Holly Bush — Restaurant in Wales

Me, my brother, my Dad and my Mum came to the Hollybush for a meal tonight for Father’s Day as we won’t be able to celebrate tomorrow. We have been before and had high expectations. We were sat down at the table for 6.30pm, and we had ordered at around 6.50. I am vegan myself, and so I ordered the flatbreads with a selection of dips for me and my brother to share for a starter, which was marked as vegan (as seen on the image attached), as well as the vegan burger. When this starter was brought out, I asked to check that all the dips were vegan too. The waiter, Michael, returned to inform us that none of the starter was actually suitable for vegans at all, as informed by the chef - it should be noted that this was removed from the bill, but this is still very poor nonetheless to mark a starter as vegan when it is, in fact, not. By no means was this Michael’s fault, I would just like to make this clear. Also, this does make me wonder how many vegans have ordered this same starter and have eaten it without realising that it is not suitable for vegans. Once we had finished our starters, it then took over half an hour before our food was brought out and we were given little explanation as to why this was. Many other tables received their mains before us despite being sat down after us. When eating our meals, we were not asked once how our meals were. The staff were very attentive at first but this did seem to dwindle a little a bit towards the end. The vegan burger was okay, my Brother’s steak was not cooked as asked, but my parents’ seemed to enjoy their meals. A few of the drinks were removed from the bill, which did show that our poor experience had been taken into account. It was a very disappointing experience all around, and we definitely will not be looking at coming back. It should also be noted that there are a limited amount of vegan options for dessert, with there only being vegan vanilla ice cream. Our previous experience was absolutely fantastic, back in February, but we were ever so disappointed and felt a bit pushed aside during our time in the Hollybush tonight, feeling as though priorities...

The food was okay, it came out hot, but a touch bland. The atmosphere on what should be a busy Sunday afternoon was non-existent, there were only 2 tables including us occupied and a few people at the bar.

The service was poor, when we arrived we asked for a table for 2 and were gestured to “sit somewhere in the corner”. The gentleman who served us seemed really friendly, but inexperienced. He came to the table and we asked for a few more minutes to decide and he never came back. We weren’t asked if the food okay at any point during eating. When we finished I cleared the table myself and took the plates to the bar and asked for a dessert menu, which they don’t have, so had to remember what was available. We decided to skip dessert as the options weren’t the same as previous visits, no crumble available which was always my favourite.

The beef roast was okay, just a touch bland, the beef was okay, only lacking a bit of flavour, the veg was good and the Yorkshire pudding was a bit stale.

The fish and chips were also only okay, the chips were hot but the breading on the fish was limp and not very crispy.

I’m not sure if this service is typical for The Holly Bush, as other people seem to have had a good experience from what I can see from recent reviews. It seems that The Holly Bush has changed hands in the last 12 months, I didn’t recognise anyone as we used to visit The Holly Bush for all family meals and it’s my Dad’s favourite place.

I think for the cost of the meals (all £16.50) there are definitely better places to eat around town, which is a shame because The Holly Bush used to be a gem.

I appreciate the place seems to be in a transitional period, but 9 months seems a long time to still be struggling with basics.

We’ll call again and hopefully find that this was a one...

Been for a pre booked Christmas meal. Clearly busy and understandably given the time of year. Took quite some time to get noticed at the bar for a drinks order. Lots of used glasses everywhere and seemingly struggling to keep up. Sat at our table, starters arrived, all lovely, plates collected and took a little time for the mains, mains were nice on the whole (minor point that I thought the pig in blanket looked really anaemic and under cooked, but everything else was lovely) and then the wait.... We waited. And waited. And waited.... Aaaaand waited. And waited. For 45 minutes whilst other tables got their food, a large table next to us wasn't cleared and there was stuff everywhere... Lots of goings on but nothing near where our table was concerned. It took us finally managing to catch someone's attention to get plates cleared... Then we waited again.... And we waited... Aaaand we had to go up to find out where our desserts were. Bear in mind this was all pre booked so we were a touch surprised to be asked what we'd ordered. We were then surprised when we got told it'd be a minute only for fifteen minutes to happen and then be told they had no bowls. All in all, our visit took 2.5 hours from start to finish.

Dont get me wrong, I know it's Christmas, I obviously expect it to busy, we really did expect it and we thought it'd take a while. We didn't think we'd wait nearly an hour and a half between mains and desserts.

Hoping to be able to change this to a better score upon...