Heart of England, Northampton by Marston's Inns

We had the misfortune to visit this place recently, as a family party of 4. I booked online and turned up exactly on time. There seemed to be one young lad working behind the bar, and occasionally a waitress flitted through. The establishment seemed very gloomy as though they were trying to save electricity. The young lad had no knowledge of our booking and just told us to pick a table. Most of these were covered in used glasses or cleared but unwiped, but we sat ourselves down. I went to the bar to ask for a damp cloth so we could clean our own table. At this point the lad gave us a list of menu items which were not available leaving little choice. Having used the lights of our mobile phones to read the menu (yes, it really was that gloomy), we ordered. After a longish delay the first two meals came out, and some minutes later, just when I was about to head for the bar again, the other two did. The food was at best barely passable, but really we just wanted to finish and leave. At no point was there any sign of a manager or anyone in charge of the restaurant. Over the years I have been to several Marston pubs, some of which I could heartily recommend, but if you want an amiable, comfortable, edible meal out avoid this place.

Overall, good value for the money. Room comfortable, food pretty good for the price. Attractive building but interior is tired and does not encourage you to stay..could be transformed by decent more comfortable furnishings. However the one thing that could be fixed is the lazy staff attitude. Really they were entirely indifferent to our stay. No friendly welcome, no one asked if our meals were ok..and we had to go to the bar to ask or order every breakfast item. ( We were asked if we wanted sauces but then they were never actually brought) "Stuart and team" might like to reflect on the basics of hospitality!

Me and my family went here for my sisters birthday and to get her kids some ice cream, normally this is a lovely restaurant, we’ve been coming here for years and the staff are normally lovely and so is the food. However this time we went the manager was very rude towards my mum and my sister when trying to order drinks which we obviously didn’t appreciate. We thought that was it and left it alone but then the kids ice cream came out and it was meant to be chocolate and vanilla but we were given some kind of mint ice cream, luckily none of the kids were allergic to mint however if they were it wouldn’t be good at all. I just don’t understand how you can mess up a kids ice cream sundae when theres about 5 things you need to make it, it’s very simple. As well ontop of both of those three of our glasses came out dirty around the rim of the cups, two of the which looked liked lipstick smudges and we had to take one of them back due to how bad it was. The manager also said he’ll be right back to clear our table however by the time we were ready to leave we had to end up moving our stuff to a different table due to it being too crowded, no staff seen outside whatsoever. So overall not a good experience, this restaurant has been ruined and it’s very unfortunate.