closing again in a month or two. What a shambles. Shame because it's been a good pub before and could easily be again if run properly. Won't be going back. Then again it probably...

So it’s Eat out to Help out, and the Queen Vic Gosforth cares more about ramming tables in than it does about social distancing between tables. They’ve also increased menu prices by £2 per item since lunchtime when I viewed the menu (I mean Rishi is paying a tenner after all so people won’t miss £2)... and they aren’t giving anyone info to fill out track and trace, or asking anyone use hand sanitiser on entry. They could at least have washed the knives properly you would think.

Shame on you.

Edit...

Having said all that, I can't fault the food at all. We both had burgers and they were absolutely beautiful and the staff were very attentive and helpful. Just a shame they're not complying with social...