A pub boss has admitted that his staff gave it their "best shot" to provide Christmas Day meals despite Covid absentees after a stinging review.
Pendle Inn, in Barley, is a village pub at the foot of Pendle Hill surrounded by picturesque village views and is rated the top eatery in the area, with 4.5 stars from 594 reviews.
It is used to good comments with 338 of Pendle Inn's reviews rating the pub as 'excellent' with several guests calling it a "great" pub with a "friendly" atmosphere.
But one guest has left a scathing review calling the experience "shambolic" reported LancsLive.
They say: "Well where do I start, my family and I came here on Christmas Day and it was the most shambolic experience I’ve ever had at a meal.
"I’m surprised there are not more terrible reviews given that half the tables there left before dessert and many were asking for refunds.
"At £65 a head you’d expect good food and good service, the food was good, but the service was so disorganised. Some people didn’t even have tables when they arrived. Each course took around an hour or more to be served and cleared. A four course meal took four and a quarter hours. People were starving and complaining.
"The upper level staff seemed very dismissive of this fact and did not have any answers when it came to people leaving and wanted refunds, their comments were along the lines of 'we weren’t expecting it to be so busy', which begs the question, why take on more than you can handle? Why was there no organisation at all?"
They added: "Safe to say, we won’t be returning!"
The general manager of the pub, Stuart, took the criticism on the chin, responding just a few hours later.
"Thank you for taking the time to review your visit to us and on this occasion we are disappointed it isn't a more positive one," he said.
"First thing I would like to do is apologise for the experience you had to which we offer our sincere apologies for as we accept it wasn't good enough."
Stuart continued: "I would however like to thank the staff for there efforts at least, which didn't get mentioned by anybody on the day as they had all given up their Christmas Day with their families to try and offer you all a good service. We accept we had taken too many bookings and that things took way longer than they should have done.
"We were unfortunately five members of staff down on this day due to a mixture of illness and COVID so that massively took its toll on our team but instead of cancelling the day which would have been the easiest option we decided to go ahead with it and give it our best shot."
Stuart added that the Pendle Inn holds its hands up when it "fall shorts".
He said: "We will always hold our hands on when we fall short and on this day we fell short of our own high standards and to that we cant apologise to people enough. The people in the senior roles run services like this every weekend, so I still believe they are the right people for the jobs it was just the simple fact they were understaffed throughout the team on this day.
"Once again I hope this wont put you off coming back to us in the future, as you mentioned at the top of the piece that the food was good so that is one crumb of positivity we can take moving forward. Please accept our apologies for this experience. Best Wishes, Stuart and the team."
Other recent posts have been far more positive.
Just last Thursday (January 6) one guest, user X6443OIjasonw , reviewed the pub saying it is a "great pub with great beers and food and great staff."
They wrote: "The food was excellent and well presented I can't fault it. The staff where very friendly and helpful. I shall definitely recommend The Pendle Inn to family and friends."
