Merry Monk in East Staffordshire

Had a lovely meal with my parents always friendly and welcoming place. Leah our server was very friendly and polite and helpful and food and puddings were amazing and I just wanted to apologise for the rude old ladies on the table opposite manners cost nothing. Thank you so much for a great evening

It was the worst dining experience I've ever had. 4 adults and 2 children booked in for mothers day. First we were told we'd need to sit in the bar as our table wasn't ready as customers early in the day had turned up late putting them behind. When we were then collected they got our booking name wrong. Minor things but as the rest of the afternoon deteriorated is worth pointing all the issues we had out.The waitress was great, thank goodness. The management should take a look at what good customer service is with their junior staff.Then the problems began. Every course was late, really late. Our whole meal, as we stuck it out, took 3 1/2hrs.We were only spoken to each time we complained that things were taking too long. Once told we were next but the meals still didn't come. Next course we were told 4 big tables were ahead of us which was unbelievable as we'd been there so long at this point. Other tables started paying and leaving at this point. I had to go and tell them to take our main plates so that the dessert was requested as we'd been neglected again.We were then informed one of our desserts wasn't available now when it had been when we'd ordered 2 hours before.Another desert was not what was ordered but by this point we were exhausted by the whole experience to even say anything.All afternoon one person was trying to deal with the issues but the manager on shift ignored anyone with a complaint.When we went to pay the bill was wrong as the set menu had been split in to two courses and the starter separately. This made the price £2 more expensive than on the menu.When I raised this and to get the discount of 25% we'd been given adjusted the women at the till started arguing with me before realising I was correct.Members of our party then sought out to speak to the manager. From what I've been told he was blaming his staff, was rude about the whole situation and inflamed everything more.This was mothers day, one I won't forget in a hurry but not because of this awful excuse of a restaurant but because my children were amazing through the whole thing, as a family we remained calm and polite throughout.We were one of at least 4 that left disgraced by the service and having told others, this isn't isolated to one bad service.You need to sort your management out

My partner and I took her two children here on Saturday. It was very busy, so service was understandably slow. Due to an upcoming revamp of the kids' menu, they didn't have half of what the girls wanted, which we weren't made aware of until after we'd ordered. My main gripes were that they completely failed to make the changes that my partner asked to be made to her burger (removal of sauce and salad), and that the bacon on my chicken burger wasn't even approaching crispy, despite what the menu claimed. When I asked a waiter about this, he said "That's how we always make it", leading me to tell him that the menu shouldn't advertise that the bacon is crispy when it's in fact floppy and undercooked. Also, the waiting staff got one of our drinks orders wrong, so we had to send back not only the drinks to be replaced, but our two adult meals which we decided not to have redone, and my partner and I instead went home hungry.The only real plus point was that one of the four waiting staff who served us was very friendly, polite, and genuinely apologetic for the restaurant's failings, and he rightly took the cost of our two adult meals off the bill. The other three were unapologetic and we found them to be unfriendly. Being busy is no excuse for bad manners in the restaurant business.It's worth noting that we have all been before on a night that wasn't a busy Saturday, and we enjoyed our meals that time and found all the staff to be professional, so we will give it the benefit of the doubt and might return to HOPEFULLY have a better experience than we had this past Saturday.

Very polite, professional young lad (server). Evidently very good at his job and is obvious he enjoys it. Whatever he gets paid, should be more! 🤩 brilliant service and food!

Food was mediocre . But we had amazing service from Ekua! She was welcoming, warming and professionally prevented. Fantastic l!

My first ever time eating at a beefeater and the place was empty! It was Tuesday afternoon but I mean..empty. Evidently this probably wasn't just the time of day and day of the week but I asked for a mixed grill and the price was roughly £16.I was expecting to be leaving half of it with that price but it was really poor comparitably speaking with other similar pubs/restaurants, the 4oz steak was practically all fat and even for a rare steak I think it was underdone, the chicken was questionable at best and the pathetic size of the mushroom and tomato was terrible! Safe to say going by this experience I won't be rushing back!....but the staff member was 100% just got the impression it was just a 9-5 with little to no care if the quality of the food that I was served and if this was the norm and not just an off day I'm disgusted!

Didn’t even want to give this place 1 star.It was a shambles from the start. This was a big family celebration for 2 big birthdays. 6 of us had send the food back because it was just terrible not edible at all. Me, my partner and son had to leave and go else where for some decent food. I would never come back to this place and would definitely not recommend it to anyone. My heavily pregnant sister who’s 18th we was celebrating was left in tears at how bad of a experience this was for everyone.

Shocking experience...We asked for a medium rare steak and medium steak, when arrived at the table both were mixed up and we recieved the wrong steaks therefore ate the wrong meal. Chicken burger pink, mac 'n' cheese like rubber and couldn't eat. We asked before-hand for 2 separate bills, only given 1 bill at the end between two families and had to sit there and try to decipher the bill.... after a long tiring day at alton towers. Not a nice experience and the food really wasn't worth the money, my avice go elsewhere!

Went for lunch yesterday as a treat. Food was lovely. Unlimited refillable triple cooked chips on offer but you don't need it. There is plenty on the plate without extras. Staff were friendly and seated us pretty much straight away. Cauliflower cheese was amazing! Steak was cooked lovely.Edit Oct 2021.... so disappointed! Food was awful this time. Limited menu and half the items not available.

I had a table of 8 booked for Saturday @ 8pm as it was my husband’s birthday. When we got there we was given a list of items they did not have on the menu. We decided to leave as lot of the items we wanted to order they did not have. We was very disappointed and wasted £45 in taxi fares.