"This was our 3rd visit to the Mad hatter, having previously been happy with our experiences but today was disappointing. The service was really poor, seemed almost unorganised no one person looking after our table, having to ask for basics like cutlery, condiments and sugar...for coffee etc, but even when you asked you had to wait it wasn’t brought promptly, just lots of waiting. From a food point of view firstly our kids wanted fries as a little starter as the real reason for the visit was a bank holiday pancake stack treat We ordered two lots of fries between the four of us, In the past fries have been served to us in a large enamel dish and you received a good portion of fries, today however it was a disappointing smaller portion served in a normal cereal size bowl, so it left us feeling short changed. When we placed the order for fries we asked for our pancakes to come out afterwards almost like desert, however the pancakes started to arrive straight away whilst we were still eating the fries. The pancakes however are the real reason for this review,. As a family we eat out often and don’t mind paying money for good food. At 8.95 a plate for the hotly advertised “summer special pancake stacks”, we were expecting some yummy fresh pancakes. however we were very very disappointed to witness the chef in the kitchen via the little window opening packets of basic shop bought small scotch pancakes, the ones you can buy for like 1 to 1.50 for a pack of 6. They were served to us on tea size sandwich plates and basically just smothered in sauce to hide how basic they are. The pancakes all arrived at different times not together, the kids arrived first, then after 5 minute wait mine arrived and then my wife’s sat on the side for another 5 minutes more while the rest of us ate, despite the chef ringing the little bell for attention three times, i almost got up to fetch it myself. (But I’d already done that for ketchup for the fries which we’d ask for and never got brought). Items were missing from the pancakes like Banana and Coconut from the “fruity feeling” pancakes which are two of the main ingredients on the toppings, when we told the waiter he did apologise and took them back but when they returned, coconut had been added but we were just told they were out of banana and no alternative was offered. The food tasted nice I can’t fault that it did taste nice, so in that respect we couldn’t complain but we paid 54 for two small bowls of fries and shop bought pancakes with LOTS of sauce, it really was over priced and as mentioned by another reviewer it’s style over substance, all Instagram ready but no real value. The management team need to take a look at how service is run, review prices or make fresh prepared specials to warrant to cost. This this will be our last visit to the Madhatter."
