Do you want a good roast? Get your arses to The Butchers Arms then!! Seriously best value we’ve come across yet.
Last Minute booking
It was a last min booking on Sunday morning. I called up The Butchers Arms to see if they had any availability left. Not sure who I spoke to but wow she was lovely from the off! Loads of space for the 12 o’clock sitting…It didn’t really click what she meant at this point so I asked if she had space at 12.30 to which I was told yes as long as were out for 2pm. Fine by us we always inhale a good roast at high speed anyway.
The lady asked us a few questions. 1st one was were there any vegetarians…. Oh how we laughed. Any food allergies? Really covering her bases! So rest assured they probably won’t kill you if you’re one of those. Just let them know.
Now after the trigger pond I made sure I asked if there was a kids menu. I soon found out that they only did a kids portion of roast on Sundays. Such a shame I have weird kids that won’t eat a roast. She picked up the disappointment in my voice and straight away offered to stick the fryers on so we could give the kids chips and sausages or something similar! How awesome is that! Really bloody great customer service. This was possible because we called early enough. Don’t expect to walk in at 12 and ask them to stick a fryer on. They don’t heat up that fast at all!
So far so good
Table booked got the family ready and off we went on our 10min drive. Fairly easy to find the place but make sure you park in the car park not someones drive like we almost did. Nice size car park and they had some chickens! Much to Elliots delight. He lovessss chicken. We saw someone collecting the eggs for the pub on our way out so you know your food is fresh!
Pub from the outside was cute, really pretty looking, decent sized front area with lots of tables to sit at. It’s right on the roadside though but not a huge problem because its also adjacent to a huge cricket field for the kids to run around in.
We went in and I did start to worry then because it doesn’t have the same impact like when you walk into the trigger pond. It was a bit like walking into the Woolpack from emmerdale. What have i done I started to think. However the bar man told us to just hang on a sec while they ran some food out. So we ordered drinks 1st and waited for the waitress.
The Butchers Arms service
As soon as the waitress showed us to our table my mind was back at ease. There’s a separate room out the back for more formal dining. Don’t get me wrong its nothing fancy but we like that. We feel much more at ease in a nice comfy place than a pretentious restaurant filled with pretentious arse holes just because they charge £25 for a quail egg with some green shit on it and have a sheep’s skull sprayed gold hanging on the wall!
If you see yourself as a bit of a posh git this place is not for you! However if you like freshly cooked roast in the comfort of what feels like your own home then The Butchers Arms is the place for you.
Portions
It’s once we walked in we realised they do 2 sittings for roast dinner which in my opinion is great! That way they can make sure everything on your plate is cooked as fresh as possible and my god do you get a lot on your plate! (Check out the place Mats haha reminds me of my mum’s house when we were young) I was so shocked at our meat portions. We had so much meat we couldn’t eat it all. Loads of veg, stuffing, Gravy and then a Yorkshire pudding. Now the Yorkshire pudding would be my only slight complaint and even then not enough to actually complain. It was so dense it looked more like a quiche than a yorkie it did taste nice though.
The kids had fish fingers, chips and peas. Elliot demolished all of his but Clarks appetite was still not back after his sick bug so he didn’t eat a huge amount. Right kids, if you have kids 5 and under they eat for free!!! Awesome I had no idea. Why aren’t they shouting this from the roof tops?? Everyone with kids know how expensive it can be for lunch out and this just significantly reduced our spend.
Pudding
Food eaten (as much as we could anyway) then they asked us if we wanted pudding. Fuck that I thought I couldn’t eat another thing! Then they gave us the list of puddings and informed us that pudding is part of the price! Seriously free pudding!! However this still wasn’t enough to make us order one each. Instead we ordered the chocolate cake and ice cream to share between the kids. The ice cream was flipping lovely btw if you’re not too full give it a try.
I’ll break it down. Two sittings one at 12 and one at 2pm the latter is the busier so book in. It’s £16.95 for an adults roast, we had a choice of beef, Turkey, pork and lamb. The portions are monster sized and tasted delicious. Kids 5 and under eat free and you get a free pudding with your roast too.
The service and hospitality for most of the visit was spot on. We did have to go to the bar ourselves to get our 2nd round of drinks but this was no bother. I would say that the service was fractionally better in the trigger pond but the hospitality and food was far superior in the butchers arms. The trigger pond trumps the child friendly aspect though thanks to their enclosed garden and bouncy castle.
Play area
However! Just up the road next to the school there’s a nice little brand new play area!! It’s really was brand spanking new. Great for all ages, good parking and the safety matting was still soft enough to embrace a toddlers face and cause minimal damage. I wouldn’t say this was a destination park but definitely one to visit after your lunch or dinner….that’s if you have kids. If you don’t have kids I wouldn’t bother it’d be a bit weird.
The Butcher Arms stats:
Distance from Bicester: 12mins
Sat nav: The Butchers Arms, Main St, Fringford, Bicester OX27 8EB
Food quality: 9/10
Value: 10/10
Venue: 8/10
Cleanliness: 10/10
Service: 9/10
Overall experience: 9/10
Food hygiene rating 1-5 : 5 top marks!
We will be going back here and if i’m honest we’d pick The Butchers Arms for Sunday roast any day over the trigger pond. Give it a go and let me know what you think. Again this is just my opinion if you don’t like it then ah well shit happens.
For more reviews and idea of where to have your Sunday roast click HERE
For their website click HERE
