Saracens Head — Restaurant in Stafford

When I booked this hotel I didn't receive a confirmation email, so I had to ring up to see if they had my booking and they told me that it was booked and I should get an email shortly, that never came.|| We were booked in for 3 days.|When we arrived we were greeted by a man behind the bar, no smile no' Hi how are you?' Just a 'hang on I will be with you after I have finished this' which I thought was slightly rude.|Anyway mr happy took us to our room, well I say room, my bathroom at home is bigger.|They called it 'cosy' I call it tiny.|The cabinate in the corner made it very difficult to get around the bed, I'm not an oversize person but anyone larger than me would have issues getting into bed.||So I looked out of the window and the extractor fan from the kitchen was making a big racket and I knew that sleeping with that noise was going would be difficult.||So I went downstairs to talk to mr happy again, which I add that you have to go outside through a gate to get to the bar.||I asked him nicely if there was any chance of having an upgrade to a bigger room with less noise and of course the answer was no....still no smile.|I was assured the fan from the kitchen would be off by 9 o'clock.|That night 10.20 the fan went off and back on a 7.15.|Also there is an emergency green light in the room which lit the room up, it was like sleeping with a traffic light stuck on green all night.|We went down to the bar for a drink and food, but after watching mr happy walk around with a permanent scowl on his face we said we will go somewhere else for food.|I'm glad we did, because we found a great pub in the village 5 minutes walk that made us feel very welcome and a much better atmosphere.|So we decided not to stay in the hotel for our remaining nights for our evening meal.||So to sum up. |The room was small, noisy and had a green neon glow during the night.|But it was clean and the morning waitress was polite and helpful, unlike mr happy who really needs to work on his customer Communication skills, after all we pay his wages.|There's is no way we will be coming back to this hotel again mainly due to the unfriendly welcome we received and the cupboard they call a room.|Just to add to our room was called LU LU Also the...

Last year in December I booked via the Saracens Webpage a double room for myself and my husband, to stay end of June for the Cheese Festival at the Stafford Showground. Nearer the time, approx. 4 weeks before our arrival, I was not able check my booking and the system did not let me log in. After emailing the Hotel, I had a reply days later that the booking program has changed and that my booking is available and that I didn't need to worry. I have sent an email back asking some more question, to which I have never had a reply. On arrival we then had to ask for a taxi to the site. Coming back in the afternoon we sat outside in the beer garden, surrounded by kids, running round wild, trashing the trees, and young adults spitting and swearing, we left to go for a walk and found much better and nicer restaurant in the village. Our room (Cosy) was tiny, couldn't swing a cat, warm and overlooking the carpark, the fan of the cooling unit was making noises, the kettle in the room had some fancy filter in it which was not working as it is properly past its use by date and needs replacing, lots of little white floaters in the water in the kettle, so coffee or tea was off the menu for us, after a while we fell asleep, noises started again at 5.30 am, banging doors, scratching chairs on floor below, eventually we went down for breakfast and mentioned that we are up since early in the morning due to the noise, there was no apology or anything, just a mentioned that staff only turns up at 7.30 am, so there couldn't have been any noises that early. (More or less, we were told that we are liars!)|Been sat in a corner, under a loudspeaker, blaring some French music into our ears we ordered breakfast, my husband’s white bread bacon butty was uneatable, bread stale and bacon cold, my full English was cold, coffee was lukewarm and orange juice was served with ice cubes ?!? WHY ?? |No one was interested if we enjoyed our breakfast or our stay when we checked out.|We only stayed here for its close location to the Stafford Showground, might have to look for somewhere...

August 2022 update: Such a shame to have to change my previous great review.

Used to visit regularly with my parents, as this was where they had their first date many moons ago. My Dad in particular loved the food here. Since we lost him in April 2019 we haven't had the heart to come back. Today my mother and I took my children to Sudbury Children's Museum and decided to pop in on the way back for an early dinner. My daughter had some ice cream spilled on her clothes from earlier, so I ask my mother and son to go on ahead without me while I changed her clothes and cleaned her up. Still not overly sure exactly what happened while I was in the bathroom, however when I came through mother was being told that we would only be able to be served in the bar area, despite the majority of tables being empty, plenty of room outside (it was 31 degrees and I'm under investigation for skin cancer so not a great option anyway). We were then told we could eat in the main restaurant as long as we took no longer than half an hour. We were with an 8 year and a 2 year old, so that clearly wasn't going to happen. My mother is very much under the impression that we were 'looked down on' and thats why we were asked to dine in the bar area. If that was the case, then all I can say is it is a shame in 2022 that a restaurant is so pretentious it turns away customers based on appearance. And more fool you, as you should never judge a book by it's cover. The long and short of it, you've left an elderly woman very embarrassed and hurt and done real damage to what was a very special place for our family.

We enjoyed a lovely meal elsewhere and likely won't return to yourselves again.

2018 review: 5* Wonderful food, lovely...