13/30 The Cock Hotel, Stony Stratford,

Overall Score 13/30

Food               4/10
Venue             3/5
Service           1/5
Value              3/5
Cleanliness     2/5

https://www.oldenglishinns.co.uk/our-locations/the-cock-hotel-stony-stratford/

To say that we were disappointed with today's breakfast would be an understatement.  It certainly isn't what we were expecting from The Cock Hotel in Stony Stratford.

Breakfast was advertised in the window at £9.99 for two.  Perhaps going in the door to find a teaspoon on the floor and no evidence of staff or clues as to what to do next should have been a clue.

When a staff member appeared we were gestured towards a free table that had obviously been used before.  We looked at the poorly folded insert that was the breakfast menu and both decided on the full english.  A waitress appeared and took our drinks order, returning later with clean cups to pour luke warm, stewed coffee and then take our order.

A long wait followed giving us plenty of time to look round.  The floor was quite dirty, particularly the rug and you could see the dust on the fireplace.  The staff kept charging backwards and forwards past our table and it was difficult to get anyone's attention to get our coffee changed.  When we did it was a bit like a comedy of errors with the coffee jug arriving and then being taken away when he realised we needed clean cups.  He returned with cups and saucers and went away to get the coffee again.  Coffee poured he then left the old cups as they were on the table!

Breakfast arrived after a long wait: 1 sausage, 2 rashers of bacon, 1 poached egg, 2 mushrooms, half a tomato and a few baked beans.    Credit where it's due, the sausage was really tasty but the egg wasn't fully cooked and it was all rather luke warm.  The toast was delivered to the table before the cutlery so the meal had time to cool even further.

At no time were we asked if we wanted any sauces to go with our breakfast or told where to find the jam.  I also think we could have expected to be provided with fresh milk on the table.

Asking for the bill we were presented with a bill for £13.50 and told that the price was still £9.99, very bizarre.  

The feel we had today was that the staff hadn't actually had any training on how to go about serving properly.  They were all fairly young and looked completely at a loss as to what to do next.

I don't think we'll be rushing to return here when there are so many good breakfast options within a short drive.

13/30 - Warwickshire Services, CV35 0AA

Overall Score 16/30

Food               3/10

Venue             3/5

Service           3/5

Value               1/5

Cleanliness     3/5

We were on our travels again.  This time our breakfast wasn't helped by the fact that there was a football match on nearby and there were coach loads of fans milling around.  The noise was certainly greater that you would expect on a normal day.  We did our best to put that aside and not let it influence our views.

This time round Mike ordered the traditional breakfast and I went for the low carb option.  It was great to see that there was an option for this but the very bread based sausage didn't really count.  I was also left feeling rather hungry by the time I'd finished.

Overall we were both underwhelmed with the quality of the breakfast itself.  It was fairly cold and the bacon was dry.  The eggs were cooked fresh but in his rush to serve us unfortunately he broke the yokes which didn't help.  The size of the serving was also unimpressive as was the comment that they were out of mushrooms and this was all they had left.  As such I had to choose another option to replace the missing mushrooms.

Otherwise it was pretty much as you'd expect for a breakfast at the services: expensive and basic.  Including toast for Mike and coffee each it came to £17.50

The service was mixed.  The young guy who served the breakfast itself was trying where as the girl on the till was too busy talking to a colleague to want to serve us.  All in all you got the feeling that they weren't prepared for the football crowd and it had thrown them off their game.

We really are going to have to do some research for places to stop before we set off next time!