The Jovial Sailor, Ripley

Just had an awful experience in this pub.

Been going to this pub for years. After todays experience i will never be going back.

Went there with some friends at 12:30 on the 25/08/2008 and had a shared starter and 4 main dishes. The server was a little patronizing ( i believe he was the manager), but as i had had good experiences in the past we went along with it. The starter was good and taste (antipasti) which we shared. However one of our drinks had a hair in it, but that could of been from one of us at the table so we removed it and moved on.

Then we had the mains, a fish of the day which was fine, a bangers and mash which was very small and a burger which was as you would expect. The problem came with the mixed grill ordered. In this selection of foods a large black curly hair was found encrusted in one of the sausages and had been cooked into it. To be honest it looked like a pubic hair. There was no way this had come from one of us at the table.

Obviously we took this dish to the bar almost uneaten and it was sent back to the kitchen. Moments later the patronizing (believed to be manager) came out to ask what we wanted to do. No apology was given and we were treated like we had added the hair to the food. There was certainly an antagonistic attitude by him towards us. My friend had been put off his food as had all of us and wanted to ascertain where the hair had come from. He wanted to know if any of the staff had head hair that resembled this in the kitchen. A question was asked as to whether any of the staff were black not with any racial motivation but purely to explain whether the hair was a head hair in which case further food would be ordered or if it was as feared a pubic hair. Now maybe we did not explain our point well enough here, but the manager took offense. Moments later we were asked to leave however they wanted us to pay for our food even though we had not finished our main dishes. We stated that if we were allowed to stay we would pay for our food, but if they wanted us to leave we would not. They wanted us to leave immediately and an argument ensued.

We were insulted and treated with very little respect by the pub. They treated us as if it was our fault and the manager was very antagonistic. Rather than arguing further we decided to leave after the manager agreed that we were not going to pay for our meal which quite frankly at this point we felt was an insult. I had eaten less than 20% of my meal and they wanted me to pay for that.

So there you have it not the most savory of reviews. What could of been dealt with in a polite manner was turned into a major problem resulting in a bit of a scene. As a business owner myself if a member of my staff had treated a customer like that they would not be working for me very long.

To summarize the staff attitude was poor and in a difficult situation they treated the customer as being in the wrong. When a hair is found in food it is not a customer who is at fault especially when it's baked into the food and made the worse for being a pubic hair. Then being asked to leave and pay is just unacceptable.

Tomorrow i will be informing environmental health about the pub's food hygeine.

25 Aug 2008 14:08