The Royal Oak

Nicely located pub with food and entertainingly quirky staff. Keep it simple, folks.

Lovely village pub. Definitely recommend! We visited after a walk in the area, and so pleased we did. Nice food, good real ale and friendly, welcoming staff Would visit again if visiting the area.

Lovely pub, fantastic oak burger too, dog friendly n a must stop for food after adventuring thor's cave! Make sure you reserve for food in peak times though!

We walk a lot around this area, so it's good to use local amenities.

After a long walk enjoying the weather, we stopped to have some drinks and some of us ordered food, whilst others just wanted a snack. We travelled a long way to explore the Peak District views and it was quite disappointing to end our lovely trip with a a very rude encounter. The lady who collected the plates needs to learn some social and customer service skills. Her attitude was off-putting enough to not go back next time we visit the area. Manners cost nothing!

I feel compelled to share my thoughts on the service my friends and I recieved yesterday (Sat 9 March), and address some inaccuracies in the response to the previous review, posted by Adriana. I was one of the six... Firstly, we of course appreciate you accommodating us at short notice. We were all hungry after a day's trek and were looking forward to some good pub grub. However, having reviewed the somewhat limited menu, only two of our party decided to eat - myself being one of them. I ordered the steak and ale pie (I'll come onto that) and my friend ordered the cheese salad sandwich. Everyone ordered drinks. Normally when you order a cup of tea or coffee in a country pub, you expect a biscuit (normally a Lotus biscuit or something of that nature). As these weren't forthcoming, four of our party took the liberty of opening up some snack biscuits that we'd taken on our hike (one per person) to dip in their drinks... I hardly see how four biscuits is going to put you out of business! Perhaps you should consider serving complimentary biscuits with your hot drinks, or better yet, sell them, negating the need for customers to source their own? In any event, we were unaware of your policy because your signage is anything but clear... an A5 notice printed on white paper, pinned to a white wall. Even after your server pointed it out, I struggled to read it from a couple of metres away. Furthermore, she didn't politely 'ask' anything. She stated, and I quote, "You shouldn't be eating those!" Based on her abrupt tone, we assumed it was a joke about calories and asked her why. She replied, "Because we sell food, we have chefs in the kitchen cooking food. There's a sign there..." Having realised she was not joking, we apologised; however, this was not acknowledged. Even more bizarre, the chef appeared a few moments later and glared at us from the other side of the dining area, I presume as a misguided intimidation tactic. By this point, we resigned ourselves to the fact we were not welcome, so rather than order another round of drinks, we decided to leave. Consequently, you lost out on revenue because of your poor customer service, so to put that on 'guests like us' is, quite frankly, ridiculous. All that being said, you'll notice I've given you two stars. This is because the food was lovely and reasonably priced... Best chips I've had for a long while (just like mother used to make). The steak and ale pie was also very tasty - so hats off to the chef, which I would have told him myself, had he appeared more approachable. It's just a shame that the overall experience was tainted by poor customer service. I do appreciate, however, that everyone has bad days, so I would encourage anyone reading this to try it out for yourself and make up your own mind.