Check the week's rota
The usual shape of the week at the house, by day. Tuesday to Sunday, with Monday set aside for the kitchen to rest.
What happens, day by day
How to plan around it
The rota above is the usual shape of the week, not a fixed contract. Nights shift a little with the seasons, and the kitchen sometimes adds a special when something good arrives from a local grower. When in doubt, ring the house on the number below and Olivia will tell you what's planned.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best nights for first-time visitors. The dining room is calm, the tables upstairs are unhurried, and the staff have time to teach. Fridays and Saturdays are noisy and wonderful, and you'll want a booking for supper, since the house can seat only sixty at a time.
Sundays are for lingering. The roast comes out at five, the light through the north windows goes golden around six, and the upstairs room fills with a mix of locals, travellers and the occasional family group, all adults. If you're passing through town on a Sunday, this is the night to stop.
Private evenings are occasionally held on quieter nights, and on those evenings the casino room may be closed to walk-ins. The house will always tell you when you phone or book, and the rota is updated each week.
There are no dates on this page on purpose. We think of the year as a series of weeks that look much the same, with the occasional special supper, and any change is easily explained by phone.
Seasonal changes are small. In the cooler months the soup nights stretch to four evenings and the roast moves to Saturday as well as Sunday, because that is when the town's travellers are hungriest. In the warmer months the verandah gets its own lighter, earlier supper menu, and the tables upstairs open an hour later to let the heat of the day clear.
Anyone planning a group visit should look at Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday first. These are the three nights when we can give a large party the most attention, set one long table in the dining room and hold a block of seats upstairs. For a birthday, a retirement supper or a reunion of adult cousins, those nights tend to run best.
We open the doors at five and ask the first guests to come in through the front rather than the side lane, so Olivia can greet each of them by name. The kitchen closes at half past eight, the tables upstairs run until eleven, and by a quarter past Todd is turning the lamps off one by one.
