(This venue is in the Discount Directory)

Visited October 2007

We enjoyed our food but do feel that it has room for improvement and the same goes for the service.  The two young girls serving us were very charming but I think only used to delivering the bar snacks to tables.

However we will go again as it is still very early days in what we feel is the start of even greater things to come, we loved the atmosphere and we wish them well!

Cost £ £ £ £

Update March 2004

After the report on our last visit we were kindly invited to revisit by the management.  We accepted & are  pleased to report that things have improved .  We were warmly welcomed & the staff were friendly & attentive.  The tables were well laid up & were ready for business.  They were fairly busy & all this added to the atmosphere & appearance of the bar/restaurant area.  Our food was 100% better &, if you go choose roast pork, the crackling was the best I have had for ages!  Broccoli & Stilton soup also very tasty.

New rating 7/10

Visited January 2004

A very dear & lifelong friend took me here to lunch today as a birthday treat.  It was a sentimental journey for both of us, me because my father used to own the Potters Heron way back in the fifties & sixties, & for her because she spent so much time with me there.  This is where we learnt to drink !  My Father bought it in the mid fifties when it was just a thatched tea rooms & built it up to become one of the most popular  restaurants & bar in the area.  He had a ballroom built on the back & it used to have a regular old style dinner & dance ( with a live band!) every Saturday night, so we also learnt to dance here!  During the winter there was a company dinner dance nearly every night.  Very sadly it burnt down one very windy November night in 1966 ( ironically it was the firemen's Christmas do the next night), an electrical fault, & of course, because of the wind & the thatch, the fire spread very rapidly.  My parents were very lucky to get out alive.  They escaped through their bedroom window on to the flat roof of the ballroom.  So sad for them as all their hard work building up the business was wasted.  It disheartened them so much they sold out to Brickwoods, who built the hotel on, & it has been owned by a brewery or hotel chain ever since.  My sister (SM, another Lady Luncher) & I had left home by this time but we missed the place so much, it was still the hub of our social life, & we had had such happy times growing up there.

If you have had the patience to read all the above you will understand how disappointed I was to find the bar area looking very faded & in dire need of a refurb.  A shame because the hotel area looked smart & the exterior looks lovely.  When we sat down we had to hunt for a menu, the staff were not very efficient & worst of all our starter, Combo bits & dips to share ( usual mix of onion rings, mushrooms, chicken wings etc. ), arrived at the same time as our main courses & they said "oh you don't mind do you?"  As it all looked rather dry & over cooked we just accepted it, we realized things were not going to get better!  The main courses were a Cajun Chicken Wrap & Fish & Chips. Didn't taste as bad as it looked but was definitely not of the standard that this establishment should be serving.  We then ordered coffees & the waitress gave us some very ordinary wrapped biscuits & said that's to make up for the food!  In fairness she was trying hard, but it was too late!

This is a prime location & must be inundated with passing trade for snack lunches, the company should do better! 

Have you gone to sleep yet?  If not, a factoid!  We were always told that the name Potters Heron evolved as there were Potters on this corner & Hurn, an old English word for corner, slowly got changed to Heron, nothing to do with birds!

and this is what it looked like all those years ago!

Cost with a couple of drinks, £ £ £

Yummy Factor 5/10

Report/history lesson, CJ