The Haywain, bridgend — Restaurant in Wales

We came here around 1pm on a Friday. There were a few tables taken already and plenty of space to choose from, after I approached the bar to ask the waitress if we were OK to sit anywhere.

There were two of us and our baby in a pram and plenty of room for the pram.

We had blackcurrant and lemonade and coke.

There wasn't a menu on the table, so we got one from another table. There were 4 vegetarian options under a heading for the same and then a couple of suitable options under the 'light bites' section. One thing places usually get right for veggies is burgers. Fake meat has come a long way in the past few years. I asked the waitress if it was fake meat or vegetables and she went to check. It was a vegetables based patty, which I don't like and I know plenty of veggies share my sentiment there (the menu just said 'vegan burger'). I opted for a spicy vegetable pie and ordered a side of onion rings (they didn't have the cheese pie that was on the menu and the waitress said they have vegetable pie) and my husband chose a vegetarian curry. The waitress came back to say they sold out of the curry last night (indicator of things not being fresh) but that they had veggie chilli. We decided my husband would have the pie and I would have a jacket potato with beans and cheese.

The food came not long after. The pie looked good and came with peas, chips and gravy. The jacket potato came with a small salad, which I thought strange when it's a potato with beans. The potato was really large but it unfortunately wasn't good. The skin wasn't crispy skin and the beans were dry and there was probably half a tin or less on there. I'm aware half a tin is one portion but usually if you were to pay £7 for something you'd expect more than that.

The place was clean enough, though I didn't use the facilities, so can't comment.

The Haywain has historically been poor in terms of vegetarian choices but we thought we would give it a go as it was under new management. It was really disappointing and we won't be going back.

The reason I gave 2 stars is because my husband's pie was OK (he said it was broadly fine) and the waitress was very attentive. Also, it's dog friendly and has plenty of spaces in the car park.

Edited to add: The menus on the images on Google Reviews from 3 months ago weren't the menus on offer yesterday. The menu yesterday was a cream colour and was one page. The veggie options were A curry (can't remember the type and as I said, it was sold out), veggie chilli, Sheesus pie (sold out but they had spicy vegetable pie) and a vegan burger. In the light bites, they had jacket potato with beans and cheese and a cheese and mushroom ciabatta. I didn't look at...

So we booked a table here as it recently reopened and the menu looked nice. (ADVISE IF YOU ARE GLUTEN FREE AVOID THIS PLACE)We turned up everything was fine, ordered drinks and sat at our table, picked up the menu and thought "oh, wheres the big menu" when enquired they said it doesnt start until 4pm (bizzare).

So we queried because the day before at 1pm when we got there for a quick drink, the full menu was out and we booked a table based on that menu.

Now there was nothing GF available on their lunch menu and i ADVISE IF YOU ARE GLUTEN FREE AVOID THIS PLACE as we received confilitcing information, on the friday we were told there are two seperate fryers one is keps GF for those specific menu choices (as one would expect), but upon quertying the very next day we were told the oil hasnt been changed yet and will be changed before the 4pm menu (very bizzare).

So we had to order from childs menu for our boy which is fine, he wanted the hot dog and chips so we payed for that only to be told 3 mins later there are no hotdog buns (at this point red flags were adding up). The lad needed the loo so i took him into the gents only to find that the smaller child urinal had been replaced by an adult size, which is fine as we used the cubicle, time to wach and dry hands, NO TOWEL in the hand towel dispenser, HAND DRYER DIDNT WORK so we used the available loo roll.

Atfer this the food arrived and looked good (i had a chip and a nugget which was nice) the staff were pleasent the drinks were fine, but group after group of people were coming in and ordering drinks then finding out that its not the proper menu and then leaving, we saw atleast 8-12 groups of people ranging from couples to larger 4+ groups doing the same thing and thats around £50+ loss per visit there, management!.

I have no idea why management took this approach but was dissapointed, it was nothing to do with the staff/service/childrens food/drinks but all to do with the confusion about the menu not being available, we booked a table specificly for that menu, weird how they dont serve it at mid day. We did enquire about the menu change and were told they dont serve it until 4pm but the day before around 1pm the menu was there??? inconsistent, and with all the other smaller things adding up i dont think we will go here again and we live VERY local to it.

Anyway, 2.5 stars quite a...

Went to the Haywain for a last minute hen party/day before wedding meal. They very kindly accommodated 16 of us in the outside gazebo. We were able to order drinks to the table using the qr code provided which made things much easier than when you order drinks at the bar. They had a system was when you placed the order at the bar where you'd then go outside and wait by the black table for the drinks to be brought out to you. I understand they may not want people congregating at the bar, however this just seems quite a disjointed way of acquiring a drink. The food was lovely, not 1 person in our group had a complaint, so that was great. I think the only 1 complaint we could have was the attitude of 1 of members of staff. We ordered 2 drinks using the qr code and the wrong drinks were brought to the table so we asked for these for these be corrected. After waiting for a while for them to be replaced one of us went to find out where they were however on the way she bumped into this particular waitress so she asked if she knew where the drinks were( it was the same waitress that brought the wrong drink), she snapped and said the was bringing deserts first! She appeared to not want to be there, she also gave attitude to another member of the group as well. Not very customer friendly unfortunately. Also, when were were ordering drinks, for example bottles of soft drinks as there were no soft drinks on the pumps, no glasses were brought with them only bottles. Now I'm not saying that they have to bring fresh glasses everytime however, when someone is drinking cider for example, then has to put their coke into the same glass or chose to drink directly from the bottle, it's not great! Also can you just be mindful when you have customers sitting in the gazebo that when it I getting darker could you put some lights on. No lights were put on at all during the evening. All in all though lovely food, nice atmosphere, would...