The Elephant and Castle, Amersham

Today taught me a valuable lesson in why people often leave detailed reviews as a place you go to eat can be fantastic but let down by such a minor detail which makes you so upset you can do nothing but vent your frustration. I hope "The Elephant & Castle" in Amersham will at least read this and utilise feedback to ensure they make the required improvements as the manageress on this day seemed to struggle to understand that sometimes people are not entirely happy.

I will admit immediately, having only moved to the area 9 months ago, we loved the initial atmosphere as we were welcomed in with our dogs by a gent who clearly played a major part in the running of this pub but on this occasion was sat the other side of the bar enjoying a Sunday pint. We even enjoyed the food though cold... when it arrived.

It's been two years since I left the Gastro-pub industry but this haunt showed potential and we fell in love with the outdoor booths and cosy cushions.

We sat and had a drink and decided to order food, at the time only 3 tables both in and outside eating and 4 staff including the manageress working front-of-house.

Overlooking the fact my husband had to write the order out himself for the lad behind the bar, we ordered 4 meals, one roast without cauliflower cheese (my father in law is lactose intolerant) and noted in the menu that as the food was cooked to order may have to wait 10 minutes longer than usual - no problem.

55 minutes later we were still without food and no one had either brought out cutlery or even bothered to apologise for the delay. We had also noticed several other tables appearing to have issues including one inside who had received another table's food. Eventually 3 out of 4 meals appeared, no cutlery, no napkins, no jugs of gravy as the menu states and were told the chef had "made a mistake" with mine and was replating. We waited expectantly another 5 minutes (still no cutlery) food getting cold before I went and approached the manageress (long brown hair dressed in green dress that day) who was clearly stressed and I was told that I was rude and it would be out and that it was our own fault for choosing to sit in the garden and that they had been flooded and just reopened- no apology. I mentioned it would have been nice to have had someone pop out to explain the circumstances - we're human, we'd understand but she turned and walked away. I stayed where I was and on her return suggested as recompense she add some kind of the discount to the bill (paid on order) of which she grunted her response.

I went back to my table completely shocked by her unprofessional attitude.

At the end of the meal my husband went to collect his refund ( my meal being taken off) and was accused by the manageress of only paying for 3 meals in the first place, hence the reason why only 3 came out. £51 for 3 meals? - well maybe you bought drinks too? - the manageress said. She checked the till system for previous transactions, refusing to listen to us offer help in giving her initial transaction times or even to add up the cost of the food manually and finally gave us the refund once she had put an end to her doubts that we were taking her for a ride, then publicly blaming the young lad by her side as he was new.

My husband gently reiterated our thoughts of the importance of communication to customers where we were told to get and and not come back. Don't worry, we won't!

16 Jun 2014 17:31