凱瑟琳皇后飯店

Booked a family room and was given a tiny double room, so be careful when booking as you may not have accommodation to meet your needs. For us, as two friends, we made do with the double bed as we were too preoccupied to query this room allocation. Staff weren’t particularly friendly, very abrupt in conversations. Wi-fi is a mystery. If you’re lucky you can access it. We had to be up at 4.30am to do an endurance event. Walls are paper thin so you can hear next doors TV, conversations and random jumping around that made our bed shake. The toilet hadn’t been cleaned. Instead the dirty toilet had cleaner poured to hide the lack of cleaning. The bed sheet had a mystery stain and the pillow strongly smelt of cigarette smoke. My favourite bit of the overnight stay was when the TV turned itself on at 3am. Maybe we just had a bad experience but the lack of cleanliness was a deal breaker and I wouldn’t stay there again.

Nice looking pub on arrival but then it went downhill. The poor girl seemed rushed off her feet trying to serve everyone, hence we sat there for ten minutes (we had booked a table) and were not even asked what we would like to drink. She came and took our food order first and I had to say could we have a drink first? In fairness, my sausages and mash were good but my husband's meal of scampi very poor. Limited menu, not good value, another tourist trap it seemed.

Called in on bank holiday Monday for a bite to eat as heard good reviews about the place but left very disappointed From the moment we walked in to order drinks it didn’t have a friendly warm welcoming atmosphere staff were very blunt and impolite with one staff member being blatantly rude to customers when our food eventually came husbands burger was cold and rubbery and the corned beef pie was burnt to a crisp and inedible said staff member virtually threw it at us after we enquired how much longer it would be I appreciate they were busy but no need for the blatant rudeness towards customers never experienced such poor service which really let the place down as it’s actually a lovely quaint country pub

We stayed over the road in the Three Tuns Hotel, but due to an arrangement with the hotel under the same management we had to eat our meals in the Queen Catherine opposite. The evening meal was good and the service efficient, but the ambience is off putting due to the obsessive festooning of union jack flags on the ceiling and red notices telling customers to be polite. The service at breakfast was rude and the amount of food offered inadequate to set one off for a long day's walk. All your breakfast requirements have to be filled in the night before and wo betide you if you fail to tick every box. You'll get a serious reprimand and be made to feel like Oliver Twist begging for cereal. If you can stay somewhere else, do, and just use this pub for the evening meal.

Staying locally we called in for Sunday Lunch. They said they had some large parties due in so there might be a wait, but our meals arrived very quickly. Generous portions and nicely cooked. Staff were very friendly.

We were staying in Osmotherly and to be honest we were told not to go into The Queen Catherine for food but we thought we would give it the benefit of the doubt. Three of our party of 4 ordered prawn cocktail starter, when they came, we started eating, immediately we all said the prawns were luke warm, especially the king prawns. None of us continued to eat them. When they were cleared, I asked the chef/waiter if the prawns were meant to be warm and he said yes they cook their king prawns in the oven, this can’t be right as they were luke warm and not piping hot/up to temperature if cooking for a hot starter. They were then mixed up with smaller prawns in a Marie Rose sauce. Has anyone ever heard of hot prawns being served with a cold Marie Rose sauce?? These prawns I can guess (as I am a chef) were defrosted in hot water and left too long. They were not good. The server did not come back to explain how they were dealt with and we were charged for them. Put a dampener on the rest of the meal which to be honest was mediocre. The only upside was the waitress/bar tender was super nice and helpful.