Hall Woodhouse - Swindon

A group of 9 of us usually choose to have Christmas day lunch at Goddard Arms, but this year we decided to try a different restaurant despite it being £20 more expensive. Unfortunately, we will not be making this mistake again. Our table was booked for 2pm but we had to wait until 2.45pm for it to be cleared. When we were finally seated, we realized that we were squeezed in between another table and a Christmas tree. The menu informed us that there was no pre-order for our table, even though we had already given our order and submitted a pre-order form via email. The waitress came back to inform us that our order had been given to another table. It was apparent that the table we were seated at was not the one we were supposed to have and they had hastily put together a makeshift table to accommodate us. The starters were mediocre and the roast turkey dinner was lacking in traditional Christmas day accompaniments like carrots, parsnips, red cabbage, and bread sauce. We had to wait at least 30 minutes between each course, and by the time dessert arrived, we were all ready to leave. We were not offered mince pies or coffee. Overall, we spent well over £1000 including drinks and felt that it was a complete waste of money. We will not be returning next Christmas.

Unfortunately, I have to say that the service was awful. It was chaotic from some staff and rude from others. Although the half-hour wait for food was tolerable, the dishes were delicious (as one would expect for the prices). When spending nearly 100 pounds on a family lunch, one desires to feel welcomed, not like a burden for showing up.

Typically, we spend Christmas at home, but this year we decided to celebrate at this restaurant. We were excited to try something new, but unfortunately, we were very disappointed with the service. Despite being told there would be a slight wait for food upon arrival, after an hour we inquired about the status of our order only to discover it hadn't even been entered into the system. This was frustrating, especially since I had personally visited the restaurant beforehand to make sure everything was ready for Christmas Day. After some prompting, we finally received our starters, but there were long gaps between courses that we had to prompt for. Despite these issues, the food was delicious and the restaurant compensated us by offering the drinks we ordered for free due to the inconvenience. However, we have decided not to return on Christmas Day in the future.

What a disaster! We arrived for Christmas Day at 1.30pm and by 2.45pm we still hadn’t had starters and our daughter was getting so hungry we had to leave without eating. I had even asked if they could at least just bring our daughter something out but nothing came. Completely ruined our Christmas Day and we weren’t the only ones. Other families also were in the same situation. Not once did anyone apologise and one particular staff member was rude when I tried to talk to them and said I’m busy and walked on by. The bar had a 30 min queue for drinks, people weren’t getting their food and the ones that were got the wrong items after 2+ hours of waiting for each course. While sitting there were queues of people waiting to be seen to their tables just being ignored, assuming because the tables they had booked were not yet clear from the previous sitting. If you can’t provide a smooth service for Christmas Day then don’t offer it.

We visited on Xmas day and whilst there were a couple of niggles the food was excellent, Mandy the waitress was lovely and the team were really lovely and accommodating. Despite the niggles we will definitely be back!