Riverside Farm - Farmhouse Inns — Restaurant in Nottingham

What can say? What I will say is, we won’t be coming back for Christmas dinner or any other dinner I’m afraid. What started out as a good day on Christmas Day, service for the starter was good. Service for the main meal was good, ( the tickets were on the table anyway) then it all fell apart. We finished our Christmas carvery and waited a while as we were full. We then ordered our dessert, which then took asking 3 members of staff and just over an hour later to bring them out. At no point during this time was our table cleared. Staff were paying attention to setting up smaller new tables but not paying attention to clearing other more ‘cluttered’ tables. Various members of staff spoke to us, walked past us and still didn’t clear our table and still didn’t reassure us that our desserts were on the way. They did finally come and all I can say is, it wasn’t worth the wait. We paid £60 each for a party of 8, below in the photo is the size of the piece of Christmas pudding I got. Next to it is a Pringle for size comparison. We were sat waiting for our dessert, we were late getting back home for other guests coming, because of the long wait…..Who were then sat in their cars waiting outside our house for us to return. Shocking, a nice special day turned into a stress filled farce. I appreciate the ‘staff’ were busy and don’t necessarily blame them. I would put it down to extremely bad management. £60 for a meal I would get for half the price on any another day and probably be less stressed. The pre paid price of £60 per head did not include any drinks, and we ended up spending £50 on drinks as well. So we spent over £530 for an unforgettable negative experience.

Update (30/12/22): Spoke to Charlene who was lovely, and pointed out all of the above. Was offered a voucher, which is being posted. Voucher is a fraction of the cost of what we spent as a group. Charlene tells me that the size of the Christmas pudding is decided by head office, with regards to the amount of calories that a person can have. With the greatest respect, at 50 someone else is deciding how much I eat….I don’t buy it! Although the voucher benefits maybe two of our party I am grateful that the bad service has (maybe) been recognised. But we will not be coming back and I will not be recommending this particular restaurant in the...

Very Disappointing

Previously had lovely carvery meal here at weekend. Looked forward to dining here midweek with wife and baby but very disappointed with the whole experience. Here’s the detail - Order was for mixed grill and Asian burger and pasta with carrots for 18month old What we liked

Easy and ample parking Spacious seating Greeted at door to be seated Staff polite and courteous Attempted to rectify omission from one of the dishes without fuss. Steak cooked to taste Fresh veg used Clean tables /chairsR and high chair Courtesy check early - able to ask for condiments which weren’t on table and mustard was brought from kitchen.

What we thought could be improved. Long wait for food - 25mins Onion rings missing from mixed grill (cooked fresh and brought to table (took 5 more mins) Chips undercooked Chips had lots of black chips in them (my issue with this is that if you’re not going to put them in your mouth and eat them, then they shouldn’t be on the plate.) Pasta undercooked - baby cannot chew even al dente pasta as he’s not got enough teeth, once pasta cools it goes even harder- advertised as a dish for under 8 years. Carrots cut big and chunky /rustic - again less suitable for babies/toddlers Lampshades looked like they were full of flies Fly buzzing round table.

Overall I wouldn’t be eating there - fed these concerns back to waiting staff, who apologised and said he would let the kitchen know, maybe this should have been passed up to the manager who I would have been happy to speak to to discuss. I must also add that it wasn’t particularly busy but the people eating from the carvery seemed to be very happy with their experience.

We will not be eating there again even if we’d been offered a free return visit.

**update I did phone and speak to one of the managers - who had not read this review but was happy to discuss. He apologised for my experience and said he’d take some action, including investigation on how the points I raised had happened- although his initial thoughts were new staff issues. He said he’d write to me once he’d looked at it all and that he’d send me a £25 voucher.

I’ve received nothing in the post...

It's very rare that I write reviews as, much like many English people, we very rarely complain even when we have cause too. I stayed overnight at the Travelodge next door so I visited Riverside farm for a couple of pints on the day we arrived. Initially the lad who served me was polite and efficient and on the surface my first impression was reasonably favourable. However after returning to the bar and visiting the bathroom my opinion started to swing firmly in the other direction.

The beer was fine. Went back for a second pint and made the mistake of asking for a cake to take back to the room. Obviously the server was either new or had been poorly trained. Either of which I could forgive. However his attitude and his facial expressions were unforgivable. He very obvious did not want to be there and he forgot to tell his face to hide this from his customers.

As I was unfamiliar with the area and the location seemed fairly isolated we decided to go back the following morning for our breakfast. This was our biggest mistake. The food (which we waited so long for my coffee was cold) was absolutely disgusting. This was the breakfast buffet. Waited an eternity for bacon and eggs. The scrambled eggs were powdered and looked more like custard. The sausage was inedible as we're the fried eggs which were all over cooked. The brown sauce had been watered down with vinegar and only tasted of vinegar. I would happily starve to death before ever returning. The windows were filthy as was the toilet floors which have never seen a deck scrub....