Smugglers Inn, Osmington Mills

We visited on a sunny Sunday afternoon in August. It is in a wonderful location and was outwardly catering for all age groups. The staff were cheerful and helpful but thats where it ends. There was a queue out of one of the front entrances for service at the bar and there was a queue out of the other front door to the food counter. It took half an hour to get to the bar to order our drinks. We there found only 2 staff behind the bar who were working extremely hard but unable to make a dent in the never ending queue. Having got our drinks we had a momentary sip before joining the equally long queue for the food. Imagine our dismay when we were informed after another half hour wait that a number of dishes on the very limited menu were off because they were sold out. We then returned to our warm drinks on our table to await the food. The wait time from the time of order to arrival was acceptable but we found the food very average. Whilst I am not a regular here I have visited a number of times over the years and have never experienced this kind of appauling service. I wonder what will happen when the captive audience of holiday makers have gone home. Yes it was a sunny day in August. Yes there were lots of people wanting serving so a wait was pretty much inevitable but not to these lengths. The simple matter was they had insufficient staff to cope and whoever does the ordering should be more capable of fulfilling the needs of their customers. One would presume someone was sent shopping to cater for the evening patrons! Surroundings good, facilities good, range of beers good, the young staff good. Management poor.

5 Aug 2007 23:28