The Miners Arms — Restaurant in South Hams

Horrendous service. Over priced food. Trading on its location. Went for a birthday celebration, the whole evening was ruined by the extremely poor service, young staff that are not being supported by the management with how to do a decent job. No read back of orders taken. No wine menu available, didn't know the soup of the day. Wanted a child's main course bought out with our mains, as they are young and a slow eater. After explaining this we where asked did we all want our starters and mains together, no thanks. Explain again. A soup spoon to eat moules marinar with? Pork tenderloin that was so dry it couldn't be cut let alone chewed. After 2 hours of being seated, we're still waiting for our deserts to arrive, 20 min after finally ordering. Finally we get up and complain. The young guy who we're complaining to offers to remove the deserts from the menu, how can you remove what we haven't had? It was at this point we decided to leave, only then when ALL THE DAMAGE had been done did one of the management / owner approach us to ask what was wrong. Our reply, do you REALLY know how your restaurant is being run? Obviously not! Now whilst waiting outside it was interesting to see the locals drinking in the bar but none of them where using the restaurant. Possibly says it all. Will we go back? NO! We don't blame the young staff, it's a job for them and I'm glad to see them have the opportunity to work. The problems are all management / owner. Little to no training and running it on a shoe string....

A very pretty old building with a fantastic 'conservatory' type extension that houses the restaurant with a very scenic view. There was a reasonable sized car park but it was overflowing with cars that I can only assume were locals as the pub section was heaving and only had one member of bar staff who did not help point us to the honestly fairly concealed restaurant section, for over 10 minutes. However, the restaurant was clearly under staffed, with my party waiting over half an hour to even get offered a menu from a reservation booking.

The starters took almost an hour to appear and one was missed and very hastily made after it was pointed out. Mains were similarly delayed with my order of a burger without garnish coming out fully garnished and when this was pointed out it was returned to the kitchen where the garnish was clearly hastily scrapped off, shown by the residue. Another burger actually had cling film in it, one of the other meals was partially raw and the steak order was confused no less than three times.

With these complaints our party received several apologies and was offered a free round of drinks and a free dessert but we were still far from satisfied.

Approach...

Nice food, I had a spicy chicken burger with fries which was delicious and my wife had a margerita pizza which was also very tasty. The menu is very limited, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but we hoped they would serve a roast on a Sunday, which they didn't. That being said, the food they serve is of good quality and there is plenty of seating there - whether it be indoors or out. The most disappointing aspect of our visit was the service. All of the staff were very young and seemed very inexperienced in barkeeping and waiting. There was zero small talk, and where in alot of places you'd get staff who'd do the little things that make for a great experience, none of this was present here. And I'm not putting the staff down for this, I think a little extra training would make the world of difference. All in all, I'd recommend coming here for drinks and food, just don't expect top...