The Packhorse — Restaurant in Vale of White Horse

Went here for my birthday meal. there were 5 of us . was placed on a big round table next to the Kitchen doors that were in constent use, we were almost in the kitchen. Member of staff began to tell us what they had run out of and it was nearly most of the menu. It would have been better if he had just told us what he had left it would have been less for him to say.

Member of staff dropped a lot of glasses on the floor which all shattered around our feet. No apologie from any staff at all . A member of staff the slated the girl for dropping the glasses infront of customers this w\s very embarassing for her as well as us .

because of the glass which had shattered on the floor and the table being too close to the kitchen doors we decided that we wanted to move to another table , which we did.

When our starters finally came out they were very poor my wife had a prawn cocktail which only had 3 yes thats right 3 prawns on top of a small amount of lettice. ( not worth the £5:95.

When our mainm course came out my son had my steak which was medium to well done on his plate and i had his medium steak. My daughter had a mixed grill which was full of fat and dripping with blood due to the peice of steak not being cooked properly. this was sent back twice to be re cooked, in the end she left it and we refused to pay for the meal.

I would not recommend this place to anyone the service is very poor. I am convinced that there was no chef working in the building that night. it would seem that they were all pitching in to cook that night. Who ever is in charge should consider resigning. Green King what shame this...

My family and I (2 adults and a child) went to The Packhorse last night. The food was genuinely enjoyable. It was well-prepared, nicely presented, and served in good time. The atmosphere was pleasant, and the service itself was generally fine, with prompt interactions when we placed our drink and food orders. However, I left feeling disappointed due to what I believe was a deceptive practice surrounding the bill.

When it came time to pay, I explicitly stated that I didn’t want any optionals added. Despite this, a 10% service charge – amounting to £7.40 on a £74 bill – was included without clarification. More concerning was the way the charge was presented on the receipt: not once did it state that this was optional. In fact, it appeared as a mandatory part of the total, which is misleading and, frankly, bordering on dishonest.

Only after I questioned it was I told the charge was optional – something that should be clearly disclosed in writing at the point of payment, as many responsible restaurants do. Most diners wouldn’t think to ask, and that seems to be what they’re relying on.

Given that we had just a handful of very brief interactions with staff (perhaps 6 minutes in total) and we were a just 3, it’s unclear why the service charge was applied automatically and without transparency. If staff are not being paid fairly, that should not be passed silently onto customers under the guise of a mandatory charge.

I hope management reflects on this and changes how they handle service charges in the future. Transparency matters, and no one likes feeling tricked at the end of an otherwise...

I recently had my hen meal here. It was poor from the get go!

We were asked to pre-order our food, during the time between that the menu had changed and we were asked to re order. It took over an hour to receive our starters, my gran mentioned to the staff the mains were then taking a long time- staff member did not apologise once and just said 'well we've only just cleared your starters' everyone apart from me received their mains, mine came out a considerable amount of time later.

Service from the manager was very blunt and unprofessional, not one apology even just for the wait of time. They added a £36 service charge which we mentioned we were not happy to pay due to the service we had received, we mentioned again how bad the service had been in which the manager replied 'I've taken the service charge off, what more do you want' to then chuck our change back at us.

Just an apology would have sufficed but no, nothing.

I then emailed a complaint to the general manager in which she replied saying she felt that although the other manager was blunt at times she conducted herself in a professional manner. I'm sorry but chucking change to a customer and speaking bluntly isn't what I call 'professional' She also said she would refund me my food in full and that was the one thing she would apologise for. A week later and I've heard nothing....

Safe to say, I won't be going...