Shepway
The Rose Crown

The Rose Crown

High Street, Shepway, United Kingdom, CT4 6TH

Pub • Fish • Steak • British


"Awful experience and would not recommend to anyone this used to be a nice pub but after the treatment we experienced the other night, we will not return. My partner and I (local to Elham) came for a meal on Saturday night and the restaurant was fairly busy, but there was only one person serving, as well as occassionally working on the bar. We were very understanding of this when it took a long time to get our food, even though there was no real acknowledgement of how understaffed they clearly were. After finishing our main we waited patiently to have our empty plates removed and order our desserts in this time another table received their food, had it taken away and had their bill brought over and settled. After our patience wore out, we were trying to catch the employee’s attention and it felt like we were being deliberately ignored we ended up being the last table left in the restaurant and were still waiting to get our dessert menus! I had to go over to the bar to find help and to place our dessert orders, at which point I was bluntly told that the kitchen had closed. This seemed like a sudden change when all night we had been very polite and friendly to eachother, and we were simply trying to be understanding that the staff were busy and would get to us. When I questioned why we were not informed of this, as we were ready to order long ago and she could see we were waiting, there was no real response. We were forced to come up to the bar and pay, where again there was no communication or actual apology. Not only is it poor service and tainted a rare night out for us, it makes no business sense either why we were essentially refused business with no warning. We will not be coming back and would like to warn anyone else who may be treated in the same way. Additional negatives we found were the rowdy bar which not only affected the atmosphere of the dining experience, but also felt intimidating and meant we didn’t complain to the extent we wanted to at the time and the fact that later adding up the bill we realised that we were overcharged. If this was a service charge added without even showing us a receipt, when the whole issue was that we had no service, it would really round off this ridiculous experience!!!"

The Millstream At The Bell Inn

The Millstream At The Bell Inn

1 Seabrook Road, Shepway, United Kingdom

Pub • Pubs • Steak • British


"This was the second time we have visited the Bell Inn for Sunday lunch. Not sure what's going on with the tables as they always seem sticky. To be fair there was a member of staff cleaning the tables, so maybe we were just unlucky, although she did seem to spray all over the adjacent tables salt and pepper sachets as well. Service and the pricing was good. I had the lamb which was plentiful and nicely cooked, however there were a few things that were definitely different to our last visit. The dinner already had gravy on it, which is a bugbear of mine and I would of preferred to be able to distribute where and of what quantity of gravy I would like. A jug would of been a better option. There was some sort of crumb with the dinner (not sure if it was meant to be stuffing) but it did nothing for either presentation or taste. The roasted veg on the plate was nice, but the veg brought out in a dish (between 3) was smothered in a runny tasteless cheese sauce (think was cauliflower, broccoli and string beans) so you had cauliflower cheese (fine) broccoli cheese and string bean cheese (not so fine). The biggest issue though was the roasted potatoes. Firstly, the last time we visited, we had some new boiled potatoes on the plate and were brought out a separate dish of very tasty roasted potatoes. This time however there were about 3-4 small to medium I assume roasted potatoes on the plate. This in itself would of been ok, all be it a bit stingy, but the potatoes were soft with no crispy skin and also must of been smothered in a whole black pepper pot which made them almost un edible. We enjoyed our first visit last year, but our second visit has put us off as it seems to have gone down in both quantity and quality. I know times are hard, but these type of cutbacks just put customers off and sadly we are unlikely to return and will look elsewhere for an occasional Sunday roast out."