Poachers Pocket — Restaurant in North Norfolk

Avoid this place.

We have a campervan and had seen this place a few times on Facebook groups as a good place to stop for the night. There were mixed reviews due to a recent change of ownership, but we preferred to park in a pub car park than the road, so gave it a try.

The car park was rammed with vans, but we managed to get a spot when a car left.

We noticed that the decor had not been changed for a long time, the chairs were dirty, and there were lots of dogs, including the owner's large white dog roaming freely.

The food was terrible - sticky humus, uncooked pitta, crinkle cut beetroot from a jar and salad swimming in vinegar, greasy lamb shank with hardly any mash and a spoon of veg submerged in the gravy.....I could go on. The pitta and humus was so bad that we didn't eat it and refused to pay for it, but we felt obliged to pay for the rest because we were parked in their car park. We told the watiress to take the pitta and humus off the bill, but it still appeared on our bill for a total of £60, I called the owner over to tell him and adjust the bill, he bought the correct new bill for £53. He said that if paying by card you need to come to the bar, away from the bill left on the table, but when I went to tap my card he had put in a higher total than the original bill for £64....very sneaky !! Fortunately, I saw it and told him to change it. This carry on annoyed me, and then the chap asked me if the other food was ok, so in a constructive way I told him why each dish was very poor, to which he took afront and said we should not complain and be grateful that we could park there for the night because the equivalent parking would cost £55 for one night, even though he was the one that asked for feedback ?? So we 'disagreed' and and I told him that I had paid £53 for the meal and drinks, and that was adequate.

This exchange made us feel uneasy remaining in their car park for the night as we now distrusted them and did not feel safe sleeping there. So we pulled the van roof down, drove off, and parked on the roadside 500m away.

Needless to say, but we will not be returning to this establishment, and I urge you to pick out the genuine Google and Trip Advisor reviews, and please read the owner's childish comments for a laugh. The only good thing was that it is next...

Avoid this place until it gets its act together.

Called in for a lunch time beer, wished l hadn't.

My experience was nothing more than very dissapointing to say the least.

The welcome from the lady member of the Bar Staff was none excistant and conversation amounted to grunts on occasions when she did speak!!

I ordered my pint, it was obviously off or the beer lines had not been cleaned for a while.

It was obvious when my beer was placed on the bar that it was to say the least looked more chicken oxo than beer. It had that smell of vinegar that you get when beer is off or its at the end of the barrel.

I bought this to the the attention of the Bar Lady. She just said she had no previous complaints and just shuged it off. I had to ask for it to be changed, or she would have let me consume it!!

I request a pint of the only other traditional beer on offer.

This was done although with distaine!!

Again the same result so l elected for a Larger, this was drinkable, but again l feel that the beer lines need a really good clean.

Eventually the beer pump clips were finally turned inwards indicating that these beers were not suitable to be serviced!!

That evening and not wanting to drive and drink l returned thinking that new barrels had been put on line, so at least they would be drinkable.

The pump clips had been turned to face the public once again!!

I ordered my pint, guess what?? The two beers were exactly the same from the lunchtime section.

The menu on offer was poor and certainly not recognisable to anything l have heard of and was of very poor quality and lacked any kind of presentation.

The new owners took over the running of the establishment around 18 months ago. The previous owner had successfully run and managed the place for around 20 years. I visited the place often during that time and never had to complain once!!

I personally ran and owned 6 pubs and 2 restaurants with all having extremely good reputation before l retired after 25 years.

I am now writing a book on the hospitality industry.

So I do believe that l have the credentials to offer my opinions on...

They were renovating a function room in the pub and seemed to think it was acceptable to be doing this until 2am when our room was just above. So no sleep. when I attempted to see where the noise was coming from I first met an owner who denied there was any building work going on, saying ‘our neighbours might be doing something’ when it was still going on at half midnight I went to try and see what was going on. I found we were locked in and the only way to get out was down an unlit fire escape with no guard rail and a 20ft drop.||I managed to find my way back into the pub and found a function room being fitted out by two blokes who spoke little English. I asked them how long they’d be working till and they said till 2am. I told them that was unacceptable but they just said sorry. I told them that a business survives on its reviews and this one was going to be poor. They didn’t seem to care.||In the morning I confronted the owner who told me first there was a fire due to the wiring, then that there was nearly a fire due to the wiring.||He told me to complain to booking.com and I would get a full refund and he would just tell them there was a fire. (I subsequently found out from booking.com that they wouldn’t refund payments)||I see the owner often responds to bad reviews. So in anticipation of that let me clarify a few things, if there was a fire why weren’t we evacuated? If the wiring was dangerous as he asserted how did they get an electrical safety certificate to run the business? ||The owners appear to have a curious association with the truth.||He did offer us a free breakfast to make amends which I wasn’t going to accept because I just wanted to get out of there but my wife persuaded me and I’m glad she did because this is the only compensation we got.||I just don’t get this place, it has the potential to be good but they sabotage their own efforts with these unacceptable behaviours.||I’d look elsewhere...