The Crown at Mickleton in County Durham

Worst eating out experience I've ever had. Booked for The Crown's reopening after Covid on Mother's Day. Received a call to say they'd experienced a power cut and to turn up a little late - expect to eat an hour after original booking. We did this gladly, after all a power cut is not the pubs fault and we actually felt bad for them - what a stressful way to reopen! Sat in the lovely beer garden with a drink until we were shown to our table at which point the day went rapidly downhill. Inside was full to the brim packed with customers making it a noisy and stressful experience. Our starters arrived 45 minutes after being seated - this was actually an hour after the delayed eating time...2 hours after our original booking! But we weren't the only ones and it was impossible to ignore the tables around us all without food. Mains then arrived another hour and a quarter later! Disappointingly the food wasn't even that good - starters were nice but we were so hungry by this point we honestly barely paid attention, the pork was dry and incredibly salty, beef was impossible to cut, nevermind chew. There was even a piece of plastic wrapper amongst the meat on one of our plates! By this point we'd been at The Crown for 3 and a half hours and were fed up and wanted to leave so asked for our desserts to be taken away with us (as did other tables around us). Thoroughly disappointing and we all left wishing we'd stayed at home. Management did not step up to the problem and simply could've offered free/half price drinks...even bread?! as tables waited to be served. While waitresses were lovely, at no point did any staff acknowledge the wait time, almost like their original excuse of the power cut covered it. Power cut or not, The Crown clearly overbooked today and bit off more than they could chew leading to an absolute shambles of a reopening attempt.

One of my favourite places to eat. Great staff and food is always amazing.

Called in hoping for a nice meal....Unfortunately, due to covid rules they were still closed.Sign on door tells you they do food delivery and collections available from their web site.Tried to place an order only to be informed only available on fridays.And when hungry on a Wednesday not really helpful.

Absolutely fantastic restaurant quality meals to cook in your own home.The online order form is easy to complete.The hardest part is deciding which fabulous meal to order!!All food is packaged professionally, labelled clearly with the ingredients, allergen information and cooking instructions, which are very easy to follow.Thank you Andrew and your team for continuing to support the local community.

Quite expensive sunday dinner. Friendly staff. They have allocated dog areas & dog free areas.Ordered the Aberdeen Angus stew with Guinness, very nice but very very rich couldn't finish all my meal. 2 other people had Sunday lunches. Very nice and would definitely visit again.4/5 stars.

Lovely, busy pub with a great atmosphere. Fair prices and ridiculously good food. Service was friendly and prompt. Dogs and children made very welcome and well catered for...great to see child sized portions of good fresh food rather than deep fried battered stuff with beans! Attractive decor and beautiful pub garden. Really lovely lunch and would be back in a heartbeat.

This site is great!! Lovely clean quiet pitches, pub with excellent food,beer and staff and it's in Teesdale! Can't ask for any more

Friendly staff and amazing food. Nice atmosphere, I would definitely recommend.

Really nice high end pub / restaurant. Child and dog friendly but no child's menu so might not be suitable to young pallets

We have visited this eatery a couple of times and both times it has been beyond superb! The food is freshly cooked to order, nothing appears to be out of the freezer, it is clean and the service is always brilliant no matter how busy they are! It truly is a 3 course taste sensation here also, the Sunday lunch is the best in County Durham.