The Snow Goose — Restaurant in Scotland

The restaurant was about one quarter full in terms of tables, with two women serving when they felt like it. It’s a beautiful building with a roaring fire and wooden beams, but the staff (particularly a dark-haired, middle-aged woman) left much to be desired. We walked in having already checked online that food is served at lunchtime, and went up to the bar to request a table and drinks. The dark-haired woman looked at me blankly and said, “Well? You booked?” We admitted we hadn’t, thinking a Monday lunchtime was a reasonably safe time to not have to worry about booking. “We’ve got a lot of bookings! I’ll have to check to see if we have room for you!” and off she went in a huff. Back she came, and funnily enough there was room for two people in this building with its many empty tables. She led us off to the far side of the building, and refused my request for a particular table, “Because they’re all reserved for lunch” despite it approaching mid-afternoon.

The drinks menu left much to be desired in terms of pricing, with prices either listed if the creator of said menu could be bothered to add them, or not listed so that Vintage Inns can up the prices for the umpteenth time without having to replace the menus to reflect this. We were left with menus at the table - with its empty neighbours - that we were instructed to sit at, and waited. And waited. And waited. It reached the point where we ended up going to the untended bar, hoping to remind a member of staff of our existence. A younger, blonde woman was tending to another table, and averted our gaze as she repeatedly walked past us. The dark-haired woman had disappeared, clearly tending to the many, unoccupied tables surrounding us. After walking past us no fewer than ten times, the blonde woman finally had the courtesy to tell us she won’t be a minute, and eventually we are joined by her to place our order. Two chicken and pancetta pies with fries/mashed potato, and fresh, spring vegetables; pretty simple food to make.

The meals arrived, and the ‘freshness’ of the spring vegetables had clearly left some time ago with the reheating of what were clearly Sunday’s leftovers, with the broccoli capable of being folded in half without breaking, and a single piece of carrot so undercooked that the knife couldn’t even cut through it. Enter the pie, or should that be soup with the occasional piece of chicken wearing a pastry hat? The vile taste of spring onions greeted me with each mouthful of mashed potato, an ingredient that helpfully hadn’t been mentioned when we placed our order. The restaurant clearly had a surplus of the damned things and was looking for ways to get rid of them. This was all washed down with lemonade smelling so strongly of chlorine that it was akin to drinking from a swimming pool. One of the worst places we’ve...

All in all.... a bit of a calamity to say the least! Had read some good reviews beforehand and were hopeful of a nice meal. Server knocked a pint over our table on arrival and we were left waiting for quite a few minutes at a dripping table to get this resolved Our drinks order was wrong and we got a pint instead of half with lime as server very flustered, easier to take back to bar than wait for server to sort Ordered Kedgeree fishcakes with poached egg. Server then advised kitchen discovered only one fishcake instead of two and offered salad, extra chips or discount so opted for discount... 3 Food came out and poached egg was very overcooked and rubbery, sent back to be told egg poacher now in wash and easier to do a fried egg!... so went with this. My husbands chicken burger meal was missing the crispy onions, so after advising the young male server this eventually came out part way through the meal We were offered the dessert menu and ordered after viewing menu only then to be told quite abruptly by the young female server that they didn't have the honey pot now! Clearly under staffed, reasonably busy for a Monday evening. Two staff seemed very inexperienced and lacked any form of people skills. Judging by the quality of the food and shabby presentation, the kitchen staff did not have much of a clue, we get this is a chain pub but have had much better Vintage Inn food and service Felt a bit sorry for the manager, to be honest, as he was running around like a headless chicken and did his best to resolve things. The younger girl and lad who served us clearly needed more training around their manner and offering good customer service... We had to laugh in the end, or we'd cry. It reminded us of Fawlty Towers!! The poorest meal was discounted from our bill to be fair, but the overall experience was pretty poor. Sorry, cannot recommend this place based on our visit...

This is possibly the worst vintage inns I've had the displeasure of visiting.

The service was almost non existent and would have probably been best off heading to the kitchen and bar and serving ourselves instead.

We arrived with the idea of the fixed price lunch menu which of course we were not offered and instead only the full menu given, I had to ask for the former, where after a fair few minutes it came out of hiding. I feel sorry for the poor folk around us seemingly unawares of this option.

Any orders had to be placed at the bar with no table service offered. When ordering from said fixed price menu with the idea being two courses or more, I tried to order both main and dessert at the same time. "Oh we can't do that or they'll both come out at the same time". Somewhat perplexed by this I ordered only our mains instead. Seemingly the kitchen could not cope with the two courses being ordered at the same time for it would cause only confusion. Strange.

Our mains arrived, with no cutlery, nor salt, nor pepper available. I asked for cutlery... some time later I gave up and went off to fend for myself, hunting down a fork, luckily the table next door were more than amenable, but when asked if they had salt or pepper, only replied with, "no, we didn't get that either". I dared not to go in hunt for condiments for fear my food would be stone cold before I had the chance to eat it.

It seems service isn't the strong point of this particular establishment and your staff desperately need further training, for anything we asked seemed to be a burden.

The only saving grace is the food was somewhat average, filled a gap and the coffees we had when we first arrived were used against the two course offer.

Still, it's safe to say I would not visit this venue again and it was somewhat of an incredibly disappointing venture, though it did kill some time on a very miserable and...