The Birch Tree

So we 've been here a few times and the service and food have always been spot on. However we 've been the last 2 weekends on the trot and unfortunatley the standards have seemed to drop a little. Last weekend went we went, I had gotten the wrong time of our booking but the staff were very accomodating and simply moved the time. (If the staff read this they probably know exactly who 's writing this : . So thank you for that. Now onto the rest of the evening. The drinks orders were taken very quickly and so were the food orders which was great. However, the time that we actually had to wait for the food seemed very long this time compared to others and the resturant wasn 't busy. I think it was us and maybe another 4 tables if that at our time of ordering. The food itself was very good as usual which is the reason we didn 't complain about the waiting time. The desserts that came next which still seemed to take a while for 2 ice creams and a brownie, were lovely. Though I will say that 2 cookies did make my dish just a little to sickly so maybe just one cookie on top would be fine. The service itself wasn 't as great as usual. Both of our servers that came to take our orders were chewing gum! They were not discreet about it and were very clearly chowing down on it while we were ordering which wasn 't very nice to be honest but again the overall was lovely so we didn 't complain. This weekend we went again (yes I got the right time this week : , Again the drinks order was taken quite quickly and they were delivered fairly quickly to. Execpt this weekend we ended up waiting longer for someone to take our food order which was odd. Our servers didn 't even ask if we were ready to order just popped the drinks on the table and walked off. Eventually someone did come back to take the order and this time there was no gum which was great. Again though the wait for the food seemed very excessive with no communication while we were waiting. I think it was probably a good 35-40 minute wait for the food this time. I notice there were 2 tables of 8 went I went to the bathroom and when we left I could hear music in the tent thing outside. If this was causing a longer wait it would have been nice just for someone to pop over and say 'I 'm sorry about the wait we 've got........ '. Anyway back to the food. The food was nice for the most part as usual. My husband thoroughly enjoyed his, the only little issue we had was my mothers fish pie. In all fairness to my mum this sauce was extremely running and didn 't look very nice at all. Anyway so told the server that and as a good person would the lady did ask if there was something she could do about it. So that response was lovely. Now when a lad came to clear the dishes he was lovely (I don 't know if he was new , but he informed us that ice cream came with the child meal and asked what flavour. We told him thinking he was going to take the whole pudding order and he didnt. He made a note then walked off.It wasn 't until they brought that out that they took our order for our puddings. I do want to make a note that the servers did continue to walk in and out of the room but still didn 't communicate with us at all. As an overall experience over the last few times I don 't feel like the service and food have been as good as before but we would still go back. None of this critism it 's purely just feedback which will hopefully help you with keeping your services to a high standard.

Came for Christmas dinner with my husband and elderly mum. What can I say. WOW just WOW. Service outstanding Meals all outstanding Atmosphere outstanding Presentation outstanding too Honestly could give a high enough recommendation. Thank you for making our Xmas dinner so special.

We reserved a table submitted menu choices alongside deposit. However, due to illness we had to change the date. The Birch tree was accommodating of this and staff were pleasant and welcoming for our Christmas lunch. The main meals were OK but could’ve been enhanced by better choice of vegetables. However starter crumble dessert was lovely. Restaurant decorations were lovely

Food is fine, service very poor, and nothing wasn't too much trouble, the boss seemed nice but the rest of the staff just didn't want to be there

We went here for our Daughter and Son in Laws Wedding Breakfast and Evening Reception. The venue, food, staff and weather was perfect. There is also a lovely garden to sit in and enjoy..The whole team did everything to make our day special and memorable. Thank you from The Sparkling Diamonds