Bideford Brewers Fayre — Restaurant in Torridge District

The Brewers Fayre was recommended to us as a "good place for pub food" We were on a four day break looking at the Parkdean Holiday park with a view to buying. Obviously the rule was strictly no cooking!! The pub itself is clean, relaxing and un-crowded. The lad greeting on the door and assigning tables was excellent at making you feel at ease with the place, chatty and good at his job, as was the lady that took our food order. As with most of the chain pubs, kids and babies are kept near the door so as not to disturb everyone. Having an 8 week old baby with us as well as an 8 year old boy and 6 year old girl it was something we are used to and find it common practice amongst the "Chain" pubs. So. The food. Now bear in mind we eat fresh cooked veg 5 days a week with dinner. During the summer it's freshly prepared salad. We do Mcds maybe twice a month, Kentucky once a month, Subway twice a month. This is our kids choice. They prefer home cooked food. My wife and I ordered the chicken dinner. A fillet of chicken, lightly roasted potatoes, roasted carrots, chopped cabbage and peas, sage and onion stuffing and chicken gravy. The kids both opted for the kids spag bol. My 8 year-old lad refused to eat his kids Spag Bol. Which actually looked more like spag with a hint of bol. Actually it looked like chopped wool with a hint of Mince beefy tomato is stuff underneath. His exact word, for the food, was "disgusting". He is a water lover but soon asked for something else after trying the ice cold machine dispensed water. My 7 year old girl had one mouthful of her spag with a hint of bol, spat it out and went back to her colouring. I was more than happy to let my lad finish my "House Favourite" Chicken Dinner. (He had 3 mouthfuls of that before giving in) But at £8.99 I should have known better. Hey Ho! We left the majority of the food, paid our bill (£33 and odd pence) declined deserts and left. Now Some will say "it's a Brewers Fayre, what did you expect" . The point is we DIDN'T know what to expect. It was our first, and last, visit to the chain. The one good thing that did come out of our trip to Brewers Fayre........a trip to Westward Ho! Where we found an excellent place...

Unfortunately had a really bad experience here last Thursday 14/08/25 . We booked a table for 7.15 for 2 adults and 2 young children we where staying in the premier inn. We got there on time where shown to our table, we ordered our food at 7.30 along with drinks. It got to 8.15 my children where both hungry and had been causing a scene due to being hungry. A lovely waitress came and asked if we had our food yet to which I said no, she went to check on the progress but im guessing that she promoted them to start cooking it so we thought we would wait a little bit longer. It got to 8.30 and by this point my children where very unhappy tired and hungry so we decided to leave as I needed to get them feed and to bed. When we then asked for a refund the manager was very unhelpful he was arguing the toss about refunding our drinks, took a further 15 minutes arguing with him to actually be refunded for the whole bill. His argument was that we drank the drinks. However if we had been told there would be an hour + wait we wouldn't have even ordered drinks we would have gone elsewhere. After arguing back and forth for 15 minutes he eventually refunded the bill in full. We have then gone to get food elsewhere where in the time it took us to get over the road my youngest has fallen asleep on an empty belly which really bothers me. In all it was just terrible service other than the waitress. We should have been made aware the wait would be as long as it was, then we should have been given a refund without have to argue for one. I feel a more experienced and compassionate person should be managing a place like this not someone who argues over 2 drinks keeping my children waiting even longer for food and...

Arrived at Brewer’s Fayre Bideford for our prepaid breakfast as I was staying next door. Unacknowledged by Ben who was just stood sour faced by the door. I said my room number only to be moaned at for not booking a table and that there are a million notices in the hotel reception (since found 2) he then proceeded to moan that there was no tables and that they don’t know what the hotel is doing as they have pre-booked a table of 25 spread all across the restaurant and that he was having to move everything around. It was 840am on a Sunday morning and apart from 3 table (2 couples and a gentleman on his own) the whole restaurant was empty. We then proceeded to listen to him moan at staff about hotel bookings not booking tables. I was in the restaurant for an hour eating breakfast and observed Ben who I then found out was the general manager that anyone who had prepaid from the hotel he had an issue with and was moaning and saying there were no tables only to eventually seat them but making them feel awful. Anyone who was paying on the day he got a spring in his step took there payment and sat them at the many free tables. I’ve never experienced such awful customer service and to find out Ben is the general manager is a joke. I feel sorry for his staff they must go home feeling depressed after his constant moaning a manger is meant to encourage and uplift a work force. Will not be returning. After reading other reviews which name Ben in them obviously this is an issue that has not been addressed...