Red Lion

Firstly, if you can get the bus to this pub, I’d highly recommend it! The car parking spaces are angled funny and people pay no attention to the marked spaces. The Carpark is a free for all!
There is a wacky warehouse play area attached to this pub, and as a result a LOT of misbehaving children all hyped up on sugar running around the place. It would be much better to have an adults only area near the bar because I almost fell over two children being left to their own devices.
The menu is extensive and they do a ‘2for£10′ deal on many dishes. There was not enough staff working behind the bar, and only one person taking food orders (you have to order food at the bar).
We stayed for a (pricey!) drink and had to wait an age for bar service. The bar is almost the whole length of the top half of the pub and only 2 members of staff were working and both stayed up one end of the bar! 2 sets of beer pumps look like they’ve never been used! We eventually walked up to the other end of the bar as people were being served there who hadn’t waited as long as us.
Over all, food was very good, and plenty of it at a decent price, but drinks were over priced and service was poor.

The Red Lion has been at Four Lane Ends for well over a hundred years. I remember coming here as a kid. It’s now part of the Fayre & Square chain which promises decent grub at a fair price.
The car park spaces are ridiculously narrow so cars end up over the lines. There are only 2 disabled spaces which is woefully inadequate. My disabled companion, despite having a blue badge, had to park at the very bottom of the car park.
As I was visiting on Good Friday I thought it would be a good idea to book ahead and did this using the very user friendly app. However on arrival the «duty manager» didn’t have my reservation on her list. She said that she had been too busy to check the emails. Not good. Fortunately for us they did have 1 spare table for 2.
I went to the bar to place my order of a «Codfather» for myself and a standard fish and chips for my companion. When the food came, I wasn’t sure what I’d paid £2 extra for as the Codfather looked hardly any different to the standard fish and chips.
The total bill for Codfather, Fish & Chips, a 175ml glass of Pinot Grigio and a pint of Fosters came to £18.66. Very reasonable.
We had finished our meal before anyone asked us if our food was ok. Fortunately it was. Everything tasted deliciously fresh.
I can only award the Red Lion 2 stars because although the food was good, the service was very lacklustre. I got the feeling that there wasn’t any qualified manager on the premises, and the staff had been left to ‘do their best’.
I know it’s not the restaurants fault, but there were too many badly behaved and unruly children running amok. I guess that’s the type of clientele that this end of the market appeals to.
I’ll probably return if I’m in the area, though sadly the Red Lion won’t be my first choice.