Percy Arms, Chilworthback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Attended a community meeting here recently. We were sent away from the main area to an out-of-sight room. Expensive - the locals call it the Pricey Arms. The decor is a mixture of grey and muddy brown, with "moody" greyscale photographs of African savannah. I've also heard it called the Botswana Arms. Furnishings modern and ugly. Ordered a whisky at the end of the night - the beautiful Macallan - stupid girl behind the bar immediately dunked a load of barely-frozen ice in it before I could stop her. It had thawed completely within a minute, completely diluting that wonderful malt. Service, such as it was, was inattentive and unfriendly. Not impressed. Much better pubs in this part of the world - the Onslow at Cranleigh, albeit part of a smallish national pubco, is in a different league. The Jolly Farmers at Bramley is also good. This pub, in its present form, deserves to fail. The sooner it goes bust, the better - maybe someone can then take it on, rename it to escape its awful reputation and make a go of it. As it is, it's going only one way - although the restaurant area looked moderately busy on what was a December week-night. Not sure I'd want to eat there, given its poor hygiene score!
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I see the rating for this pub is more than they got for their food and hygiene by the local council.
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This is the only pub within the vacinity that I could find that has a low ie 2 (out of 5) food hygiene rating on the scores on the doors website. Also the bar staff can be very annoying by ignoring you at the bar, oddly enough especially when it is quiet, more important it would appear to fill the dishwasher or collect glasses, even after acknowledging you when you arrive, I find this very strange and very very irritating. It is a messy place, the tea towels they use to wipe the bar and anything else they can find to wipe are filthy. I have walked out on several occasions due to lack of service. I have eaten here in the past and the steak was really good but would not recommend it due to the other issues especially the hygiene standards at the bar. It is quite up its own ar$e but I really cannot think why, the guy who runs the place is really arrogant and on a few occasions when I have been in, he is very rude to his staff, it doesn't appear to bother him being rude in front of customers.
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We used to go to the Percy Arms quite regularly as we live within a couple of miles of it and it USED to be a great place to go. Something has gone terribly wrong! We have been twice in the last 3 weeks, the first time it was pretty poor - over an hour for food, over 20 minutes to get kids icecream out of the freezer, and today, well close to terrible, it's a real shame as it used to be so good!?
After a conciderable wait I ordered drinks at the bar which the barman made and walked off, I thought he had gone to ring it in on the till, after a couple of minutes I noticed he was serving someone else at the other end of the bar! After another considerable wait he returned and ask what he could get me, err give me the drinks you poured 5 minutes ago and left on the other end of the bar, 'oh did i leave them there', no apology, nothing! We were sat in the garden with a group of friends and remembering the food was a bit slow last time I ordered food for myself and my daughter, 2 burgers, 1 being a kids one. not that hard to mess up you'd think but oh how wrong was I. My daughters burger arrived within a reasonable time, I cut it in half for her to eat and it was very pink in the middle, I wouldn't of wanted to eat it and I certainly wasn't going to give it to my 4 year old so I promptly returned it. A new one came back 5 minutes later which was cooked this time but mine still hadn't arrived so I asked where mine was and I was told to get it from the barbecue? No one had mentioned that to me, if I'd not asked would I of just sat there all afternoon waiting for it??? I went to the barbecue and surprise no burger! Some excuse about 'the system crashed' (what some cut the string between the cans from the kitchen to the bar!) eventually a burger was ready and all was well, for me at least. The other members of the group had the same difficulties, half the order coming out, two of the burgers for my friends children were raw in the middle, not just pink, blood dripping red raw - COME ON IT'S A CHILD'S BURGER, I'd like to know if they'd serve it to their children ! A chef came out (was probably made to come out) no apology he just offered a steak sandwich!!!?
Like I said at the start of this... It USED to be a good place, but now I'm affaid wild horses will have difficulty dragging me in there again!
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4/10 is overrated for this place.
The plus points Mmmmm only 2 the car park being large and the garden,then it goes downhill quickly, food below average, wine very expensive and beer just cloudy and off.
Someone told me to look on the `scores on the doors` webpage for their rating, interesting reading.
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Oh dear, I don't think we'll be returning to this pub. I was optimistic about it despite previous bad reviews. From our experience, don't visit this place on a sunny weekend afternoon for food, the standard of service was appalling.
Admittedly we went on a Bank Holiday afternoon but I probably naively assumed that as the good weather had been forecast at least a week in advance the pub would have organised extra staff to cope with demand.
The staff behind the bar were disorganised and couldn't cope with the number of customers. The South African man behind the bar, who may have been one of the owners was just adding to the problems by sending staff away from the bar to get things when they should have been serving. The drink prices were quite high too £2.20 for a pint of lime and soda is taking the mick a bit.
We struggled to order food as they had not bothered to collect menus back in. On top of which, for food orders out in the garden they have a numbered spoon system but they had run out of spoons and were complaining that customers weren't bringing them back....hello, it's not rocket science....take the food out, bring the spoon back...a child could handle that concept.
Once we did order food (at 15:15) it took over an hour to come out. My Husband tried to chase the food up twice and the second time one of the women serving just shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know, they just brought the food out when they were given it....no offer to go and find out where it was!
When they did bring out food, common sense would suggest that they call out the food order number so that they could take it straight to you but no, they seemed to have this odd system of wandering about the garden (whilst the food got cold) trying to peer at the numbers on the spoons, it would have been funny if we weren't so hungry.
The food when it did finally arrive was ok but nothing to rave about and certainly not worth the excessive wait. Possibly if you visited this place on a regular weekend evening and sat inside you may fair better with service. Unfortunately sat out the huge garden, there was definitely a feeling of out of sight, out of mind. It also looked as though the garden was a definite money grabbing exercise. The number of tables they had in the garden were far too many for the staff to cope with.
Unfortunately they are probably making so much money on the overpriced drinks, they owners aren't bothered about unhappy customers or training their staff in any basic standard of customer service!
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A reasonable pub to stop off at in Chilworth. Did not eat but the beer seemed of reasonable quality, although the staff were somewhat slow. Inside is your typical modern design but very specious, outside is a wide choice of sitting areas in the summer months with some views of the nearby contryside and St Marthers Hill
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I can't comment on the experience for groups of diners, alecstewart, but I popped in on my own for a beer and a one course cooked meal in the bar area, and that was certainly very acceptable. Friendly service too.
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Was truly dismal last time I went and hiding the comments away won't change that.
Interested to see if things have improved but not willing to risk it myself.
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7 of us (+a baby) went to The Percy Arms at 2.15pm on Saturday in search of food, we were seated quickly - the staff were friendly and seating was comfortable with plenty of space.
We ordered... most of the group chose burgers. 25 minutes after ordering maybe, just as we were getting to the "Where is our food" conversation around the table we were informed that there was _no bacon_ for the burgers.. BUT were asked if we would mind the 10 minute extra wait while they went to the shop to get some more. A good solution that everyone was happy with.
The food did arrive shortly after and everyone enjoyed their choices, all dishes were devoured entirely.
The only detriment to the experience was around 3.30pm when we wanted to pay and leave; almost all the staff had disappeared (as had most of the customers I suppose). I and another patron at another table had to go to the bar to pay the bill. A very minor inconvenience but could be improved.
We would return again and would be confident to take friends.
drsox - 30 Dec 2012 12:45 |
Where have all the comments gone,managment didn`t like them is my guess.
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Closed my arse,if so how did I have a awful pint of GK bitter in here yesterday.
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