JJs Taps & Smoke

We've been to The Plough at Allerthorpe quite a number of times since JJs took over and every time the food has been nothing less than amazing. We went again today (16/09/25) and as always, fantastic, the service is great and the staff were very polite and professional. We ordered the steak and ale pie and the Baltic chicken stroganoff and both meals were a decent size, piping hot and tasted amazing. JJs always have a great choice of food available from paninis, to quality pub grub and their amazing Sunday lunches. Believe me you will not be disappointed.

Our initial waitress Ellie was fantastic, couldn’t have asked for more, really friendly service, kind, and she gave our dog a lovely fuss too. She’s a credit to your restaurant. The woman however with the brown hair and black and white jumper - who I think may have been the manager (we were advised her name is Amy) was vile. Came over to our table and gave us the most disgusted down her nose look ever and said “excuse me do not let your dog eat at the dinner table”, pulled a face at us and made another snide comment half under her breath, then said “it needs to be on the floor”. Our dog was sat on my sisters knee with a chew that we purchased from the venue, he wasn't chewing it on the table, and he was hardly sat eating with a knife and fork off a plate the way she made out. If dogs disgust you that much, just don’t have a dog “friendly” restaurant? She then walked over to the waitress station and pointed at our table while talking to them - clearly about us, at which the other two waitresses proceeded to stare over at us. Talk about making feel unwelcome - do you realise how incredibly uncomfortable that interaction made us feel? If the request had been made in a friendly manner without pulling faces at us and speaking to us like we were something off the bottom of your shoe, we really wouldn’t have minded at all. I fully appreciate that is your policy, not all your visitors will be dog fans, and obviously you have hygiene standards to maintain - but all you had to do was advise - not pull faces and sneer at us. Instead if we hadn’t already placed a large order for our food (and thought it would be unfair on the kitchen who hadn’t done anything wrong) we would just have walked out there and then. It completely tainted our Easter break away, and to be honest I wish we had never chosen to eat there in the first place. The food was okay, the scotch egg starter was undercooked (pictured) and the pork belly starter was literally swimming in oil (again pictured - removed the meat to show the extent of the oil). These issues however wouldn’t have even been raised by us if we didn’t experience such an awful interaction, so you can thank your lovely manager for that. We weren’t asked once if everything was okay, and our mains were brought out with no cutlery, and without the starters being cleared. Again, not something that would usually warrant a negative tripadvisor review, however on this occasion this was because not a single person bothered with us after the rude interaction with your manager. Again, talk about being made to feel welcome. Pre empting the question why didn’t we raise it at the time, we attempted to with the waitress who was taking our payment (not someone we had interacted with before) but she flounced off rolling her eyes and didn’t return. Professional! I also note a reply to one reviewer where you state that reviews are utilised to damage businesses - I think some of your employees are managing that all by themselves. Reading the extremely immature, passive aggressive, and incoherent responses to other reviews, I’m not expecting a constructive response. The restaurant seems to see itself as a victim of every single negative review, and likes to point out that it has hundreds of other customers. Well when you are the only restaurant in the whole area, people don’t really have a choice… I’d advise others to have a look at what’s on offer in the surrounding villages and where possible take the extra five or ten minutes to travel, you’ll likely have a more welcoming experience.

JJs Pocklington - We booked here for my husbands birthday with the family and grandchildren, the food was terrible , 4 out of 6 of us ordered chicken and pull burger with chips . All our chips were cold ! and the burgers were so salty they were inedible, the coating was rock hard . What was supposed to be an enjoyable experience turned out to be a disaster with the food. When we complained we were offered a free round of drinks with a 'sorry about that ' ! They had also reduced the menu it is now very limited, so you would have thought that they would have at least got the food right! Would i recommend to others - NO would we return - NO

We had a great experience here!! We stayed at the “JJs lodge” for 2 lovely nights, and ate at JJs kitchen one evening. The food and cocktails are ace and the staff are brilliant too! Big shout out to Jo who took our order, served our food & drinks, and checked us in earlier that day; giving us all the info we needed to find our lodge. Fab at her job! We will definitely be coming back here with friends for another nice getaway holiday.

My wife and I had a fabulous lunch, I got the pocklington pie and my wife got the tandoori chicken kebab both were very generous portions and absolutely delicious. I would highly recommend and will be returning ourselves. Staff were very attentive and polite.