Castle Barnsley Rd Wakefield — Restaurant in Wakefield

We, a party of 4, arrived for a 6pm dinner on a Thursday. The place was almost completely dead. It took 15 minutes after being seated for anyone to take our drink orders. It was another 30 before someone took our starter orders.

We had been seated for AN HOUR AND A HALF before we had even received our starters! Our mains arrived roughly 10 minutes after we finished our starters, and they were disappointing, to say the least.

The aubergine lasagna was pitifully small. There was no side offered with it, and so the person that ate it was finished with her meal an entire 10 minutes before everyone else.

The pub was also out of several main ingredients, including prawns. The seafood linguine was bland; it was like there was not any sauce at all.

The steak pie (which was the replacement offered after they ran out of the chicken pie) had a pastry that was too thick and over-baked; it caused the person’s knife to crash into his plate when he tried to cut it due to the amount of force he had to use to try and cut it.

The sea bass was fine; not great, but it at least had a decent portion size.

Our server(?) did not seem to care about how long it had taken us. He did not offer an apology or explanation over our, again, hour and a half long wait, until we explicitly mentioned that we were unhappy. He also did not seem to care that we had grievances at all. He was quick to shift blame, saying that it was because a server hadn’t shown for her shift, the cooks were being slow that night, or the new menu needed improving.

When we had finished our meals, he asked us how it was. We responded honestly. He gave a (to us) half-hearted attempt at an apology, and then asked if we wanted desserts (which we would be paying for). We said no. He then asked if we were sure, because they were really good. We again said no. He started walking off, and then asked if we wanted after-dinner coffees. We again declined. We have no clue why he was so pushy about this, but it was unnerving. He did comp the steak pie, stating a few times that it was because we shouldn’t pay for a meal that we didn’t enjoy; if that’s the case, then perhaps the entire experience should have been comped.

We saw at least one other table leave because they had to wait so long to be served. We almost left too, but we kept hoping that the pace would pick up and we’d be served at any minute.

We have no clue what exactly happened tonight. The Castle seems to be on the decline, with service being poorer and slower every time we go there. The slowness was the worst part of all - if that was really caused by a single server not showing, then you really need to hire more help, because this sort of thing is going to kill your business, in...

Food - Poor and disappointing.

Service - Very Poor (some blame on management as most of the servers seemed young and inexperienced).

Pub - Very nice inside, looks the part.

Would I recommend? Absolutely not. Save your money! Much better places for a Sunday roast.

2 hours plus for a starter and a Sunday roast to come. Starter was average, the main was absolutely awful. Had trio of roasts, beef was disgusting and tough, the chicken I received what looked like a half chewed small leg and the pork was 2 really small fatty pieces. We waited over an hour for this main and it was beyond disappointing. Reason for the beef being so tough was obviously because it had been rushed out as we was told when we first arrived it was 'in the oven still' who at 4 o'clock on a Sunday has beef in the oven? So the chef has obviously tried to rush it out. The chef should be embarrassed sending that out. And at £17! Out of order.

We should of known what was to come when we was left waiting at the bar for 10 minutes while 2 people who knew we was there ignored us when we first arrived. No hello, no welcome. Just absolute ignorance. A ' I will be with you in 2 minutes ' would of been absolutely fine, just to be acknowledged! Finally when we did get served by the woman in the striped colourful top she was unpolite and had a massive attitude, an attitude like she was doing us a favour. You could tell she had an issue with fellow staff trying to speak to her. It set a bad tone especially when we had just walked in looking forward to our meal!

What I will say is the servers, even though it lacked, we're helpful and polite when approached including the man who finally sorted us to our table.

We left disappointed and YES we did tell the servers and management all about this before we left. I just think potential customers should read and not expect a £17 meal when it's not worth that money at all. Customer service needs really sorting out, it's not hard to say please, thankyou or even a hello. Good luck for the future but we won't be...

3 of us went to the Castle last night and oh my goodness it was terrible 😫 We have been many times before and it has usually been OK to good but last night there were many issues. We decided twice on which bottle of wine we would like only to be told they didn't have that one rather than telling us which ones were not available. There were no dauphinoise potatoes so mash was the substitute, which was ok, but when the meals came they were cold, dry and you could see they had to been stood for a good while! The belly pork was luke warm as was the steak pie. The only vegetable on the plates were 5 green beans, we were told there was no brocolli, carrots or peas, they had run out!! We had asked that they put plenty of green beans on the plates then but we got 5!! and they were cold too!!! The gravy, in it's own little pan was also, yes, you've probably guessed, was also cold with a fatty skin settling on the top 🤦🏼‍♀️ The manageress was apologetic saying they were moving to new suppliers hence the lack of products, however this did not account for the food being cold and small quantities of what was available. She did say that they also had new staff and young chefs who needed more training, but really, you don't need much training to know if food is is hot or cold and if there's enough on the plate! She offered to get us more food but by this time it was getting late so we declined as we couldn't guarantee it was going to be ok when it arrived. She did not charge us for the wine we had as part of the apology. I really do hope they overcome the problems they are experiencing and improve the quality and quantity of food for their customers otherwise they will definitely lose a...