Spring Tavern

Quick glance:
+ serves food all day
+ spacious and bright
+ good food
+ friendly staff
Hubby and I went to Spring Tavern near to 3pm, having done a full morning (and more!) of chores and hankering after filling food without having to cook ourselves. We were near Spring Tavern and decided to give it a try.
The pub has a small car park that only holds half a dozen cars, but we didn’t have trouble finding on-​street parking outside the church across the road.
Spring Tavern serves food all day, so we managed a proper meal even at 3pm. The restaurant area itself was completely full of diners, but there was plenty of space at the bar area (with proper tables) serving from the same menu. The only difference I think is table service vs. ordering at the counter.
I had the fish and chips and hubby had the confit pig cheeks. Both were nicely plated and came in generous portion. I was especially taken by the config pig cheeks which was most tender and flavoursome, along with perfectly cooked tenderstem broccoli and mash potato mixed with generous bits of black pudding. Suffice to say I ate more than my fair portion of my hubby’s lunch!!!

When I first stepped into Spring Tavern, I wondered why it only had three star reviews because it was beautiful.
Big fireplaces, flagged stone floors, quirky magazine covers on the toilet doors and all beechwood, heavy tables and a delectable looking menu.
But we figured it out pretty quickly.
From sitting down to getting our drinks orders taken and brought over, it took 15 minutes. Yep. To take three drink orders, two of which were the same, and have them appear. There were only 7 other people in the pub, what’s the deal?
The drinks themselves were good. We had a fruit cooler and rhubarb fizz and both were refreshing and quite large. We decided to go for food.
We ordered a margarita pizza, salmon fishcakes and 28-​day aged steak and chips… half an hour later, our food finally appeared, and not at the same time.
My pizza arrived first and it was… you know, okay. The sauce was very watery so the whole thing ended up a bit sloppy, it didn’t have a strong tomato flavour and the cheese just seemed like cheddar so I wouldn’t say it was worth the £8 it cost, as I’ve made better myself at home, but it hasn’t given me food poisoning and it filled my stomach, so. Eh.
Second to arrive were the fishcakes my mum ordered and this was lovely. Really lovely. It had a strong fish flavour, the two fishcakes were huge and it came with a refreshing salad on the side. The only comment my mum had was that there was a temperature issue; the outside was ready to eat but the inside was so hot that it burned your mouth and made your eyes water. I don’t know how they managed it but it meant she had to basically mutilate her fishcakes and leave them to cool before she could actually eat her lunch. Still, they were delicious.
Then last to arrive, five minutes after we’d started eating the pizza and fishcakes, was Matt R’s 28-​day aged steak.
In his absence, I ordered it for him and asked that they cook it medium. When he got back, he told me off because he wanted medium rare. I felt bad until they brought it out and we discovered it was medium rare. Makes you wonder if I’d asked for it how he wanted it, would it have come blue? I’m not sure they know how to cook steak properly. It was chewy, it dripped blood on the plate and it just wasn’t cooked. The outside was well done and the inside was blue. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Too high a heat I’d guess?
The chips were good, being basically wedges, but the steak fell far short of any we’d had before. Even the casual pub down the road from our house does better steak than Spring Tavern. And the fact that all the food came out at different times, after a considerable wait, meant we couldn’t eat together and my mum and I were left waiting for Matt to finish.
When you walk into this place, you get a good feeling from it. But after trying to get served and waiting hours for your food, that feeling slowly disappears. I don’t think I’d come here again.

Good food but poor service. Only 4 other tables occupied on a Monday lunchtime but it still took 20 mins from being seated to food order being taken. Once ordered if was reasonably quick and good quality.

QUITE NICE, WORTH A VISIT.
Has been given a facelift in the last year or so and looks good. The food aspires to be really good but ends up being just above average to be honest. The staff are generally uninterested and unfriendly but parts of the pub are really nice to sit in. It’s quite good during the day when it is less crowded as it is a bit cramped and very noisy at night. Its not a final destination for me but somewhere where I will meet up with people.