Today was opening day for the Wyvern. Since it is one of two pubs within easy walking distance, I felt it my duty to investigate :D. (The other pub, the Somerset Arms, is cr*p and didn’t serve food when I last visited, nigh on a year ago.) I arrived at the Wyvern just before 19:00 - prime time. Since the new management appeared to not have widely advertised the opening, I was not surprised to see that there was not much custom; I was surprised that I was not greeted or acknowledged. Indeed, it was quite some time after I stood at the bar before one of the staff asked if they could help. In part, this was because the manager was occupied with training a barmaid: this really should have been done beforehand.
There was muzak and a jukebox, but the volume was low.
The food and drink on offer is slightly upmarket, with appropriate pricing and not really the usual plain pub fare - if you want that, you walk another half-mile to the Wigmore Arms, which is a bit of a dive. There were no opening night special offers.
I saw three staff in the kitchen area.
I ordered a pint of cider - £2.60 - and a sirloin steak - £11.75. They had no problem with taking a cheque. With some trepidation, I ordered my steak rare, expecting it to come back more medium than rare. The food was delivered in 10 minutes, and the steak was properly rare and gorgeous, but they’d served it on a cold plate which meant that it cooled too quickly. I pointed this out to the manager who took it with good grace, but said that they didn’t have a plate-warmer. I wasn’t overly impressed with the size of the portion of chips I was given but it was adequate, well cooked, and tasty. The napkins were good quality. Pudding was fattenning and delicious, if not overly large.
I was there for a bit over an hour and the pub was never busy. The gents’ were clean (I didn’t check the ladies’!).
My departure did not appear to be noticed.
I’ll give it a B. The staff need to be friendlier and to serve hot food on hot plates. It’s too early for the place to have developed an atmosphere. There’s good food and good drink, so it just needs to develop good company. I’ll be going back - further investigation is required!