The Bridge — Restaurant in South Cambridgeshire

Had to immediately post a review, to hopefully save other people from wasting their money here and save people heartache. Just visited The Bridge pub for Sunday lunch, had quite a few good previous visits here and really thought it would be good today just the same. Well never again will I visit here. I had prebooked a table, you would think that would count and allow a decent amount of time to relax and enjoy your meal and take your time at least a bit - No, that was obviously asking way too much!! From the moment the female staff member came to seat me, she said “I need the table back by 1:30pm” (an hour from my arrival) and really needs some training or a nicer personality because she was cold, unwelcoming and treated me like I was dirt under her shoe. Ordinarily I probably wouldn’t take much more than an hour to have a meal, factoring in the food preparation/serving times, plus eating without choking yourself, but when pressure is immediately put on you and you are made to feel rushed that you must be finished by a certain time, no leeway, well I’m sorry but that completely spoiled what should have been a lovely experience and put me on edge the whole time. She/they should never have given me a time limit in the first place, or anyone full stop. I truly hope they don’t treat anyone else like this. Even worse, everyone else who was there for lunch at the same time/groups of 2, 3 or 4 people, weren’t told that “we need your table by such and such a time”, oh no they must have thought they could treat me like that because I was on my own and they could effectively bully me. Then at 1:20pm I was “reminded” about they needed the table by 1:30pm, so I couldn’t really even order a dessert because there wouldn’t have been enough time and it would have felt even more rushed and why should I pay good money to be treated like that? So I decided no, I’m not going to waste any more money on them when they clearly don’t give a toss about anyone, only about making money. Which was also clear from the moment the woman was going to take me to the table, as her comment after she asked me “is it just you/one person” and I said yes, she then said “that’s absolutely okay” - what the heck does that mean?! There was no reason to say that’s absolutely okay that it was just me on my own, the only reason I can see why she said such a pointless comment is she was hoping there’d be more people so they can make more money. Absolutely disgusted. The food was generally good, apart from most of the meat was fatty so couldn’t eat that and the greens/veg was so dry and tasteless. But on the whole food is good. Two young waitresses were lovely and helped make the experience a bit nicer but for the most part it left me cold and spoilt the time there. I will never return I’m sad to say, it’s a nice place and by the river but standards have definitely crashed to rock bottom. It’s their loss, as I have been and would have been a very good customer and would have gone back many times very happily, but...

TL;DR: Pleasant pub with good food, but a distinct lack of front-of-house staff when I visited so service was very slow.

I visited The Bridge for a Sunday roast which, in itself, was pretty good and reasonably priced. The atmosphere was cosy and the food was served surprisingly quickly once ordered, but it took a long time for anyone to get round to us to take our orders - it seemed that there were very few staff available - so we spent a lot of time waiting.

One team member appeared to be the manager or supervisor and he was rushed off his feet between taking orders and payment. Only one other colleague was serving; he seemed to be in training.

Between finishing our meal and ordering dessert, another patron on the table next to ours unfortunately became unwell and vomited on their table. Someone mopped the mess up with tissues but left these on a plate on the table, after which the customer left, but nobody came to clear the plate away for at least 30 minutes.

There were other members of staff behind the bar who appeared not to be busy throughout this time. The smell of the mess was strong enough to put my friends off ordering dessert and we would have liked to have moved to another table. The manager/supervisor was clearly aware of, and visibly & audibly frustrated by, the situation but was too busy taking payments and seeing new customers to their tables to deal with the situation himself; I am amazed that no other staff member cleared the table for such a long time.

As this was my first visit I can't comment on the long term Sunday staffing levels here, but on this occasion there was a severe lack of staff even before taking the above incident into account, and this was especially apparent with one team member being largely dependent on his supervisor.

I would be happy to give this pub another go as the food was good, but if the service were as slow the second time I wouldn't visit...

This was our first time to try this pub. Husband and I came in for burgers as we were around the area to donate at a nearby charity shop. We were received with a slightly awkward welcome. Asked if we have booked a table and I said "no sorry we didn't, we just took our chance as we were around the area". Husband by reflex asked in a nice way if they were fully booked as we've noticed the tables were set up like they were booked. Person awkwardly tried to explain himself why he asked if we were booked etc.... it was a little long and awkward but that's ok. We understand that some people may have trouble with social communication and can misinterpret things. Not good if you're tasked to welcome customers though. Ok, food service was good. 2 young ladies on the floor were great, polite and attentive.

As we were about to leave, we didn't want to bother the servers to come and bring the bill so we just went to the bar and I asked if we could pay there. At this point the woman at the bar was just chatting with another server and not busy at all. She proceeded to take the payment coldly (again not a big deal!) while I was paying, she just left and proceeded to chat with the person. Didn't ask me if I needed receipt or even acknowledge me, she just left so I wasn't sure if the payment went through. It was very strange and frankly, rude behaviour. I worked in a hospitality industry when I was young and I wouldn't treat costumers like that. I would suggest you train your staff and not be rude because we were thinking of recommending this place to friends but not anymore. Hospitality and good dining experience is as important as...