The Crown Inn, Elsenham — Restaurant in Uttlesford

I was really disappointed coming here today. First time customers. No table service. You have to get your own sauces, salt, pepper, napkins, cutlery - from a trolley in a corner of the room. A burger doesn’t even come with some fries. Over priced for sub standard very bland food. The staff are friendly until you criticise the food and then what a difference in customer service. Very confrontational and defensive. I was told it was because of my “taste” but all of my family and even my children could not stomach the Mac and cheese, microwaveable rice, and beans with a strong concentrated bolognaise sauce in. I offered to pay for half of my mains which was £16 for (microwave rice, thin piece of salmon and a very mundane salad) and a side but after trying to come to an agreement about what was to be refunded the owner stormed off and said just refund it all, then came back and continued to argue with my sister. He didn’t want to refund my main meal because he said they aren’t Tesco and they have staff to pay but if I want supermarket food, I’ll go to the supermarket and pay less than half of what I did today for the same quality! It’s a shame because the salmon was nice and so was my sisters oriental veggie burger. They have a bouncy castle. Lots of seating, and in the end he did say he didn’t want us to leave unhappy and shook my hand but unfortunately we could have avoided all the in between if he knew about how to deliver high quality customer care. I can’t recommend and won’t ever go back because I don’t like being reduced to tears and shouted at. So much so, that we payed for three kids meals but left before any of them had their ice cream...

Crown seems to be trying hard to do events that draw in the locals.this cupcake decorating at Christmas buy the local coco cake makers was really lovely. The staff were amazing with the kids very patient friendly and helpful. The crown staff were just as nice. Crown serves lovely food options and caters for kids meals well. They often do offers and deals at specific times /days so it's worth checking that our or giving them a call. They also have started doing live acts and have tried to separate the "drinking area " from the" dinning area" if your sat near the bar however the noise does carry from one to the other. The dinning area is nice. food is pricey for regular visits however very nice and I'd recommend a visit. Kids meals are nice and portions are good for the kids. Improvement areas for the pub (in my opinion) would be the toilets and the garden they do have the bouncy castle out there throughout the summer but it could do with a spruce up. The new owners are doing bit by bit so I wouldn't be surprised if this is on there to do list. Overall lovely little pub caters well for family meals defo worth a trio down. It does have...

In all honesty a pretty disappointing experience from the start.

We arrived and asked where we would like to sit. We requested outside. We were directed to go find a spot, decide what we want to eat and then come back to the bar to order our food and drinks.

The only available tables had dirty glasses on that were not cleared away by staff from the previous customers, we had to do this ourselves. The food, was tasty but phenomenally over priced for what you get.

My £18 brisket had to sit on the table going cold as the server hadn't provided knives and forks.

The food came out in dribs and drabs after 30 mins.

The service was friendly but absolutely no passion and it showed.

Would I recommend, no I won't be spending good money on what we felt was substandard service most of all but the experience as a whole was just meh.

Why bother, plenty of other...