The Farmer's Arms — Restaurant in South Ribble

I'm sorry to give such a low rating however after 2 recent visits (first was not good but assumed this was due to Christmas) both haven't gone well they really need to do some improvement. But would like to be honest b caus if you don't know you can't improve. so not to be totally negative the food was good when we got it however the service is not great they seem to have lots of staff but they are not really helping solve the issues they seem to be either in the wrong place or just disappear when asked for something. our last visit was chaotic to say the least one person behind the carvery which would be fine if able to just keep serving instead had to keep topping up veg and potatoes when running low going in and out of the kitchen there is as no help despite staff popping behind looking putting hands on hips and disappearing again 🫣 this meant the que was ridiculous staff just seem d to laugh and mentioned it's always like that which means they still haven't got it right. Because the ques were so big this meant wherever you sat there we're just people queued up all complaining about the que kids crying and getting in patient and parents well trying to stay calm under the chaos this also meant there were people everywhere in your space meaning the atmosphere was effected and you couldn't really relax. To add to this there was no cutlery to eat your food with and staff disappearing when asking for help it was just crazy. I followed a staff member to the kitchen to get some forks only to stand there 3/4 mins and instead she was behind the bar!!!!! When asked again did you find any they disappeared and again I was left waiting.

Staff behind the bar again seems disorganized no one helping each other so it takes forever to get served. So a small number of our party who didn't want carvery ordered burgers only to find they had forgotten some of them so it took over 2 hours for us all to eat and that was all at different stages.

all in all not sure what happened recently but won't be returning until they have improved on their service and trained their staff in customer service they really need to improve before staff go on burn out for running round not being productive and customers start complaining and stop coming. I can only imagine the chaos we saw at the front of the service was that bad the back of house and kitchen must be an absolute nightmare sorry Farmers Arms but completely...

We were invited to the pre-opening "training session," which made me feel very special. Thank you.

The welcome we received after not having seen the staff for a while was lovely, too.

The new decor looks really nice! Bright, airy, and cheerful.

I opted to have the new dish chicken parm from the al forno part of the menu. It was lovely. I would have it again, but order a side of chips or roasties to go with it. If I'm being picky, I would have preferred a bit more of the tomato sauce it comes with, but I guess oven timing will make a difference on how dry the sauce is.

As we were given a discount, we opted to try one of the new desserts. We had quite a wait for this but had been warned that it was a training night for staff, so things might take longer. I had the caramel waffle/honeycomb sundae (cant remember its proper name, sorry). I had a tweak to the ingredients as they didn't have any profiteroles available (I didn't mind that), so choose something from one of the other sundaes instead. It came in a sundae glass with a thick waffle type thing - imagine honeycomb shapes but puffed up like bubble wrap, shaped into a cone, and then ice-cream in the centre with some added chocolate bits, squirty cream and sauce. It was rather difficult to eat but very naughty and nice! There was some slight confusion as the menu said it came with vanilla ice cream, but the list in the kitchen said it should have 1 scoop chocolate and 1 scoop vanilla, so that's what came. Normally, I wouldn't choose chocolate ice cream, but I still really enjoyed my sundae.

We get excellent service from all the staff that know us well, but at this visit, Katie, Kim, Eve (or Evie), and Gemma looked...

We went on a Sunday and it was very busy we had to wait 5 mins in the doorway trying our best to close the doors as people where smoking at the entrance the wait was other people and justeat drivers collecting their takeaways and other people waiting to be seated then we where shown to our seats, we booked all our food at the bar and ordered our drinks from the very pleasent bar staff. The roast dinners where ready straight away, 20 mins later the veggie option was ready, but 40 mins in our starters only just arrived after everyone except 2 that haddnt received their pizzas had finished their main meal, but it took 1 hour and 20 mins to get the pizza to the table leaving the birthday boy to eat it all alone and it was a giant pizza, but it came with no plate to eat it on so he had to use a napkin. We decided we couldnt wait another hour for deserts so we left with no pudding. Bar staff great, kitchen staff unorganised, proffesional attititude zero, we had to keep asking where our food was, not once did someone take charge and come to the table to explain that the starters and the pizza was going to take so long. We still gave 3 stars because the food was good and the bar staff where good at their job, you need to employ a head waiter to control the times of food to the tables it shouldnt be the duty of the customer to keep reminding you that they dont have any on their table, I understand it was busy maybe not to prioritise take away on...