White Horse Inn Neatishead — Restaurant in North Norfolk

Nearly destroyed our evening, to be honest. So my date and I arrive and things seem friendly. We hadn't booked so we were quite happy that they were happy to seat us. We asked if we could sit outside, all good, we were led outside by a staff member, cracked a few jokes and seemed to have a bit of banter – all good.

So we were sat down, informed it was table service only, all good. Even though we saw a few blokes walk inside and walk back out with pints at one point. So we sat down and waited patiently for somebody to walk over and take our order but we're perfectly content chatting in the meantime. A couple arrives after us, a staff member promptly takes their order, no biggy, it happens. 10 minutes later, more people arrive; their order is, once again, promptly taken and their drinks brought out.

This entire time, I'm paying close attention. Were we missing something or doing something wrong? Our table has been clearly void of anything for a while, no? No no, we weren't doing anything different. It honestly felt like the staff had singled us out for whatever reason. I don't want to make guesses as to why. Here's where it becomes an even bigger joke, so finally AFTER HALF AN HOUR, because I had to wave down a staff member and ask if we could please actually be served – 'yeah sure mate, I'll get someone to come over to you'. Cool, I mean literally nobody else had to ask but whatever, fine. We just wanted something to drink.

Another ten minutes go by, a few more people get served again, waheey, a staff member takes our order. We're friendly about it, the waitress seems friendly enough (but like in a really fake, smiling through her teeth kind of way – I was understandably a bit mad at this point, I'm not trying to be needlessly malicious here). And this joke only gets better. 20 minutes go by, no drinks, a different waitress comes over and apologetically asks us if our order had been taken, I reply 'yeah it had ages back, I'm not too sure what's happened' – she apologises and says she'll check up on it and asks what we've ordered. Again, these things happen, fair enough. But in the interim we had watched so many orders taken, so many drinks repeatedly brought out to tables, whilst we'd been sat here for almost an hour at this point trying not to kick up a fuss. But this is where it started to feel like we'd be singled out for whatever beautiful reason they had for doing so, that same, dark red-headed, fake-smiling waitress that took our order comes out, and apologetically asks if anybody had taken our order. Like, are you for real? So clearly this place wanted us to leave because this was a practical joke of some sort. I said yes, this is the second we've been asked (I mean you guys likely knew that, right?).

So over an hour later (give or take). Our lemonade and ale finally, is bestowed upon us. Blessed be the day that we are finally given the privilege of drinking at your holy pub. Thank you, guys. Now this ale (began with a 'W', I think) was one of the nicest ales I've ever had the bittersweet pleasure of consuming, so props to that at least.

We finish our drinks and then we're asked if we'd like to order food; absolutely not, no. I mean if two drinks takes over an hour then god forbid how long you'd take with our food. We found this beautiful place in the town over, booked a table and the night was saved by some of the friendliest staff I've ever had the pleasure of chatting to.

This really left a bad taste in my mouth. And I know these reviews can look like they're written by a Karen lacking the self awareness to realise they'd done something bad enough to warrant awful customer service, but we were two awkward 20-something-year-olds. I was baffled, and felt extremely self conscious at this place, honestly, I've never felt so uncomfortable anywhere in my life, or unwelcome.

Really tainted what was a beautiful day. I'd honestly avoid this place like the plague, especially if you have certain conceptions about country pubs up North. Who knows what the reason for this was. But it was bizarre....

Summary

We visited this pub as a group of 6 adults and 2 children when visiting Neatishead on a Wherry, mooring at Gay's Staithe. Food was lovely, service was very attentive and there was a good selection of beers available.

Detail The pub fitted us in on the day, after we called around late lunch time for an evening meal. We were a group of 8 so it was nice they accommodated us without too much trouble.

Food We only ate main courses, but the food was lovely, with everyone enjoying their meal - from the Burger, to the loaded fries Pork Gyro, Beef brisket chili and scampi. Slightly lacking in gluten free, as only one dish was possible, but otherwise it was fantastic food, that had good portion sizes. Our food was between £16 and £25 for the mains, depending on what was chosen. it came out quickly and was hot.

Beer Lots of beers to choose from, from trendy Citrus style IPAs, to at least 3 cask ales. No one drank lager, so not sure on the selection there, but ales/bitters side was really good. Price was around £5 a pint.

Restaurant/atmosphere We were in a larger room at the back which was clearly just for food. It was a nice space, maybe some more atmospheric lighting (low lights, warm colour) would improve it, but otherwise quite nice. We didnt move to another part of the pub for a pint afterwards, (which I wanted to do!) so didnt really get the chance to sample the other areas.

Dogs Dogs were not allowed in our area (the restaurant) but they were allowed in other areas

Suggested Improvements Not much to be honest, as an Architect, I abhore plastic windows on old buildings, so would suggest that improve the look of the pub massively, but then lots of other people wouldnt notice I suspect! Lighting could just do with being tweaked in the restaurant, otherwise, it was a great pub!

PS Really liked the fact that my burger was served with chips and coleslaw on the plate, rather than in little bloody separate pots! Keep up...

Lovely place, staff very attentive and helpful, lovely selection of beers with options to taste before buying. Food was excellent, huge portions and tasty. Only criticism is I had fishcakes, could of had more fish in them, but excellent otherwise. Well worth the money.

I can't write another separate review so I've had to adjust my original review. On returning here for our last night, (because we were so impressed with everything on our first night) how different it was. We asked for a table to which the lad said at 7.30 but I said we would like it when we arrived 6.25, so he wrote on his sheet of paper, and said they would get our table ready do we bought our drinks, 15 mins went by, 30 45 we asked again about our table ( by that time more drinks had been purchased) that said they would look into it, an hour went by, still nothing, so again one of us went up, over an hour after our arrival! So off the lad went, eventually came back and said our table had been ready for an hour!! Which we weren't informed about, we go to our table, a bare table not ready at all, we sit down, and wait for 15+ mins for our order to be taken, our food came out after the chef rang the bell three times for food to be collected, so our food was getting cold, and cold some of it was but by that time we were so hungry. Had our plates cleared, ordered dessert, was nice but the amount charged for it was so overpriced. We were not impressed by the staff or the waitress this visit, on our first visit the waitress was excellent. Such a shame my review had to change and you went...