The Talbot — Restaurant in Staffordshire Moorlands

Avoid this pub at all costs. This is the first and hopefully last bad review I will ever give normally getting benefit of the doubt.

Hidden behind this quaint country pub in the heart of Shropshire hides a sinister culture of danger, misadvertising, deception and sloppy service

NOT DOG FRIENDLY- advertises as being dog friendly which is far from the truth. On arrival and entering through the front door of the pub with my Service Dog. The bar made issued a warning that her two dogs were roaming free in the garden and would likely to attack other dogs . Her two dogs were a staffy and a sausage dog and were in the garden. This effectively made it an unfriendly dog pub and potentially dangerous for dog owners trying to protect their pets. As I had a Service dog we were forced to sit in the corner on a raised area away from the garden. The risk was too high to take my dog into the garden. Making that statement I do hope that she has adequate public liability insurance. Having announced that her dogs are potentially dangerous does not negate her responsibility. Now it is made public the management team should now take steps to ensure that the public and their pets remain safe.

Food – the website advertises an extensive menu backed up with colourful pictures. This is a lie and false advertising. In reality the only food on the menu was chips and pizza. The bases were budget bought bases with their own toppings put on top. Clearly the chef has no idea because the basis were raw but dried out indicating incorrect storage. They tasted disgusting and ended up in the bin. Waste of money. Waitress service – non-existent you are issued a gizmo that vibrates across the table when your food is ready and you go and collect. Beer – ordered drinks and they were automatically poured into plastic glasses, paying full price and not at a festival. I would not expect drinks to be put into plastic glasses unless there was a risk of violence and being glassed. When asked for drinks to be put into glasses, the barman decided to make it into an argument. This argument I won but the beer was slopped from the plastic cup into a glass.

Customer service – the management of the Talbot seriously need to look at customer service and hospitality. You have beer being served in plastic glasses, Barman arguing about changing it into a glass then.slopping it into a glass. His excuse was they have run out of glasses in reality they were two bone idle to wash them up and took an easy option. I’m now concerned but perhaps the Glass he poured my beer into wasn’t clean

General tidiness and cleanliness – empty pizza boxes litter the area and clearly hadn’t been tidied up for some time glasses on tables that seriously needs to be collected. Over all shabby look about the place.

Overall a very disappointing visit NOT SAFE FOR DOGS. NOT SAFE FOR DOG OWNERS AND NOT SAFE FOR CHILDREN. fortunately I will never...

What an absolute joke of a place to come and have something to eat , from start to finish....The food, service....the lot. Walked in at 7.30pm and it wasn't really busy and asked for drinks and tried to order food..was told there was a small party in and we would need to wait about 20 minutes to find out of they where going to serve food....wow... off the belt waiting 20 min to find out...

50 minutes later the reply was...'You can order food, but it won't start cooking for another 10 mins'.

We ordering pizza, chips and a pie and chips.... wow..... really how long does it take.

At 9pm after getting there at 7.30pm a staff member came and said are you order 56 as I've been outside trying to find you.... clearly staff when taking orders don't know where customers are sat.

Then the food arrived.......In a box...... not on a plate to eat inside but a brown box. . The staff member said the boxes are for people to eat outside....hello sherlock we are sat inside....

The food..... Pizza Luke warm, Dry chips...... come on chef.....get a grip.

Pie and chips, put it this way I've had better pie and chips on my tour of Afghanistan 🇦🇫 in 2010..... and I didn't see any chips out there.

£37 for a Luke warm , dry pizza, chips , pie and chips.....Disgusting... Staff don't have a clue, unprofessional service, no customer service, high price. Our poor daughter that has autism kept asking when food was coming and left a long time before a pathetic meal came out.. Welsh family next to us in the same boat.

To the staff, manager of this pub what an entire joke from start to finish... sort your customer service out, provide food on par with the Disgusting high prices your charging, educate your staff.

If there had been somewhere else to eat I would of asked for money back but there wasn't by the time it came to after 9pm.

If your busy or pressured to serve just say there is no food, don't try and provide a joke of a service.

Won't return, advise people to go. Disgusting customer service is not the word I really want to use but hey we live...

I have never written a review before, however the food and treatment I received here was so horrible that it warrants it.

We chose to come to this pub on the way back from alton towers. We had hoped to go to the neighbouring pub which looked lovely, however it was fully booked and we ended up here instead, unfortunately.

We opted for some pizzas, which the menus claim are "prepared fresh to order using authentic italian pizza bases with our own in-house pizza sauce and fresh toppings". We were excited to see that gluten-free pizza bases were available on request as two of us cannot eat gluten. Upon ordering we were told that the gluten-free pizzas were only available in margherita and pepperoni, despite all of the toppings offered on the menu being naturally gluten free. When the pizzas came out, it was apparent that they were just (goodfellas £3) pizzas from a supermarket freezer aisle. This was upsetting having paid £14 per pizza, when we could have done the same for much cheaper and no effort.

When we tried to discuss this with the manager we were treated very rudely, and were lied to with a story which kept changing. We tried to explain why were upset respectfully, however we were met with hostility and rudeness from the onset of the conversation. At one point the manager told my 20 year old brother that he shouldn't be speaking to a woman of her age as he was - she was clearly picking on him because he looked youngest, as he had done nothing wrong. From this point on a conversation wasn't possible as she repeatedly told us to leave her pub. It was very upsetting to be treated with such a horrible attitude and definitely put a dampener on our day out.

The normal (gluten-containing) pizzas looked incredibly dry and my mum was unable to eat it all - frankly it looked worse than my gluten-free one. From looking at other reviews, I can see that we are not the only people who have found the pizzas here so unenjoyable. From the attitude of the manager, I don't see this changing...