Service at The Herne

[Sue]

Maybe they are one of the McCanns

[Mr_T]

I've been a regular at the Herne for about two years now, shortly after it had it's 'make over'. I've found it to be very reliable on the whole and I will continue to go there for weekend grub with mates/family, or the occasional drop-in week-day meal.

The food is always excellent - in my opinion the best burgers in ED by a long way - and very reasonably priced. Yes, there are occasionally minor delays or mistakes, but in my experience they've always been sorted with minimal fuss.

I can't comment on the garden (we tend to eat inside as we're child-phobic) or the ladies' toilets (although my wife says they could do with a bit of work), but I feel some of the comments here don't reflect the place I know.

We have largely had good service, especially from the lovely Malaysian (?) girl who is sadly now off to university. But I would say there seems to have been a lot of staff turnover, especially recently.

If I were to suggest some constructive feedback, it would be to have more staff waiting tables during the busy periods as my only real gripe would be that we've had to occasionally wait slightly longer than we'd have liked to order drinks or pay our bill. All in all though it's only ever been an extra few minutes and we've never had to wait long periods for food to be served, or between courses.

Sunday night quiz is great too, although sadly food is no longer going to be available due to the popularity.

[MadWorld74]

Actually if I can just add one more request, and Chris, I have no idea how you would get round this, it's to inforce a 7pm ban on all site clothes. All the time I go in there, the bar is two to three deep with foul mouthed and even fouler clothed blokes proping up the bar making the place very uncomfortable. The baning of site clothes after a certain time, (CPT has a constant ban on them) may be a step in the right direction.

But then there's the blokes themselves.....I don't want to go to the bar to get a drink only to be called 'darlin' as they step out of the way for me, and THEH have them size me up as I wait for my drink, talking and making comments about me. The last time I went in there, some blokes at the end of the bar were swearing so badly and using the 'c' word so much that I thought I'd walked into a proper East End boozer. I'm not new to swearing; I do enough myself, but when I have to hear men talk loudly about the size of a womans c*nt that one of them has shagged the night before, it's too much.

What do you reckon, Chris?

[TJ]

Cor facking blimey strike a light we got a right one here!

Awight darlin' showin a bit o leg tonite arent't cha??

Is that what you mean MW?

[MadWorld74]

no.....comments far more 'contemporary' than that.

I have short hair, which naturally makes me a 'rug muncher'.

That sort of thing.

[TJ]

I would imagine many women would appreciate men noticing their haircut..

Honestly, you women are so hard to please!

[MrsClive3300]

Went to the Herne yesterday for the first time - there was 3 families with toddlers. Was somewhat sceptical given all the feedback here.

So this is what we experienced:

When we sat down (which was about 12.45pm) a waitress came over with a wooden spoon with a number - said they didnt have any spare bottles to put it in so we would just have to put it in the table. Thats fine. One of the guys in our group went to get a menu (twice) from the bar but was told there were none available at the time and to come back. When the waitress was near our table we finally got her attention and she said that if there were no menu's available then that meant the kitchen was closed until it was less busy. There seemed to be no sense of order as to where the menus where or when they were 'allowed' to give them out (and a thought that always springs to mind is why do they have to take them back - especially drinks menu's? surely they have enough to go round....)

Eventually though, we got to order and they managed to bring out the children's meals first and our meal's shortly after. Food was fine, puddings were delish and all things considered, once the menu issue was resolved actually a pleasant afternoon.

[KidKruger]

Ate there yesterday afternoon, 4 adult mains and some kiddie food.

Food was great staff were friendly and clearly on busy (sunny) days they're going to be a bit pushed - hey guess what it's a pub garden not The Ivy. Of course we'll go there again.

Yes the general staff behaviours could do with being a bit more 'joined-up' and the kiddies pasta at ?4 for some strings of spaghetti seemed a bit tight and no bread with your little bowl of soup seemed a bit tight but all in all good grub.

[PeckhamRose]

I can't believe I just saw a McCann "joke" on this site.

Aren't we better than that?