The Swan Hotel, Stafford

"Disappointing visit"

Dear management,

I wanted to contact you following our visit today to celebrate my partners birthday. We had a large party (14 guests) and chose to dine at The Swan following it’s excellent reputation. Unfortunately, we left feeling dissatisfied following a number of issues highlighted below:

1. Our booking was 1.30-3.30 however we were still at our table and waiting for the bill at 4.45pm due to very slow service (I completely understand that serving 14 people would mean a slight delay, however, didn’t expect this amount of time for a 1 course meal).

2. Although the waitress was pleasant, we were rarely asked if anyone wanted any further drinks during the 3.5 hours and ended up going up separately to the bar despite opening a tab at our table for drinks.

3. Whilst the beef roast was delicious, 4 other guests had the lamb ‘roast of the day’ and all 4 left large portions because the meat was full of fat and inedible in places, leaving one of our party feeling quite sick. Nobody came to check that the meals were ok and when the plates were collected we told the deputy manager that the lamb was poor and the nut roast was also extremely dry, however, received nothing other than a ‘sorry about that’. Perhaps if this was taken a little more seriously by the team, we would have felt a little better?

4. When receiving our bill, the deposit of £140 was not taken off which meant we had to go back up to the waiter to query. Once this was rectified we then realised that the ‘free child’s meal’ was also not added to our bill which meant we had to go up for a second time to query this, further extending our visit unnecessarily. When we spoke to another deputy manager at the bar, he was happy to add the free child’s meal but said ‘it’s taken it down by a little bit’. Regardless of how much it had taken off, if it is advertised, it should be done without question.

When bringing a large party together for food to celebrate a birthday in a venue so highly regarded it is unfortunate that many of our party have left feeling that they won’t return to The Swan for a meal in the future due to the poor service received. We had a number of establishments in mind for this family gathering but chose The Swan specifically. Today’s service was below the standard we expected.

Whilst we are not usually one to complain and would prefer to just get on with things, I felt that it should be raised with your management team to avoid future disappointment with future guests and to ensure that you are able to continue to provide a high standard of service and therefore felt that this feedback was necessary.

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