The Why Not Inn

Since we moved house to live locally in February have been to the Why Not Inn 11 times. Every time the food has been excellent, the staff attentive and friendly and the atmosphere great. We booked for the Christmas dinner menu with our friends on Saturday after telling them how wonderful it was… wish we hadn’t bothered now! … we were shown to our table and a young man said would we like a drink … but we hadn’t got a drinks menu. He went and got one .. so we asked about cocktails, and he said he would have to bring us a cocktail menu… which he did… so we ordered our drinks : 3 cocktails and a cider. Our starters had arrived with the cider, and after we had finished we still hadn’t had the 3 cocktails. We hadn’t seen any staff either. The Ham Hock Terrine was vile… really grainy and gristly and hard to eat. Poor quality. When the waiter collected the plates we said we had only had one out of the four drinks. The waiter chased it up. Our cocktails finally arrived . We all had the turkey dinner option … and it was utterly disappointing. It took ages to arrive. The turkey was gristly and full of cartilage, and pretty tasteless. The meagre vegetables were hiding under the meat, tiny amount of carrot and three tiny sprouts on my plate along with two half roast potatoes and not much gravy. We were waiting for separate bowls of maybe cabbage, parsnips, green beans, cauliflower cheese etc, but no, the four child’s portions were all we had. I asked for some mint sauce and they brought a tiny pot of mint jelly (not the same thing). We were finding it hard to get the attention of any waiting staff… they were quite happy chatting at the bar but getting their attention was impossible. We had to keep calling out when they were whizzing past to get any assistance. We asked to order more drinks and this time ordered two more cocktails and a dark rum and coke. Drinks took some time again, so we chased up again with a passing waiter. When the drinks arrived, the waitress put them all down on the table alongside us. She said “one Bacardi and Coke “ and we said no, we ordered a dark rum and coke. So she walked off with the Bacardi and left the cocktails on the other table. Finally she arrived back with the proper drink and then gave us the cocktails. ! For dessert, which again took ages to arrive, we had three Christmas puddings with custard and. “Black Forest cheesecake” …. The Christmas puddings: each bowl came with two tiny catering flat puddings (like medallions), one on top of the other, with a teaspoon of custard around the edge. The puddings were compact and hard to swalllow. We asked if there was any more custard and were told chef said he would make some in 5 minutes but they were going cold already so we said to leave it. We left the puddings also. The “Black Forest cheesecake” (which gives you images of an indulgent dark cherries and chocolate cheesecake dessert) was actually a standard catering stock berries cheesecake, again pretty bland and nothing to do with Black Forest at all. By that time we had had enough, waiting all evening, being ignored, poor overall service and dreadful poor quality food. We were so embarrassed. The staff on duty were all very young and it seemed overwhelmed … not that it was that busy for half the night. It wasn’t really their fault. Looks like a lack of training and experience, thrown in the deep end. The management clearly underestimated the resources and experience needed for a Christmas dinner menu, even though it should be easier when you have most of the diners preordering and eating off the same menu. So after recommending The Why Not regularly to family and friends since February, we really do feel disappointed and would not recommend their Christmas dinner menu. It was shambolic and poor value. We were offered reduction in the bill, but it was a poor night. We did tip one young man who was trying his best but didn’t have much support. Dreadful .

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We have had some good experiences at this venue in the past but we were disappointed on this occasion. Poor and inattentive service, lukewarm food and uninspiring roast dinner with meagre veg. The staff seemed uninterested, didn’t check how we were getting on. Didn’t have any knowledge or information about menu choices and our waitress managed to get a pot of tea order wrong. It’s a shame as we were thinking of booking for Christmas but don’t think we will be returning any time soon.

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We visited on Sunday and were welcomed warmly with our dog. Had a lovely seat by the fire and enjoyed a couple of drinks and some Sunday roast snacks. The team on were all really friendly and our dog got a few treats and a big fuss. Service was quick and efficient. Would definitely recommend.

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Lovely meal today with Family. Beautiful food and excellent service, would definitely recommend, and will be back soon.

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Just beautiful platters great presentation and great value. Lovely service. Absolutely gorgeous.

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