Brendon House Guest House

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We picked the guest house from a list we found on the web. The reason for the choice was location, general look and feel plus the fact that they seem to have won lots of accolades for the dining room. On the way down we phoned to check that we would still be able to eat diner if we arrived at 7.30 pm, to be told that this would not be possible, puzzling we thought. Anyway we arrived at about 7.45 and were shown to our room by the proprietor an extremely polite and helpful person.
The second warning was that breakfast was served at 8.30 - 9.00, he must have seen my expression because he quickly followed up with " don't worry we don't expect you to eat it in that time, just order" however for a guest house centred around a walking area I personally thought that 8.30 was late in the day to be having breakfast! So then to the room, well the decor was I guess as we expected pretty poorly thought out but clean albeit dated. The En-suit shower was however a quite different story. Small as you would expect and everything was there but on using the shower we discovered the thing that wasn't there was pressure. It was like standing in light spring rain and in this day and age of relatively cheap plumbing It really isn't good enough. The following morning we entered the dinning room at the appointed time for breakfast and very good it was too.
Freshly cooked and well served albeit we felt like they were in a bit of a rush and that they were keen to rid of us all in order to get on with the rest of their day. So back to the Dinner saga, we had noticed that to eat in the dinning room in the evening one had to order from the menu at breakfast. Maybe I am not used to guest houses but this does seem rather strange. We wrongly assumed that the proprietor who was serving breakfast would mention this during the morning feast. However no! We left along with other people and of course as usual on holiday there was a couple from our own town in a five room guest house!
On our return later in the day we did enquire whether it was too late to order dinner and sure enough it was too late so we thought no more of it and went to pub a few yards down the road. As we were leaving we noticed a sign declaring more plaudits for the dinner menu and stating that the restaurant was open to non residents! Quite how they would order at between 8.30 and 9.00 in morning and then come back for dinner I am not sure but anyway off to the pub for dinner. Once in the pub, The Stag Hunter, for reference, we saw a couple who we met at breakfast. We discussed the dinner situation where upon they told us that they didn't think the guest house was serving dinner at all. This was something of a shock given the accolades for their grub. Interesting to know how anyone would know how good their food was since at least this week there was no sign of it.
We thought the lack of dinner and more to the point a complete lack of explanation or communication was very poor. Then we thought well you pay for what you get, but all said and done the room was £54 per night for the two people. When you compare this with some of the countries full service hotels in terms of facilities, help and accommodation suddenly £54 doesn't seem so cheap.
So that brings us to Lynmouth itself. Unquestionably one of the prettiest little villages around with some spectacular scenery and just as my boyhood memories promised. However clearly less busy than it was as many find the attractions of other parts of the world more appealing, including it has to be said my partner and I. What did strike me though was that in this day and age of high competition what businesses need to do is try harder and work smarter which was not evident in at least two of the shops visited.
First a confectionary come ice cream come gift shop on the front close to the harbour. Whilst queuing for sweats I heard the lady in front proffer a card for payment. The woman behind the counter made a big fuss about accepting it. I really did think that taking a card or not was rather a binary type question, yes or no and even if you stretch this to the issue around charges against small priced items it still doesn't fly as there was barely anything in the shop that singularly would cost very much at all. The woman was rude and clearly irritated by tourists.
This was the second week of August, prime time I would have thought but service levels were generally abysmal (except the two pubs we used one in Brendon, service excellent food average and the Pub right in the centre of the pedestrian area in Lynmouth with a large plastic Lobster outside, service excellent food good). Lynmouth really needs to get its act together, there countless other small issues that left us feeling that as nice a place as it is the people seemed to almost resent tourists.