Houghton Arms

Called in for Sunday lunch and was not dissapointed. Roast dinner was great with lashings of gravy. Plenty of meat, in fact we have taken some home for tomorrow's lunch. Landlord and staff very friendly. We will call again.

Lovely place, great service but just average food. The pies were good but not great, I had the cheese, leek and potatoe and it lacked flavour, the cabbage was dry, chips good and the desserts very rich

Dined here in June. Enjoyed. Reasonable priced food ordered from the set price lunchtime menu and service was great. However, was overcharged on our bill. Please see my previous review. A phone call confirmed this would be reimbursed if we visited again plus we had a voucher offering £10 off if you spent £40 or more so we went back on a Thursday afternoon late July. Unfortunately this visit was in no way comparable to the first. Thought it was very expensive and service very poor. Ordered 2 pints of Estella lager. Gone up 25 pence a pint from our previous visit. Also ordered a bottle of Rioja at £21.75. No problem with that as that’s what you can expect to pay in most places for a bottle of wine. Ordered starter of squid with chilli’s. Mains of burger with side order of onion rings and a mixed grill. The wine arrived already uncorked and with 2 dirty glasses. Previously I would have sent this back. Wine should be uncorked at the table, this was not a screw top bottle. The customer should be allowed to check if it’s not corked. But probably lucky it came this way as the glasses were dirty. I had raised this on my last visit. My view is that the glasses are cleaned but either heat dried or drip dried not wiped clean. This leaves marks. We cleaned them with our napkins. But not a good start. The wine however was excellent. Starter came. Brought by a different server. Reasonable flavour and chillis good and hot but, for the price, £6.50, I though the portion was small. I moved the finished dish to the side where it stayed for the rest of our visit. No attempt made to remove it. Mains came. My brother had specifically asked for a hard yolk on his egg. The egg was soft. He sent it back. I had the burger. I had ordered onion rings which, if ordered with the burger, were £1.50. I asked the waitress about my side order. She explained they were on top of the burger. They consisted on one onion ring and two wanna be rings who hoped to be onion rings when they grew up. I know £1.50 isn’t much but I would rather pay more and get a decent portion. I began to eat mine. The burger was bland. Like the fries I would assume frozen. Certainly not home made. The only flavour came from the bacon and cheese. My brothers mixed grill arrived along with a container with various sauces and condiments in it. Might have been nicer to bring this before the mains were served so both of us could have used it if we had wanted not wait until I had nearly finished. My brother said the sausage and gammon were tasty but the steak was tough. But you don’t normally expect to get the best steak on a mixed grill. Meals finished and plates finally taken away. No one bothering to come over and ask if everything was alright and no dessert menu offered. The place was not busy. It must have been a good ten minutes after before we were asked if we wanted dessert. I think 6 items on the dessert menu but we were immediately told two items were unavailable. We decided not to bother. Went to pay the bill. Luckily we had the discount voucher and some money back from previously being over charged as the final bill without this discount would, in my opinion have been exorbitant. Just a fraction short of £70. Unlike our last visit I am sorry to say this was just not good value for money. And the service, which previously had been friendly and attentive, was anything of the sort this time. I don’t like to give low marks but feel I have no option after this visit. We won’t be returning. My advice if you do go is eat from the fixed price menu and hope you pick a day and time when the staff on duty have better customer service skills. Unfortunately adding this review has deleted my previous review when we visited in June. That's unfortunate as I gave four stars then despite the issue with the bill. The discount for the three course set lunch had not been applied. I have put the pictures on from the first visit showing the three and two course set lunch we had.

The staff were pleasant and the atmosphere was really relaxed. Meal was lovely and was nice and hot. We didn't have to wait long for food to arrive from ordering. Will definitely visit again soon with friends and family.

A very enjoyable experience all round. Well cooked, hot food, excellent customer service. The pub might wish to consider extending the range of meals available on its fixed price 2 and 3 course menu.

The pub was quite busy with people drinking at the bar. The menu was limited as it was due to be changed so quite a number of dishes not available. The staff were lovely and worked hard to make up for the shortfall in the menu and also when our food was not hot. We will go again when they have a new menu and hopefully have a 4/5 star experience.

We met up with friends for lunch before going onto a hotel for a wedding evening reception. We had to wait a short while waiting for other friends to arrive. At no time did we feel rushed, the staff were absolutely friendly and lovely. The food and service was excellent!

Nice early Christmas dinner. Veg was a little hard, but otherwise really enjoyed it. The dessert of apple and pear crumble was delicious! Nice service. Thank you.

I have been coming to Hoghton Arms for years, and it is probably one of my absolute fave pubs, forever recommending to friends and family. To say I’m appalled from the display I saw tonight would be an understatement. The poor waitresses seemed absolutely run ragged, I was getting dizzy watching the poor girls trying to give the best possible customer experience they could. The manager, and I’ll use that term loosely here, was serving at the bar, whilst clearly was in no fit state to be. I have never seen such irresponsible management, or behaviour from an apparent senior member of staff. Your poor girls deserve a bloody pay rise having to put up with that behaviour, it is disgusting.

Good location and a nice pub. Locals and staff are friendly, food is decent I had the lasagna which was pretty standard fair, but then again there is only so much you can do with one.