Four Marys — Restaurant in Scotland

We turned up on holidays from overseas and walked in, entire front section full so we sat at an empty table to the side. Bartender comes out and has a go at my wife and me for sitting there. Fair enough, we state no signs and no chairs at the front section and the bartender goes, these people are leaving. So he makes us stand next to a table of four people who are still eating and now have to rush their meal. Bartender goes there you go, food and crumbs all over the table. We asked for a clean table and he proceeds to wipe the food onto the chairs we are about to sit on. We wipe that off by hand as he leaves. I ask for a cloth as he missed a fair few bits, no stress, I'll just give it a quick wipe. Bartender comes out and wipes the table, gets about 1 cm from my face in an aggressive manner, chest out and in front of all the customers, some from our tour group, and goes through gritted teeth, " is that good enough for you mate " in an angry snarling manner. I was like, you speak to all your customers like this. Possibly the closest to a full on fight as he was up for a punch on, the bartender, with customers. WTAF. Super aggressive for a such a small man, considering I was bigger than him and was a paying customer on holiday. Customers apologised to me on his behalf and we all accepted maybe he was having a bad day. I'd avoid this place, couple of pubs short walk down the road far friendlier. Put me a bit off Scotland which was disappointing since it was my first time there, my descendants are originally from there and the rest of the...

Visited the Four Mary’s last night as a group of seven. Seated at 6.45. Waiting staff courteous and we were asked twice if there were any allergies. Ordered and asked if it was possible to have an adult portion of just chicken strips (available on the chicken platter) and chips as our 13 year old is fussy and the kids menu portion wouldn’t be enough for him. I ordered the Super Green Salad with dressing on the side with the grilled chicken. After a length of time our waiter came back and apologized, but the chef said it wasn’t possible to do an adult sized portion of the chicken strips for our son. We just ordered him a side of chips. Another while later the waiter came over and apologized again saying that they couldn’t do the super green salad and I’d have to change my order. I ended up ordering the chicken platter so my son could eat something other than chips. Starters arrived pretty quickly. My husband had ordered the haggis bites which he enjoyed, but the rocket side salad looked old and wilted, he didn’t eat that at all. We then waited at least half an hour before asking the waiter where our main courses were. He said he’d check and then said it would be a couple of minutes which it was. Food came out and was ok. My chicken wings from the platter were over cooked. The waiter did his best, but we didn’t leave until 9pm, which was our curfew as apparently you can’t have an under 18 in the Four Mary’s after 9. Overall I would not recommend the Four Mary’s and we certainly won’t...

It is always mystifying to find a cafe, pub, or restaurant where the staff are so clearly inconvenienced by the presence of customers. My family and I arrived in Linlithgow on a Sunday evening and thought we’d stop in to The Four Marys for an early dinner. Despite a few empty tables, we were gruffly told there was no room and wall-ins would not be accommodated. As the menu looked quite good, I stopped in the next morning and made a booking for that evening. Our waitress on Monday evening was outright hostile. Upon informing her of my daughter’s nut allergy, she gave me (not my daughter) a tablet with a consent form to complete. Five minutes later she returned to chastise me for filling out the form on my daughter’s behalf. When I dared question her on this, she immediately assumed because of my accent that I was not from the UK and condescendingly explained how things are done “in this country”. I’ve lived in the UK for longer than that girl has been alive! While we waited for the rest of our party of 5 to arrive, we tried to order bottles of water. She then pointed to a jug of tap water in the corner where we were told we could serve ourselves. She was surprised when we walked out after only ordering a couple of drinks. The silver lining to this long story is that we found the lovely Cafebar 1807 just across the street! They were more than happy to provide cheerful, welcoming service and a...