The Queens, Stoke Pound

The Queens Head in Stoke Pound has always been a favourite of my family because of its attentive and professional staff, wonderful customer service, excellent food and superb attention to detail. There has been a recent change of management and sadly a change of standards. I�m sorry to say the latest evening was a series of unfortunate experiences and customer service bordering on offensive.

We arrived to an empty premise to finally be greeted by a member of bar staff who was not aware of our arrival despite having booked the evening before. The restaurant serves food from 2 menus, only one of which was given to us when we were seated and there was no kids menu for evening meals.

Soon after being seated a woman arrived to clear our unwanted wine glasses and engage us in general chit-chat. I can only assume this person was a member of the management as she wasn�t wearing a uniform and no introduction was given. Upon removing the last wine glass, she knocked my fresh pint of lager, managing to spill half of it all over my wife and 4-month-old son who happened to be breast feeding at the time.

The woman firstly apologised by saying, �she'd had too much to drink�, then disappeared to collect clean cutlery, leaving me and my sister-in-law to clean up with napkins. It was only upon her return that we were moved to another table. To add insult to dampness, my pint was replaced (only at my request) with a half (because after all, only half of it was spilt remember!)

Were we offered a decent apology, or maybe complimentary deserts, free drinks or even a discount from our bill? No, nothing at all. We simply finished our main courses and left so my wife could change her beer stained clothes and bath her beer soaked baby.

It was pitifully obvious that the new management are inexperienced and lack any real understanding of the hospitality business or even common decency for that matter. The replacement of my pint with a half and the refusal to offer even the smallest of incentives saved them a few quid but very sadly ended our 5-year love affair with the Queen�s Head and guaranteed we will never visit again.

30 May 2011 22:51