BlueBell Inn — Restaurant in Rotherham

Given the difficulties in arranging childcare and the current economic climate, dining for my partner and I is a special treat which was heavily tainted by poor customer service.

The negative experience started when, despite the restaurant area having, at best 10 tables filled she was told "Oh I don't know where I can seat you", then proceeded to seat her literally on top of the only customers in an area, I say on top as the other party needed to move their jacket soy partner could sit down. Now I appreciate this thing can happen when busy, however when the restaurant is practically empty this is ridiculous, not only that but Covid has exactly gone away so when so much space is available why the server proceeded to place my partner within elbow touching distance is somewhat ridiculous.

Anyway, we were moved to another table, where when taking our order Imogen was part friendly and knowledgeable of the menu. She took the order accurately and even made several of friendly attempts to upsell on the kebabs, when we joked of saving room for desert she peaked our interest by suggesting the melting chocolate domes.

Our meals arrived quite promptly, and were delicious, Imogen came and checked on us and at the end of eating took the plates away in a timely manner. At this time we asked for the desert menu to which she soon returned with 1 between the two of us.

It is here where yet again the poor customer service experience continued and tainted what had been a pleasurable dining experience in the end. We were left for over an hour and a half at the table waiting to place an order, despite frequently looking across at the bar area there were no staff to be seen. Eventually by chance, a male staff member was looking to see if any tables needed clearing and so we quickly gained his attention and.placed the order, again the food came promptly but the staff member appeared in a rush to drop the food and leave and we were left without napkins, again not great! Or what we have come to expect from the Marston chains.

Again the food was delicious and would definitely recommend. Again we waited a considerable time to get someone's attention to pay. Had I been less honest we could have easily just walked out as it felt very much that staff once placing food in front of us had forgotten all about us.

After waiting at the bar area for a staff member for several minutes I noticed Imogen engaging in what was clearly a personal chat with someone sat close to the doorway as we could hear the discussion in which she said have you seen that video of the orangutan, oh I will have to send it to you".

Imogen then came to the bar to take payment at which point we made a comment that, we got our deserts in the end, to which a quite snappy retort of "Yeah I've been in my own running around for the last 3/4 hours, no apology, and given how empty the restaurant had been throughout this came as quite an annoyance to us both, especially given that it was a male who eventually came and we managed to get him to take our order.

The food was amazing, but the poor and inconsistent customer service given really gave our precious dining experience a very sour taste and turned the whole night into a negative experience, hence my frustration in taking time to raise this with you. For this reason I would be hesitant to return or recommend this venue

Update Owner left response saying they would look into and report back "soon" after. Over 3 months later no...

Well where do I start, firstly my sister went to the bar to order and ordered the wrong thing, went back to change the order within minutes of placing it and they told her it had already started to be cooked, absolute rubbish! Then I ordered 2 beef dinners, the chicken platter and 3 kids meals. I ordered a big appetite tomato pasta and they gave her a baby portion which she gulped down in 2 minutes and was then starving. My dad had the chicken platter which looked overcooked and tasted dry like it had been reheated, he ate this anyway because he was starving after waiting an hour for the food to come out, which we were not told about upon entering. Then the beef dinners I ordered looked and tasted like a care home dinner, the beef was dry and chewy, the spoon (and I mean spoon) of mash was like they had made it from a packet, I had 3 tiny pieces of broccoli that looked and tasted frozen and the Yorkshire pudding (which I had complained and received “a fresh one” but was exactly the same) was rock solid like it had been previously frozen and then reheated. The whole dish was cold and inedible both me and my partner couldn’t eat this and so complained at the bar and received a refund for the beef dinners and the pasta portion. The whole experience ruined our Father’s Day and we will never ever go back again, even the drinks were average for the price you paid. I ordered a strawberry mocktail of which they said they didn’t have the ingredients for because they done advertise mocktails anymore but yet they are still on the menu and so was offered the passion fruit alternative and when it came, kid me not, it was the size of a child’s plastic cup and I paid £4 for that. We usually go to Dearne Valley Farm and this year opted for a change.. trust me I won’t be making that mistake again! Extremely...

I rarely have such negative comments enough to make me want to post about it but this experience was awful. We waited over ten minutes to have our drinks orders taken. We had to ask for menus. The drinks were wrong (only 4 of us). We had our order taken to be then told they were out of rotisserie chickens (why not tell us when you gave us the menus?). We waited over 45 mins with no one coming over, we asked a waiter for more drinks (2 half shandys) wrong again.... we asked how long for food, told 10 mins. This point it had been an hour when food finally came but they brought 3 meals and said is this everything? Lady went into the kitchen to check on the 4th meal and didn't bother coming back. After 5 minutes we managed to flag down the guy, who didn't have a clue, the lady overheard and came over and was just plain rude and argumentative instead of simply saying I'm sorry we forgot one of the meals, she instead said we'll we are busy and we will take it off the bill anyway. 4th meal came, they didn't even bother grilling the garlic bread to rush it out and must've been blasted in the microwave as the lasagne had no colour on top. No one bothered coming over to check if the food was okay. Our grandparents chips were stone cold, not even luke warm. It's clear they were short staffed but have no training or clue about customer experience or service. You should manage customer expectations on wait times, you should keep customers informed and be honest with them. You should be able to get a simple drinks order correct. It was a joke. To top it all off absolutely NOTHING was asked about allergies, this is a serious concern and this place has a lot of work to do to get...