The Crown, Broxbourne

We cycle the Lee Valley River often, and have gone to The Crown several times now, though I am less inclined to go every time we do. The surroundings themselves are beautiful, and location great, but everything else is a real let-down, and were the pub not on the river itself we would never go. The sign for the pub, with letters hanging crooked on the side of the building, is indicative of the food/service - in fact this place would be perfect for a Gordon Ramsey Kitchen Nightmare episode, but to start 1) the place itself needs a proper clean and repaint, with rubbish littering the 'garden without much grass', the toilets reek of urine, and seating is often dirty/dusty 2) while service is generally friendly, you get the feeling everyone 'just works there' and the service shows - last Saturday, everyone was told food would take 45 minutes, which is twice as long as it would take in any restaurant in London, and the place really wasn't even full so NO excuse to take 45 minutes for such a simple menu - plus I watched a group of 20+ be told 'It'll be well over an hour for a group your size' and essentially encouraged to find someplace else to go, even though there was room to seat them 3) the food at the best of days is 'average', and yesterday was well below - the Shephards Pie was ok, but the peas resembled dried peas, the carrots looked as if they'd grown some form of shrivelled white fur, and the chips were stale stale stale. I asked for 'fresh' replacements, which the waitress happily did - replacing them with more of the SAME! Yet amidst it all, wait-staff had more than enough time to serve as official 'sauce' stewards for every-table - is it REALLY necessary to carry a tray full of sauce to every table, waiting and dutifully watching the customer spoon sauce with an infinitesimal spoon, to ensure they don't consume too much . . . . ketchup? Surely the wait-staff time could be utilised better? It's a great location and setting, and could be fantastic (in fact the garden has space for at least another 15 tables) - IF ONLY the place was run properly instead of turning away customers, and giving those who do come in 'jobsworth' service! As we will continue to cycle the Lee River, it would be great to see an improvement, but will be some time before we give The Crown another chance.

11 Apr 2010 16:53