The Old Police Station

Breakfast and the private dining area in the orginal cells. Book early though as it soon gets busy

We went midweek and it was very quiet but we got great service from very welcoming and friendly staff. Lovely venue. Many thanks for the guided tour, it was much appreciated.
Food was well cooked and presented. Good pub grub, but I thought my crispy belly pork portion was just a tad on the small side. My wife's pan fried salmon was really good, as was the generous portion of sticky toffee pudding.

First visit to The Old Police Station. Celebrating two family birthdays and wanted somewhere to go for lunch. Fantastic food, friendly staff & great atmosphere. Would recommend and will certainly be going again. Love the idea too of being able to dine in an original cell - quite unique. Will concider that next time!!

Sorry but went in last weekend,fish and chips and steak sandwich. Chips were not cooked and the fish was frozen in the middle. Sorry but the food we’ve had before here was excellent. Just one time and it’s put us off. Staff were really good.

Had afternoon tea with friends. Unfortunately sandwiches bit dry but pleasant atmosphere and staff.

We stayed at the attached hotel to attend an event in Retford. There is a review on their page as the two experiences were very different and justify, in our opinion the separation.
Having checked in we were told the restaurant was not open that evening, but the bar was.
This was disaappointing as we planned to eat there because it has good reviews and was convenient.
We decided to get drinks there and research alternative dining options.
As we approached the bar, the lady behind said she would be one minute. She approached two gentlemen at one of the tables and as she did so one of them just shook his head a her.
She returned to us and informed us that she could not serve us anything alcoholic. When my wife asked why, she looked very sheepish and seemed to struggle for an answer, again glancing to the two men, before saying there were licensing issues. It all seemed a little cloak and dagger, and very awkward, not to mention a further inconvenience to us.
In the morning we went downstairs to breakfast. We were greeted by the same lady from the night before and seated, and a short while later she came for our drinks order. She took this and said she would return for our food order.
After serving another couple their food, she did just that. She informed us that the options were any combination of a full English breakfast componants, which we could work with, but there was no menu offering the kinds of options seen in previous reviews.
My wife ordered scrambled eggs on brown toast, I ordered the full English with no tomato and a poached egg.
She took this order to the kitchen, and to the best of my knowledge they were only cooking our order at that time. I could see no one else waiting for food.
After about ten minutes the young chap in the kitchen placed two plates on the counter with some food on, I couldn't see what. A minute or two later he spooned scrambled egg onto one of the plates.
After about another five minutes the lady asked if she could serve the plates, to be told one needed some bacon on it.
After both plates had been sat for twenty minutes, he added the poached egg to mine and we were served!
There was no apology for the wait.
There were no condiments of any kind on the table. I asked for butter for my toast, which was duly delivered, but no offer of anything else ie brown or red sauce, salt or pepper.
We had obviously both finished our drinks, and weren't offered any top up, in fact after delivering the butter, the lady dissappeared.
Obviously all of the food, with the exception of the poached egg was cold, not even warm, cold. The beans with mine had a thick skin on the top.
The toast on which my wifes scrambled eggs were spooned was actually burnt black in parts, and had no butter on it. It was without doubt the worst breakfast experience we have had anywhere.
We both tried around two mouthfuls, the second only really to confirm how bad it was, before getting up to leave.
As we did so, I looked for someone to complain to, but there was no-one to be seen.
We collected our belongings from the room and I looked again for someone in the resturant with the same result.
We went to reception to leave the room card, and one of the gentlemen from the bar the previous eveing was there. I expected him to ask if everything had been alright, but he just smiled and said 'enjoy your day'
This experience in the bar and restaurant was an absolute farce.
The young man doing the breakfast seemed to only be able to focus on preparing one ingedient at a time, barely!
The lady seemed to be embarrassed about the whole situation, as would I have been but also a little apologetic at least. Not running and hiding having just given someone the worst breakfast ever.
If I must pick some positive from this, the place is very nice and the ingredients of my breakfast looked to be of a good quality.
I'm inclined to think we unfortunately caught them on a particularly difficult time, looking at previous reviews and I genuinely hope this is the case.
None of which defends however, the appaling service we experienced on our visit.

No Xmas atmosphere, no lovely food cooking smells, waited half hour for drinks, veg hard, turkey was plastic texture, no cranberry sauce, plates cold and sat on side a while before dinner was served. So for £20 i had 1 bite of turkey, 1 bite of roast potato and 1 sprout then Xmas pudding and custard. Cleaners walked past food serving area with dirty linen.

Extremely disappointed… staff behind the bar totally incompetent and generously rude. Whilst in the middle of serving a number of our group … decided to ignore the rest and serve someone else who had just walked in through the door. This was a repeated occurrence and the last person in our group was served 20 mins later than everyone else.
When we approached to complain he just said “I’m new”.