The Bears Head by Innkeeper's Collection

Nice range of beers and a 3 for £12 deal on snacks. Nicely located. Friendly and helpful bar staff. The food menu looks pretty decent too. On the main road from Stoke to Holmes Chapel just near to the turn off for Sandbach. Nice bevy on a warm day outside so good for walkers too.

Decent range of beers and served quickly. Good ambience and located well. Great bar snacks 3 for £12. Nice menu. Quite decent and much improved. Friendly bar person. Vintage Inns which is part of Mitchell’s and Butler group. I think the hotel rooms are still going which looks good for the travelling working person.

£24 for approx 20 chips, between 2 portions, that were not chips and Camembert you can buy from Aldi for £4. Camembert came with ‘Artisan bread’ that was a white sliced shop loaf. It had been glanced across a grill on one side and was a standard white sliced loaf on the other. A wet and what appeared to be watered down chutney was on the side. Shocking food at a scandalous price. I have been here before and felt the food was good at the top end of a reasonable price. Now it just not worth the money, eg, it’s now over £20 for a chicken & veg curry. We had chips that had the skins left on, our friends had fries with the skins left on. Chips and fries are peeled. I suppose it costs electricity to have the veg ‘rumbler’ on, peels the veg by rotating a drum with abrasive sides to take off the skins, or to spend time peeling. This place is now about getting a much money as they can rather than a fair price for good and proportionate food. Awful, absolutely awful.

We went for Sunday lunch 2 Sundays in a row. Both meals were excellent with generous portions and hot,fresh food. Roasts of pork belly and lamb with generous portions of winter greens,roasted carrots and parsnips,roast potatoes and yorkshires ,with endless gravy . This week we tried chicken parmigiana and sea bass fillets - both excellent! Full marks to kitchen staff and excellent service. Well done to all the team !

Visited The Bear yesterday. The good stuff first. Lovely pub inside and very civilised and in a lovely area south of Holmes Chapel. Problem is the restaurant service was really slow. We waited an age for our food to be served from arriving. Nobody came to take our order for drinks for 20 minutes, they took 15 minutes to be served, then another 20 mins for our food to be ordered. It was well over an hour before we got our food from arrival. We finished our initial drinks by the end of the meal and nobody asked us if we wanted another drink….. lost income of around £40! By then it wasn’t worth the effort as we couldn’t be bothered to wait any longer. We were in The Bear for one hour and forty five minutes for one course!! Trying to pay the bill was interesting. We asked two times to pay and then waited and waited to get that done as they had over charged us on the drinks bill. ( a bottle of wine instead of a glass). To conclude, woefully understaffed in the restaurant and bar area . Don’t go if you’re in a rush. It’s the first time in a long time I have never left a tip to the staff. Sorry. The staff when attentive were lovely but too few of them! Won’t go again as they always had slow service but yesterday’s wait was unacceptable.

Had a fantastic meal and service was great, thankyou to Grace, Quinn and Louise who made our impromptu birthday celebrations extra special when we did not ask for it, really friendly place with even friendlier locals, great pub. sparklers for an old fart like me made me smile and the kidds had a great time as well , only downside is they don't have esyrella on tap, had to go to a carling recipe and drink Madri , hey ho can't win them all