The Yachtsman's Garden - New Forest

Visited with my family for lunch and the garden is lovely, but it stops there. Service was slow and confused, bringing wrong drinks and then falling to being further drinks ordered. The food was a bit bleh to be honest. It took an age to arrive, the open sandwiches were a bit skimpy 4 prawns in one and a smattering of blue cheese in another. Definitely not worth the infated bill we received.

Very poor service today stopped for lunch, got passed from bar to restaurant back to bar as no one knew what was going on and what food you could order from what area. We left without eating due to the poor service. The manager responded very poorly and lost four customers due to unhelpful attitude. Your offer on the day should match what you say you do on your website and please train your staff so they know what is going on and where. Sadly I don’t think we’ll ever return.

It’s a number of years since we last visited and we were very impressed to see the bar has been completely refurbished with soft seats and cushions. 2 of us had the fish and chips, one the burger and myself the pie of the day which was pork and apple. We were all impressed with the food and my pie with gravy, mashed potato and crinkle green cabbage was absolutely delicious. Andre gave us excellent service and with the Gourmet society discount the meal came to £74.25 with a glass of wine each. A very pleasant Tuesday lunch with a bottle of chilled water placed on the table too.

I like to visit Bucklers Hard with my young family and every time we drop into the Yachtsman for a drink and a snack. It's a wonderful pub with cozy interiors, large open fires at this time of year and plenty of comfortable seating for families and dogs too! They serve a good range of local and international beers and spirits and have a reasonable wine list too. It can get busy at weekends so service can be a little slow at times but it's only a small bar. The attached restaurant and hotel look lovely but we've not used them yet.

We have visited the sailors bar several times recently. The service has always been poor, except when Matthew was on duty. Often there is no real ale on tap. When you ask for an elderflower presse the barman has to go to another remote bar to get one, delaying other customers. This has happened at least four times. For some reason they cannot run a tab, which, combined with no real ale, meant they lost the custom of six thirsty sailors who moved on to the Turfcutters. One barman has been heard to announce proudly to a couple of sailors that the bar is not serving food this evening and no chance of a meal in the restaurant without a booking. This is such a continuing problem in a bar that should be making good profits that I thought I would mention it. Fortunately in the summer there are pop up bar and food stalls at the weekend on the marina quay which are run with customers in mind, unlike this bar.