BITE user comments - exguvnor
Comments by exguvnor
A warm welcome from both staff and locals at this pleasant country pub with gorgeous views over the Arun flood plain. Excellent ales (4) and very good food (yummy wild boar sausages) at good prices. Pub has quite a bit of character although a bit blighted by '60s and 70s improvements. Overall, a pleasure to visit.
20 Sep 2010 17:18
Closed 25.08.10 as widely reported in the press ("DJ Chris sells ailing boozer" - The Sun. Allegedly earmarked for housing - will get it too, no local trade, last two owners have failed to make it pay. For those of you who are interested, it used to be a Watney's house in the '60s/ '70s called the Three Horseshoes and the building isn't old at all - it's a replica with a few old beams still in place.
28 Aug 2010 11:22
Tired. Breaks brothers type food and no-one very interested in taking an order for it, serving it or cooking it. Great cricket memorabilia but one of my worst experiences for a while. A good pub gone bad.
24 Aug 2010 09:50
True to my word, I took Mrs X back for lunch. Again, a great friendly welcome, good ales and an excellent meal, tasty and well presented. Wet and windy outside, so we didn't want to leave and driving duties had to be delegated to Mrs X. A really pleasant afternoon and the new owners (and manager) have done a great job with the place.
24 Aug 2010 09:47
Fantastic, unspoilt country local that has the added benefit of being a brewpub (and a good one at that) with pints starting at �2.40. I don't usually comment on other people's posts but I wonder if Hanrew has got the right pub - staff and landlady were charming and food was good hearty basic fare, home cooked and probably at the most reasonable prices I've seen anywhere in the south-east. �7.70 for a bowl of Lancashire hotpot, half a loaf and a big wedge of butter. Overpriced?? Think you better stay in in future.
24 Aug 2010 09:44
Super refit. Whole place looks fabulous and the garden is a delight. Wonderful friendly greeting and a marvellous waitress. Alas, the food was not what you would expect - wasn't a thing on the plate that wasn't over-cooked or under-cooked. Give them a chance to settle in though - will be back.
23 Aug 2010 10:51
The Lion And Lobster, Brighton
Cannot but echo the other comments: friendly, efficient staff, great buzz, variety of places to eat and drink. Was too drunk to remember if the food was good or not. And....... I know Brighton has a large gay community but am I the only old lecher to notice that the barmaids are all gorgeous?
16 Aug 2010 12:16
Thought I would call back after my last brief visit and had a good experience biut at odds with my professional capacity. Firstly, very friendly greeting by young, knowledgeable staff. It's one thing to be greeted by the bar person but another step up when staff you are having no direct interacction with acknowledge your presence. Top marks. Unfortunately, both Mrs X and I picked the bottom of the barrels but our two cloudy pints were replaced without fuss (and later knocked off the bill, which was quite unecessary).
Main menu is great and good value. But decor is still 1979 - coach lamps, chairs, faux wooden bull 3-D painting, carpet (not quite spiral but not far off), back bar. In deference to our surroundings, we chose scampi and Welsh rarebit off the lunch menu. Excellent.
The things is, after running pubs for 20 years, I now work as a consultant in the trade and am meant to criticize these sort of things - but I loved it! Very warm and welcoming. Shame about the traffic noise blighting the garden.
10 Aug 2010 11:01
Very good food. Service a bit charmless but ok. Something about the main bar doesn't quite work - it's a hotel after all. Public bar (Half Crown) is much more like a pub. Can't believe people come on here moaning about the prices - can anyone imagine how much it costs to restore and maintain a Grade I Listed 14th Century building?
5 Aug 2010 16:12
Very well run, friendly pub with a more adult feel than most in Guildford. Chilled atmosphere helped greatly by well chosen seating and lighting, plenty of interesting events and good value food and ales. Well worth the short walk away from the kiddies pubs on Sesame Street, the dreary corporate identikits of the George Abbot and White House and the managed house dross in various roads close to the centre. My ideal Guildford pub crawl would just be walking back and forth from the Keystone to Ye Olde Ship!
1 Aug 2010 12:44
Like cloudy beer? We were told that Langham's Festive-Ale was meant to be so. When we asked for it to be changed, we were told that Young's was also meant to look like that. Left it. Get a life or stop pretending to be a pub.
30 Jul 2010 21:54
Interesting collection of comments. Met with a very warm welcome by young staff but the atmosphere got noticeably cooler when the landlady arrived. Overall impression very good although we didnt eat.
30 Jul 2010 21:51
Think I had the best pizza I've ever had here today. New Yorker. Fantastic.
29 Jul 2010 21:07
Horrible, rude managers for the past three decades. But to sit outside on a sunny day with a pint and a fresh crab sandwich, it's worth it.
29 Jul 2010 10:46
Thoroughly enjoyed a brief visit. Good ale range, friendly welcome. Nice terraced bit out the back now. Menu looked very good, so will be returning soon for food. Well run. Is it me or do the best pubs have the worst car parks?
29 Jul 2010 10:42
Good eating pub, nice decor. Bit handicapped by small garden, so quieter in summer. Up for sale at the moment.
28 Jul 2010 18:44
Now on my 5th visit here and frankly I�ve been delaying comment, thinking they must fall down on something. But they haven�t, and I now ask �Is this the best run pub in Surrey? �(and I reckon I�ve visited 200+ since I retired ). Food (calves liver was the best of 4 superb meals), range of beer (served at the correct temperature � other landlords please note) and service have all been first class on every visit. Mrs X Guvnor agrees (a rarity). Friendly, chatty staff and a great atmosphere on every visit, day or night. This pub gets a 9 from me and that�s only because I don�t give 10�s. I see that it�s been a finalist in a couple of industry awards � well deserved.
A couple of general points on previous posts (the majority of which are positive):
Susan Kings writes �mediocre food�, �poor service� and �very overpriced� and then goes on to talk about loyal customers. Well, sorry but if you get product and price wrong AND add in bad service, it doesn�t matter if you�re a plumber, a pub or the Ford Motor Co, you simply don�t have any loyal customers. My only complaint about this place is that it�s SO popular, parking can be a bind.
Susan also moans that it�s �4 for a pint of larger (sic) � it isn�t, it�s �3.50 or �3.70 for two of the offerings according to the price list. It�s over �4 for a Peroni (where isn�t it? Over �5 at two Guildford pubs and �5.80 at one in Ripley). The point about this is that this isn�t something to moan about - it�s all about choice and it has long been some people�s choice to drink expensive lager � remember when Stella was advertised as �reassuringly expensive�? Two decades before that, we had Lowenbrau with ads carrying the strapline: �the most expensive lager in the world�. And a word from the trade which will surprise many � the mark-up on those premium lagers is less than on most ales, so the price is actually totally justifiable - it's horses for courses and the horses that like 5.5% lagers are happy to fork out �4 or �5 whereas your general ale drinkes baulk at much over �3 and a bit.
PS � Really nice garden too.
22 Jul 2010 16:05
All credit to the team here. Very friendly, good atmosphere and the best Indian food in town. Great concept. I see that they've started to do sandwiches at lunchtime to please other punters too. Good choice of ales and lagers. One criticism: the massive flat scree tv, always on and very distracting.
19 Jul 2010 09:23
I'm with the last 4 comments. The food and service are always a bit below par and the bar isn't really a bar, it's more like a corridor to the restaurant. New village shop is a lovely building but did someone get the scale wrong ? Looks like someone gave the builder a drawing in mm and he thought it was in inches. Good point - great Langham's Hip Hop.
15 Jul 2010 12:27
The Sir Roger Titchbourne, Alfold Bars
Everything is ok, but one couldn't say more than that. It seems a little clinical.
15 Jul 2010 12:22
First the good news - great views, lovely roses in the garden, claen pint of Young's. BUT......unfriendly welcome, grotty garden furniture and not an umbrella in sight on one of the hottest days of the year. Bland salads with the cheapest processed chicken pennies can buy. Like tea at your nan's , circa 1973. Rip-off.
13 Jul 2010 14:41
Went here for the first time in years at the week-end and they had a Stones tribute band gig in the garden. Brilliant atmosphere and everyone seemed genuinely appreciative of the 'new' landlord and landlady's refurb (the gig apparently celebrated 2 years). Let's all be honest, it used to be awful!
11 Jul 2010 22:31
A classic 'station boozer' in every sense. Some of the customers need to calm the language but the landlord is a great character. Hear he has been unwell, get well soon Mike.
11 Jul 2010 22:27
Knew Charlie Gotto well and drank in all his splendid London pubs - the Alma & the Ship in Wandsworth; Coopers Arms in Chelsea and one in Battersea who's name escapes me. Always admired what he did - some of you will no doubt think it a bit too gastro - but his beer, wine and food were always good. Thought he went a bit too far with this pub - it started to resemble a Harvester-come-rural theme park but without people with innovative ideas & gumption, even more pubs would be closing. A loss to the trade.
10 Jul 2010 12:40
The Stag on the River, Eashing
Taking back what I last said, revisited again today and can confidently say the lines haven't been cleaned since the refurb. Vile cloudy EPA and Boondoggle. More to running a pub than a lick of paint and some fancy garden furniture.
9 Jul 2010 23:59
The Winterton Arms, Chiddingfold
Based on the other reviews, I'm either mad, blind, fastidious or just caught a bad night. Will assume the latter and say nothing.
5 Jul 2010 18:51
Will the current landlord make it to the 12 week stage? Bets being taken. Had more landlords than I've had busty barmaids. If the argument to turn a pub into housing applies anywhere, it applies here with no parking and neighbours who quashed the music licence. Shame because it used to be agreat student Free House. Punch killed it.
5 Jul 2010 18:49
The William Bray , Shere Guildford Surrey
Surrey Life's Pub of the Year apparently. It is a good gastro pub but the emphasis on the gastro. Eaten well here but beer and service could have been better. What does make me laugh though are the peole who inhabit this site: Group 1- Walkers, Whingers and CAMRA Beardies who think every pub in Surrey that sells more than chicken in a basket is 'overpriced' and a 'restaurant'. Group 2 - Country Life readers who want all pubs to be overpriced restaurants and make ludicrously overblown claims and are assumed by Group 1 to be staff. This comes up at pub after pub. As an ex-landlord let me tell you all something: (a) Landlords simply don't have time to keep going on here and they all regard the site as something of a joke anyway and (b) most staff are transients who couldn't give a monkeys about what customers think of them or the pub they work in, as long as they get paid every week.
5 Jul 2010 18:42
Well, it is truly dreadful. If Ted Doherty (the old landlord) came back now he would fire everyone. Staff presumably undergo some training but hard to imagine where. A circus I assume. Just like the White Horse at Hascombe, it should be a reminder to all landlords how easy it isto turn a good pub into a bad one.
5 Jul 2010 18:29
The Stag on the River, Eashing
Everything pretty good but the menu is a bit confused. Excellent TEA.
5 Jul 2010 18:23
Very well run pub with good atmosphere. If you like thin & crispy pizzas, theirs are unbeatable. Not much of a garden so definitely more winter than summer pub.
5 Jul 2010 18:20
The Plough, Cobham
Chic refurb but so disappointing - a classic example of substance over style Bar is like a wine bar - no bar towels and pints served on napkins but still peopled by tracksuited yoof and estate agents like it was a proper pub. Staff friendly enough. The dining room looks great but they try to hide the direness of the food with fancy presentation. Mrs X had burger (burnt in a rock solid bun) on a board with mayo (in a miniature brass saucepan) and chips (in a bucket). It was more like a visit to Robert Dyas than a meal. I had fish pie, served in a 4" skillett for �13. We both has starters but by the end of mains were still hungry. We got the dessert menu but by then we were the only people left and the staff had lost interest and were all stood chatting at the bar. We left. Wine was warm and lifeless. When the refurb of the toilets is the highlight of a visit, there is something very wrong.
28 Sep 2010 09:18