The North Star Shaw Oldham

"Fantastic Roast Dinner at a Great Local Pub This local pub is top-notch with incredible food and friendly staff. The food is always outstanding, but the roast beef dinner and gammon roast dinner were particularly amazing. Cooked to perfection and served with all the fixings - roast potatoes, mash, delicious vegetables, and Yorkshire puddings. Mark, the landlord, is welcoming and Kelsey, Lilly, and the rest of the staff are very attentive and professional, ensuring that everyone is well taken care of. The desserts are also delightful. I would highly recommend paying a visit to this gem of a pub."

The food was terrible and the staff were rude. There was a piece of bone or gristle in my cottage pie. The chef was defensive and claimed it was just mince. The manager was even worse, refusing to remove the item from the bill and then swearing at me in front of my children. It was a truly awful experience.

I have visited the North Star multiple times in the past and have always had an amazing experience. So, I decided to book a table for my daughter's 30th birthday yesterday, 3rd December 2023, expecting the same level of excellence. Unfortunately, I was left feeling disappointed this time. While the service was decent and the starters were good, the main dishes fell short of our expectations. One guest's fish batter was pale and soft instead of crispy, the steak and ale pie crust was flat and lacked the expected crispiness of puff pastry, and the vegetables were overcooked. The chips were average but not fresh. My daughter's chicken meal was dry, with overcooked vegetables and a burnt pig in blanket. Towards the end of the meal, we felt rushed and decided to skip desserts. Unfortunately, I doubt I will be returning to the North Star in the future.

My family visited here after hearing good things, we arrived in plenty of time before the lunch deal finished for the day, which would have made this affordable. Young chap took our order, and 3 of us had the lunch menu in front of us and pointed to items off it, indicating we wanted the deal. They even said shall we order desert now or later, further indicating our intention to have the lunch deal. Food came, 2 of the 3 guests were happy with the food and then ordered the dessert which was part of the lunch menu. All came correctly, and then we asked for the bill. We had been charged individually for everything we ate and the lunch menu deal hadn 't been applied, so we were charged £20 extra for this mistake on their side. The waiter was a young lad, so we accepted that this must just be a mistake and asked a lady who appeared to be more senior. We explained the situation, mentioning that even though we didn 't explicitly say 'lunch deal ', we made it pretty obvious to the waitor. This more senior lady went and had a chat with the waitor and came back to us to say he thought the lunch menu was only Sunday, so she apologised to us and was lovely and genuinely apologetic. However, she then explained that basically because we had eaten the food (which she explained was a tiny bit of a bigger portion to the lunch menu meal) that we had to pay, and came over with the card machine. Therefore, she acknowledged that it was the young waitors fault but still charged us £20 more than it was. We didn 't want to cause a fuss because the young waitor could see everything and we didn 't want to dishearten him, but I expected more from the senior woman. Very very dissapointed.

First visit with the new landlord and will definitely be going again. Eat from the 12 till 6 menu, 2 courses £13 or 3 courses £16. Although they are smaller sizes it was more than enough for all of us. Only slight disappointment was the Eton mess dessert which wasn’t great. Also now dog friendly which is a separate area and taking our dog in was not a problem. Definitely worth a visit.