The Black Swan - The Inn Collection Group

We paid full price on the 21st of February this year, with no special offer. The room was okay, no complaint there, but we’ll never eat there again. We’d booked for 8:15. My other half’s pie and chips seemed as if the pie had been standing for three days and was just reheated. I had salmon with some kind of beans, no vegetables or chips, and was told chips weren’t available when I asked. Our plates weren’t cleared until 9.45. The waitress said that if we wanted dessert we’d better hurry, as the chef was leaving. Dessert was okay, but seemed reheated from a few days before. The service was terrible. We complained in the morning, and Ian at the front desk took notes and apologized, saying there’d been no staff the night before and he would pass on the notes. We got no compensation, only an apology, and won’t go back. Breakfast was okay and the food was nice, but you had to get everything yourself, including tea, milk, and cereal.

Yesterday’s visit left us with an experience we don’t want to repeat. We ordered food and a bottle of wine, but the wine arrived just as we finished eating, so we refused it. I felt bad for the waiter. Was it his fault or the bar staff’s? There’s no table service. You order at the bar, pay there, and get a standard menu with no specials board, which is verging on Wetherspoons standards. This setup is terrible for staff. A helpful, attentive server is more likely to get a tip, but when I have to traipse to the bar and queue to pay a faceless person I’ve had no interaction with, I’m less inclined to tip. They need to look at their staffing. Good staff won’t be attracted if there’s no chance of reward for their work.

Downstairs is tastefully decorated, and the location is great. The room was lovely, but our king-size bed was just two singles pushed together, with two separate mattresses. Breakfast was tasty enough, though there was definitely no smile with the service. A shame that was our last memory of an otherwise lovely stay in Helmsley.

We paid for a room for two adults and a toddler, but when we arrived the sofa bed hadn’t been made up. We had to pull it out ourselves, and there were no sheets or pillows. Dinner took an hour and a half to arrive, apparently because they forgot to bring it out. People who came in after us got their food first. The market square location is pretty. Parking is round the back, with room for only 20 cars; there’s also a car park out front, but it’s either a 20-minute stay or you need a parking ticket. The continental breakfast choices were limited. The hot breakfast was okay, but a full English was just one rasher of bacon, one sausage, one egg, a tiny pot of beans, and a small hash brown.