The Shire Horse — Restaurant in Stafford

The Shire Horse used to be a fantastic pub and restaurant that my family and I would visit often. The food was fantastic, the service was always great, and there was a friendly atmosphere. I don't know what has happened to the place recently but it is definitely not what it used to be. The last four or five times we have visited it has been very disappointing.

Issues include unbelievably slow service at the bar even though there were very few people in, restaurant tables are tatty and placed far to close together, always too few staff working meaning that the bar staff are also working the restaurant, staff stretched and visibly stressed meaning the service with a smile that we used to get is gone, quality of the food has gone downhill, massive waiting times on food, and way over priced.

Im not one for writing reviews normally but we visited today for lunch and it was extremely disappointing in every way. When we arrived there were not many people in so we were seated quickly however we were placed right next to a large table of people even though the restaurant was empty. The tables were also so close to each other it was difficult to get out of our chairs. We got our drinks quickly and ordered food, however our first choices on the menu were unavailable which is common here. An hour passed and our food had still not been brought out. We only ordered two adult burgers and two childrens burgers! We had to ask when the food was coming out as our kids were starting to complain about being hungry.

When the food did finally arrive the burgers were overcooked as were the chips. The childrens burgers were tiny yet on full sized buns. The food was generally not good in any way.

To top it off the bill for our four burgers and chips and a couple of drinks each was £65. If the food was top notch then I would have no problem paying that much but it was terrible, and when combined with the massive waiting time it was just a disappointing experience all round.

The only good thing about the Shire Horse is Lorna, one of the waitresses who has worked there for years. She is always friendly and does her best but you can tell she is up against it.

something needs to change at the Shire Horse. I would even go as far as saying that the Red Hill restaurant across the road is now a better place to eat.

I wont be going back...

We arrived after booking a table for 13:30. When we arrived, we were greeted by lady at the front of house who checked to make sure we booked our registration in for the car park and then took us to our table with the menu's. We were then greeted by our waitress that was managing our table. The time between sitting us down and taking our drinks order was longer than normal however nothing out of the ordinary. When our drinks arrived we ordered our food. x1 adult meal x1 small person meal and x3 children's meal. The lady took our order happily and went off. We noticed a family sat close to us were frustrated, they were vocal about how long it had taken already for them waiting for their main to arrive. After 40 minutes I approached the bar and spoke to a lady who advised "we took a lot of orders all at once, I will go and check for you now". I sat back at the table with my family. The family close to our table then received their main after an hour and complained. After an hour I decided that I could not wait any longer and made the decision to leave the premises. I advised the lady at front of house who advised the same "we had a lot of orders all at once".

I understand at peak periods that there is a delay on times to wait for food to come out and served to the table however I am deeply disappointed in how the situation was handled.

At no point did anyone approach us at the table to apologise and advise any delay on food being served

We finished our drinks and at no point were we asked if we would like another drink

When I approached the lady at the bar she advised she would find out and come and speak to me. This did not happen.

There was a lack of empathy towards my three children who had waited for their food for an hour. Nor towards myself and my wife as we were first greeted...

Just have a starter but not a deep fried one. We came here for Mother's Day. The pub is lovely, the staff were very pleasant, the starters (that were not deep fried) were nice and unfortunately that's all the positives there were. We had a Sunday lunch and I wish I'd not bothered. The roast potatoes were deep fried and covered in oil. The vegetables only tasted of butter and nothing else. The stuffing was as hard as a hockey puck and the parsnips were also still hard. The Yorkshire pudding tasted like styrofoam and was pure oil on the base, so much so that it made me shudder after taking a bite. My partner vomited after eating this and it made me feel sick all day. I'm pretty sure the waitress knew after we left half of the dinner on the plate but she never asked how the food was. They gave us a £10 off voucher for the next meal (I think they were giving these to everybody) but I will never be returning. I wish I'd said something especially as it made us ill, however it was mother's day and I didn't want to ruin it by creating a scene, though I suspect they were banking on this as the dinners had obviously been cooked hours before (despite us having a table before 12). Extremely disappointed, considering it was rated highly by trip advisor....surely standards can't really...