The Sun — Restaurant in North Hertfordshire

If you don't like long, over personalised, emoji-fueled reviews, and don't want to know the score please look away now.⚽️😜...||Choose this over the Priory for maximum Englishy charm! |This review is coming from a five-star hotel princess by the way; and I felt it necessary to write this therefore, to combat some of the, silly (I feel), unnecessary reviews below.||I can't say enough good things about this little place and about Hitchin in general😍. I was filming in Hitchin for two weeks and production based me here. Myself & my co-actor, (an American, so even more in love with this olde worlde inn, and Hitchin than myself!) were embraced, almost like family. Nothing was too much trouble for the staff here & all the food I had was incredible, especially breakfast. My room was cozy and perfect, & I really am attached to it now & miss it! Bed was VERY comfy. ||Some reviews refer to some of the rooms as "basic?" To That I would ask what they expect for the price? 🙄🤷‍♀️🤣 please consider managing your expectations, when you book an olde world pub inn like this in the centre of a small UK town. Like, I never went in expecting five star room facilities, because it's not priced, built or starred that way. It's old, so you expect to have creaky floorboards and occasional age-related aspects that you wouldn't expect from a new, corporate, chain-led four or five star🙄.||The old (or 'basic" as some people have interpreted it), is part of its inherent charm. Old Beams original Tudor etc - I was lucky enough to have some in my room (23), which I found so cozy I requested it when I came back from my break. It had everything I needed. Including a pub downstairs of course!😜 Plus a Wetherspoons next door serving food till 11 if you wanted to go a bit more basic for dinner - handy if you are basing yourself here longer term for work.||Just the loveliest staff here - 5* and beyond. Katarina & Christina (am i remembering right?), the most friendliest & attentive cleaners ever, who went out of their way to bring me a toilet brush when I asked. ( This is a trend of ALL hotels of ALL classifications over the past three years I find - suddenly toilet brushes are historical artefacts 🙄).||Reuban & the other young lad on the bar, who came to my assistant when I got locked out late one night: fab service 💚🥰😘 ||Daila's warm smiles at breakfast made my morning. They always let me order, take a coffee up to my room, jog, shower and then my food would be ready when I came down, as they had kept it hot in the kitchen. I'm not a morning person, so this maximised my time & gave me extra hours in bed which I was very grateful for. One day she couldn't find my booking, because it was added at the last minute, but she trusted me to eat for free until it was paid for later by my employer. ||Reception team wonderfully welcoming, mostly manned by the friendly blonde lady (whose name I can't remember I'm sorry!), to which every request I made was met with a "no problem". She produced a room from thin air when the hotel was sold out across all sites. Later I found they'd managed to get me in my same cozy little room. ||Monika, her co-receptionist was so accommodating; when our shooting schedule change multiple times and we had to stitch complicated bookings together, somehow always making sure I had the same room even though other people were booked to go into it. She was also incredibly diplomatic; a sensitive reader of people & situations, as I learnt in awkward occasion I found myself in. I'm always surprised by how many people work in hospitality, yet don't have this skill.||Breakfast was consistently lovely. Fried eggs were runny, avocado actually tasted like avocados you get in Austin, Texas somehow🤣, and not the so-so British ones we get. It tasted like they were going for high-end stuff. Decent Continental breakfast available to fill you up whilst you waited for chef to cook your mains.|Staff had no issue with you going into the restaurant area to collect tea and coffee for your room throughout the day; a lot of places charge you for this. The filter coffee in the morning was my perfect kind, because my favourite is American diner coffee. If that's not your bag you've got an amazing little coffee shop opposite the hotel serving the best ground Americano.||We didn't eat a lot of meals here because we largely ate with the crew next door in the spoons. When we did though it was good quality, especially the salmon fish cakes.||BANG In the center of town - the most excellent location. You step out on your doorstep and you are almost bang on the town square surrounded by gorgeous little coffee shops and Boutiques.||To address the noise issue. There is certainly more noise than staying in a 4* big corporate Hotel That's built sound proof etc, course. But, y'know, if you book to stay in a PUB hotel, you expect to have noise until 11:30 Friday and Saturday and 11 on a weekday. One should also really expect this if they're staying in the centre of a town. In my whole 2 weeks stay though I was only woken up once in the middle of the night by teenagers passing through, which statistically is pretty good, given the location. |I honestly don't think some people think these things through when booking or managing expectations in accordance with that. I mean you don't buy an orange and then complain it's not an apple do you?||Hitchin in general is one of the most beautiful places I've been to in the United Kingdom. There as a special creative vibe there, and just a nice 'FENG SHUI'yish 😜about the town that makes it stand out. (And yes, This is coming from one of those London w* who thinks that London is the Be all and End all. Apart from NYC). Everywhere you turn in the town there is beauty & creativity, or something altruistic. |A Karaoke bar, A cat cafe, 2 theatres, free town centre entertainment weekend nights, a tenporary summer 'Hitchin Beach' - huuuuge sandpit for kids, ADJACENT to a ALCOHOLIC DRINKS VAN SERVING PROSSECO; I have a 3-year-old back home and the parent in me was like, 😮😃😃😃)|It's not like a town in that way, it has literally everything that you usually only find in a city. The Council, or 'Visit Hitchin' are doing an incredibly good job. ||Anything that would improve things?||- please provide croissants at breakfast especially if they are advertised on the menu. I missed those!|- shower difficult to get a balance between hot and cold so maybe check the balancing thingymajig. Wasn't too bad for me as I love scorching hot showers to steam my voice, but other guests might complain about this.|- I think it would be a good idea to take the pictures of the new rooms off the booking sites. The old ones, with their Tudor beams, are charming enough, & then people won't leave reviews complaining that they aren't in those newly decorated rooms that they saw on hotels.com etc||I can't say enough lovely things about this gorgeous little place, 🥰😍and if you can keep in your mind that it's not the 4 or 5-star luxury that you would have in hotels of those classifications, then you will enjoy its olde worlde charm. Because you will certainly receive five star service here as well.||Ash and I look forward to staying with you again, if they have a screening locally.|We have also told production to thank the hotel in the credits.|Thank you so much for making my fabulous time on this job, even more wonderful. Miss you all & my lil' Room...

I have never stayed in such a poorly run establishment. The Sun Hotel should not have its doors open to the public until it has addressed getting the basics of hospitality and hotel management right. I had two room moves within 4 hours of arrival, one room didn't have a working TV with cables that posed a fire risk hanging out the back of it, my first room didn't have a shower - just two holes in the wall... I was then advised the room they had put me in which was described as an 'upgrade' ..(questionable label) I would need to vacate on my last night and they weren't sure then where they would put me. I have had approximately 2-3 hours sleep a night - the corridors are noisy with heavy doors constantly slamming. The bedroom directly above me may as well be at the bottom of my bed - I could even hear the occupant using the toilet. The rooms, corridors and hotel looks disheveled and in dire need of housekeeping and some polyfiller and paint. Cobwebs are thicker than tyre rubber, and the hotel looks and feels unclean. More concerningly the hygiene is incredibly poor, the chef that was off sick with 'flu symptoms' came in on the first morning I was in the restaurant having breakfast coughing and sneezing, hugging the housekeeping staff and going in and out the kitchen. In fact you don't even have to work in this hotel to have free range of going in and out the kitchen from what I've observed over breakfast. I could write War and peace on my stay here this week, no electrics in the room on one morning, being verbally attacked by a drunk guest who was trying to break down my door in the early hours and the staff on duty saying 'they'd go and have a look for her" half an hour after I reported it. Faulty kettle, dirty towels, takeaway dishes from previous guests with food remains being left in the room and window ledges encouraging vermin. The best part is when I finally complained to the "management" (questionable term) I was met with a condescending manner that attempted to play down my complaints and experience of the week. I will never stay in this hotel again. I am a keen traveler and often stay away in hotels, I'm also an incredibly patient and tolerant person but this hotel needs highlighting as a concern. I didn't eat any meals here aside from Breakfast on a few of the mornings following which I have concluded despite menus stating they cater for dietary requirements the reality of this causes great challenge and explanation of what is a dairy product. Also its a complete surprise everyday whos cooking your breakfast... reception staff are also trained chefs in this establishment and can cook you up a breakfast one minute before then leaving the kitchen and sitting behind reception desk ten minutes later. My stay here caused me great upset and made my week of training very challenging on little...

We knew this hotel as we used to live in Hitchin and although never a favourite destination for us didn't think it could be too bad for a one night stay!! Our room was up three very steep flights of stairs with no offer of assistance with our cases.

On a positive note, the beds appeared to be clean and were comfortable. However the bedroom wasn't clean, the dust had been there for much longer than one day. I wouldn't even use the shower although my husband did, sharing it with a spider and many cobwebs. The 'toiletries' consisted of a an old, very grubby looking hanging container of liquid soap that wasn't even a third full.

The fire alarm went off three times during the night. Obviously silenced each time by staff and no sign or sound of the fire brigade which didn't make for much of a feeling of safety.

No mention or apology about the fire alarm by any member of staff in the morning. I did mention it to the person who I assumed to be the duty manager whose only response was that she had been there and gone through it with us, the guests.

Breakfast was included in the price. It was difficult to find a chair in the dining room that felt clean enough to sit on. My husband and I ordered two poached eggs each. Another couple eventually came in to the dining room and ordered a cooked breakfast which was served well before ours.

The waitress advised ours was waiting for toast then proceeded to take bread from the 'buffet' table to the kitchen to toast.

When our breakfast finally arrived, my husband's was promptly returned to the kitchen. The plate had two egg yolks on it with a somewhat strange looking 'string' of egg white floating somewhere from the side of one. Sliding around in oil with two dry pieces of toast on the side, I query any cook/chef who would even have considered that anything so disgusting looking could leave his/her kitchen. (Unfortunately I didn't have my phone downstairs with me to take a photo).

The other couple asked for marmalade, to be eventually advised they had 'run out'.

We knew The Sun hotel was not going to be 4 star but certainly did not expect anything owned by Greene King to be dirty, run down and lacking in such poor quality staff...