Thatchers Needle

Ruben looked after us well, he was very helpful with my needs as a gluten intolerant customer, this gave me confidence that the meal would meet my needs.

We enjoyed a family meal & we felt it was very nice but vegetables are bit sparce. Dessert was very good portions. My daughter who is wheat/gluten/dairy free could only have a pot of tea for dessert as there was no choice for her.

This is our second visit in as many months. We chose to come back for the Valentine's Set Menu based off of our first drop-in visit in January which we thoroughly enjoyed. The second reason was the value for money of the set menu. We were warmly greeted and seated just before our booking time of 6.15pm. Reuben was our server and I cannot fault him at all. He was friendly, with a sense of humour/personality and very good at what he does. He's got a disarming sort of charm that is a credit to your organisation. I can see that if ever there was a slight mess up, which is so easily done, Reuben would be able to diffuse the situation before it escalated because he is so likeable from the first second he introduces himself as your server. I'd hire him myself in a heartbeat. I heard him really quickly diffuse a query about a lady who required gluten free options in the set menu and she wasn't convinced that was what she had received (she definitely had). He was so sweet to her, asked the right questions and made her feel at ease. We had paté and pork belly to start. Both arrived in timely fashion which we appreciate. Both were lovely. A tad more of the toast would be appreciated with the paté. I hated the piccalilli but that's just personal taste so it takes nothing away, there was also quite a lot of it (you could get away with much less). The onion chutney was lovely. The pork belly was fab. Mains. My husband had the chicken and demolished it. I tried a bit and it was perfectly done. I had the pie and it was perfectly cooked, piping hot through. Sides were nice for both and a really decent portion. We both had the sticky toffee pudding and ice-cream. The ice-cream is really nice. Liked the sticky toffee although I'd probably call it a sponge rather than a pudding. Just a caveat to say anything I've mentioned that may seem slightly negative is not meant to be that at all, it's just feedback, more so for head office because I understand that a lot of the components I've brought up are not produced by the kitchen themselves. We genuinely had a fantastic meal and would absolutely come back again based on how well everything was cooked, the service we received and value for money. Interesting that food run is carried out by someone in chef whites (which were very clean to be fair). This has been the case both times we have been in this year. I'm sure there is a thought process behind this although I'm not sure it translates. It sort of feels like the front of house are too pushed to do the food run and have to 'tag in' the kitchen. And FOH definitely didn't give the impression they were flat out and stressed, they all had a lovely demeanour and seemed super happy to be doing their jobs. It was lovely to see. Lovely touches were that the fire was well attended and roaring. The little valentine chocolates were a sweet extra. The displays in the whole site were lovely and full. Beer was good and in branded glasses. The seating looked really well planned, we had other diners in our server's area which is always nice. I think you definitely deserve more bookings than there were. And I absolutely LOVE that there were dogs allowed. Put a little dog menu on and capitalise on that, even if you ask at the point of booking and have to enforce a dog area to not offend others (people with no soul 😂). I know that's tricky. It was obvious there are some 'regulars' who are fond of the staff which is lovely. We are a couple that love a quick dining service and hate to be waiting around. We were never tapping our watches or wondering where our food/drinks were. It was really prompt which we massively appreciate. However if we were people that wanted to take more time, we definitely got the feeling that it would have been ok to do that. We never felt like anyone was being rushed.