The Old Mill — Restaurant in Warwick

Booked a table for 6.15pm for myself, partner and daughter, previously attended the Old Mill a handful of times to an excellent meal and service. Tonight’s food and service was absolutely disgusting and I can honestly say that we will never return to the Old Mill in Coventry again. To start, we waited 40 for our drinks to arrive, I asked a staff member how long the food is taking, got told by three bar staff different answers (45 mins, 45-1hour and 1+), I asked for someone to please let me know prior to ordering as our daughter was hungry and we couldn’t wait an hour and half. The Assistant Manager Jamie comes to the table - she asks what we would like to order, I asked her again how long the wait would be and told 30 minutes and this is correct as what she says goes. Jamie then goes on to say that there is short staff and there has been an accident in the kitchen where the chef has nearly chopped off his fingers and may need to go A&E for stitches - great to know so much detail prior to a food order - NOT. We therefore regrettably ordered starters and mains, the starters arrived around 35 minutes later (this is on top of the 40 minute wait we incurred for drinks). No issue with the starter aside from lots of food being out of stock upon ordering. Main arrived 40 minutes after the starters were taken away, we ordered another drink in this period which arrived 40 minutes later at the end of the meal. My daughter ordered sausage, mash, gravy and rice on the side, this arrived with chips, this was changed straight away. My curry which I ordered, the chicken was poor quality meal and the naan was rock solid. My partner ordered a rare steak, this arrived medium and fatty, he asked for a sauce which never materialised, the sauce on my daughters place which I thought was gravy was in fact bbq sauce. There was nobody about to ask for help and unfortunately the food was barely touched. My partner asked for the Manager, a man named Ralph appeared claiming to be so, he said how short staffed they were and again went into the kitchen incident stating that they were lucky the chef stayed - again too much info as it questions you on the health and safety in the kitchen. Ralph said he will look at the bill and be back. After 30 minutes we were still sat at the table waiting for Ralph, our plates still here and our daughter rather upset waiting for so long, we asked a waitress named CJ for some support and told her everything that had happened. CJ said that she will aim to get the meals removed from the bill for us and apologised that Ralph didn’t come back. After 5 minutes CJ returned saying the Manager will come see us as he doesn’t want to remove the food from the bill. Ralph returns with a receipt with the drinks removed and the blue light discount on the receipt - 20%. At this point we were thoroughly fed up and regrettably paid the outstanding bill. I have never had such a poor meal out and service, we all hadn’t eaten in preparation for having a nice meal and it was spoilt by so many different circumstances. I requested the names of both Ralph and Jamie prior to leaving and were told they were Assistant Managers. Throughout our three hours in the restaurant we heard one table complain due to their meal arriving after everyone else had finished, another complaining due to poor service, a table sending back food and on the way out a couple stating how disgusting their food was also. I never ever write reviews, however on this occasion it had to be done, Jamie and Ralph appeared to have little to none customer service skills and The Old Mill has gone...

We had booked a meal for my mums 60th birthday and we are honestly still in shock at the service we received. No one was there to greet us and waited 10 minutes for someone to come and be seated. We had been told several items on the menu weren’t available (on an already small menu) and myself had to end up sharing a starter due to there only being one portion available. This table was booked for 6.45pm so not exactly late either. My mums starter arrived stone cold, the mushrooms must have came straight out of the fridge as they were ice cold so had to send back. My starter and my dads were barely warm also. After waiting on mains for a while, we were then told the roasts we ordered were unavailable suddenly, despite the table behind us arriving after us and getting roasts. We were really disappointed as this should’ve been stated before we ordered not after waiting for the mains to then have to reorder. We asked to speak with the manager, which we stated we were disappointed with the quality and service to be given no apology and told “nothing I suggest is going to be good enough for you”, whilst he had not suggested anything. We hadn’t been rude, we just stated we were unhappy and what could be done to rectify our issues as it was a special occasion we were all looking forward to. The manager acted rude and disinterested straight away which was upsetting, he did not care about our issues and was extremely defensive from the beginning. I asked several times what was available on the menu to never be answered. We just got menus thrown at us and no indication of what was available. At this point we asked for the bill and to leave as we didn’t know what we were allowed to order. We were given our bill for a few drinks totalling to £30 after the starters were removed and we waited to pay. Some time after waiting to pay the bartender comes over and smacks a receipt down for numerous drinks we haven’t ordered totalling to £50 demanding us to pay. We state we haven’t ordered these and we already have our bill. He replies saying no this is our bill for the drinks we ordered at the bar. (My partner ordered one pint of beer at the bar on arrival and paid upfront). Again, stating this is not our bill, the bartender states maliciously “I’ll go and check the CCTV then and see what it says” to us and accused us of stealing! The staff made us feel so embarrassed by announcing this to the entire room full of people. We waited for quite some time and eventually found both staff members hiding at the bar. We said we wanted to leave and asked for an apology as, which we already knew, the CCTV footage showed it was not our bill to be told “only if you give us an apology for the abusive language used”. My partner turned to me during a private conversation and muttered a swear word to me about the food quality. At no point did my partner swear at or abuse any staff member and never would. We were told we weren’t welcome and had to leave for absolutely no reason at all. Me and my family love eating out and have been regular customers at the Old Mill in the past, to be treated so disrespectfully, on my mums 60th birthday was appalling. We have never encountered service like this and would never complain unless absolutely necessary. I would advise you...

And less if it was possible! Horrendous experience, and probably the worst evening/meal we’ve ever had out. Where to start?… the venue was nice BUT service was very poor and very very slow (and not because it was busy as we were there at 6.30pm), bar staff rude and food not even on a rateable scale. Both me and my wife left over half our meals, had to enquire about where food and drink was as waited so long, and wasn’t even asked how our meals were by the sheepishly looking waitress when she saw how much was left on out plates! It cost us just over £60 for 2 starters, 2 mains, 1 side and 2 drinks that I honestly wouldn’t have paid £5 for and have had better from microwave meals. We had a soup- nice, But Luke warm, only 1 slice of bread with no butter (£5.79)

Chicken liver pate- ok, but “dumped” in a pot with no “butter seal”, watery onion chutney, buttered toast (I didn’t want butter/usually placed on the side, but actually worked on as the wife didn’t get buttered bread with her soup), and worst of all un-edible rocket that was wilted and dirty/unwashed with soil still on it (£6.29)

Sea bass risotto - worst ever! Dry with no sauce, hard rice & peas, tasteless. Only 2 scallops, 4 tiny prawns (definitely not the tiger prawns advertised) and poorly presented. Sea bass itself was nice though (£16.99)

“Fillet” (lol) & beef rib burger - cold fries, burnt burger bun, and completely un-edible fillet (which I’m pretty sure it wasn’t) well well over cooked! Why even ask how you want it cooked if your just gonna nuke it? The onion rings & beef rib were nice (£17.29)

Hollumi fries - these were very nice and the only thing we ate (£3.99)

x2 peroni - the second ordered after our starters, and I had to go to the bar and enquire about after finishing our mains (which took 40mins to come)… That’s right, I waited over 40mins for a drink, had no one come to ask or even ask when our mains were served and they saw an empty glass, and when I went to the bar AFTER I had finished my meal I was told “it’s there” waiting on the bar. I said I’d finished so didn’t want it and back down waiting for the bill and it was served to my table! (£11.20)

It was so bad my wife was really upset to point of almost being in tears, a night out we’d been waiting so long for and arranged babysitters for ruined. We were so desperate to leave but still we had to find staff to get a bill and pay so we could leave.

Definitely will not be going back and advise others to consider other options. Honestly we had to pop into tescos on our way home to get...