The Pied Bull

Just 483 years old, The Pied Bull has been a Chester landmark for centuries and expectations were high for this historic inn in the center of one of England's most beautiful cities.

I could have sworn that parking was available and included when I made the reservation on Booking.com, but reading the fine print on the morning of arrival, the reservation stated: "we no longer have on-site parking", indicating to me that they did include parking recently, but do not any more. I called and was told that we would have to park a few blocks away in the shopping centre garage at the rate of £10 per day, bringing the total price for two nights to £144 ($204).

The place has tons of potential with a prime location in the center of town, nearly 500 years of history, their own on-site brewery and beer garden, a restaurant and decent accommodations. A few of the male front desk staff (Tom and Richard) were friendly and helpful, but unfortunately the woman who apparently "manages" the inn was neither a people person nor presented a professional image. A man and a woman sat in the restaurant on both the days of our stay who were obviously involved in management of some sort who were chatting, drinking coffee, crunching numbers on their computers and accessing staff and the POS system, but they seemed to care less about the guests who were complaining about the noise on the street the night before or the problems with breakfast I will elaborate on later. They heard obviously everything that was said, but seemed, like the apparent manager, to care less. No wonder this place is a mess.

Room prices are not exactly cheap and food and bar prices are also too high with burgers and pies running in the £12 ($17) range, so we decided to eat elsewhere on both of the nights we stayed at The Pied Bull. If prices were cheaper and if inn guests were to receive a 20% discount on food, maybe someone would actually eat there, something I failed to observe (someone actually eating lunch or dinner) during our two-day stay.

When I saw the "penthouse suite" we were given, I have to say I was impressed. It was a very nicely appointed two-bedroom suite with large rooms and massive bathroom overlooking one of the main streets of Chester. We were quite pleased and it seemed like a good value, until 3:00 AM anyway.

At 3:00 AM on Thursday, January 25th, 2018, Chester University students started leaving the bars drunk and extremely loud, singing, screaming, crying and puking on their way past our hotel, the Pied Bull, back to their dorms. This was a Wednesday night by the way and the ruckus went on for almost two hours, keeping me awake the rest of the night/morning.

We asked to change rooms the next morning, something we were hoping to avoid because this was one of only two hotels where we would be spending more than one night on this road trip, and were given a much smaller room and bathroom down the adjacent side street and away from the main thoroughfare. The hotel staff apologized (once), saying that they would report the incident to the university police, but I got the feeling this was just lip service because we were told by other guests (the noise was the topic of conversation among numerous guests at breakfast that morning) that the same exact problem had also occurred the night before.

We were not offered any compensation whatsoever for our sleeplessness or trouble, having wasted more than an hour of our day repacking, lugging the suitcases down two winding flights of stairs, and unpacking once moved to our new, less than ideal room.

Breakfast was also a huge disappointment with guests queueing for the single toaster (six slice, but only one person able to use it at a time) and coffee, sugar, cups and plates quickly disappearing and not being replenished. The "full English breakfast" on the first morning consisted of a single egg, one tiny triangular, processed, deep-fried "hash brown", some English bacon (ham), a single sausage, and one lonely sauteed mushroom (we took a pass on the baked beans and tomato as well as the black pudding - aka "blood sausage"). One employee taking and delivering orders and replenishing the breakfast buffet (coffee, yogurt, bread, butter, and jam) was obviously not enough.

Had the noise not been a problem and if we could have stayed on our original, very nice suite (or had been compensated for our troubles), I would have probably awarded an additional 3-4 Bombs. However, that NOT being the case ...

CombatCritic Gives The Pied Bull 4 Bombs Out Of 10 ... More Bombs Are Better!

My wife and I are on a tour of England, Scotland and Wales. Yesterday we were in Chester, England and on our own for lunch so we chose this restaurant.

We dined with four of our friends and we all seemed to like the entrees we chose. I had a half order of fish and chips and it was very good, and plenty of food for me. My wife had some sort of vegetable lasagna and she thought it was very good. Our friends also seemed to enjoy their choices.

The pub has an inviting atmosphere, a good selection of beers, and the wait staff was very attentive to our needs. Overall a very nice experience .

How had I not reviewed this cosy pub/hotel after I came here on my last visit to Chester? This is the home of the Pied Bull brewery and I very much enjoyed my visit here a couple of years ago and was most happy to be back!

Their award winning Matador is a decent beer but wouldn't win awards from me unless I was giving them away like kittens. The 10% CAMRA reduction certainly sweetened the deal.

Tried to stay here for our trip but the hotel was full.

This is such a beautiful looking pub inside and out ...but after experiencing severe food poisoning for two weeks ...this place has left a bad taste in my mouth...

The selection of beers are great and the atmosphere..but I tucked into some prawns on a jacket potato a couple of years ago and it knocked me for six...

My advise,,is yes go there for a drink...but nothing else

The pied bull is a magnificent building. It is almost tardis like containing a bar, restaurant, hotel and a brewery. The staff are generally great an there is a fair to good beer choice.
As far as value for money it is far from great. The food is overpriced for the quality or quantity provided. Beer is at the top end of what I would pay for the quality and isn't always the best choice.
It is a nice place to visit and their beer festivals are a must.

The food is very good for the amount you get and the beer is excellent too. they have there own microbrewery which has won an award, but the beer that won the award called "matador"im not that keen on. i prefer the "bulls hit" which is my favourite pint when im there, but they change the beers around all the time so you are not sure what you are going to get until you get there. The building is very old but the decor inside of the place seems very average to me its not old or modern in style but somewhere in between, its clean enough though and i will definitely be going again.

Great place to grab a pint and have some pub fare.