The Buck Inn, Malham

Expensive and poorly run pub.
We were charged �3.35 for a pint of local (Wensleydale) ale that was slightly 'off', at an under-staffed bar. When we received the bill for a 32-strong group booking in the restaurant area, the landlady told us that we could not have an itemised bill! She also said that she wanted the total in cash, and that nobody should pay by card! [The pub ins in the middle f nowheer: Malham village has no cash machine.]
We had to work out the bill ourselves, and even when we put in cash totalling �60 above the total for the food items, the landlady continued to take umbrage!
The sweets we had couldn't quite decide if they were nouvelle cuisine or not judging by their very small portion sizes, and the 'chips' with the meals were not chips but fries, and they were cooked in something that made them very greasy and soggy, leading to several of us leaving them as uneatable.
The rabbit pie came in one of those dread oval pots used to disguise the absence of meat under a ludicrously fluffy puff pasty (95% air), but I must say that the rabbit meat was plentiful and very tasty, so they did get that right.
This saving grace aside, the shortfalls regarding the meals were made worse with the meal prices being hardly less unreasonable than the beer prices.
Overall, the Buck Inn is an example of a pub that milks tourists and just doesn't care, that could do with someone who knows how to run it. I should think a college in nearby Skipton offers a NVQ course in hospitality/catering, to which the licensees might do well to apply.

25 May 2011 16:07

The Navigation Inn, Wakefield

Very poor value for money.
Only one draft ale was on offer -- the all too bog-standard Black Sheep -- for which we were charged �3.25 a pint.
A supposed large Yorkshire pudding and beef consisted of two standard (small) Yorkshire puddings, a small amount of beef completely drowned in thick -- obviously reheated -- gravy, and a handful of chips. There was no veg of any kind; not even a salad garnish.
For this we were charged �6.95.
Few pubs in Yorkshire are as over-priced and low quality as this.
Evidently the pub survives simply on its canal-side location.

25 May 2011 09:10

The Old Queens Head, Sheffield

Saturday March 7, 2009, afternoon.
There was no decent beer on offer. This pub serves a range of Thwaites beers, which are insipid to poor, and can't begin to compare to the range of micro-brewed beers available across Sheffield, re taste, quality and price.
Much worse though, the landlord was rude -- repeatedly rude if not nasty and even aggressive -- and this despite the landlady cajoling him to be civil; and I recall he'd been not dissimilar when I'd encountered him a long while back. The landlady took over serving me, but I said that I was no longer prepared to buy anything from the pub given the landlord's demeanour.
I was with a group of friends, so I didn't react to the landlord's unpleasantness, but I'll make sure we never go in this place ever again.
The pub seemed to have a few town soaks just to finish the experience off.

7 Mar 2009 18:01