The Buck Inn reopened last night with bar only but food and rooms coming on stream in the next few days. The new tenants have a big job in restoring faith to the pub which was in sad decline before closing last year. The signs last night were good with an excellent atmosphere and an experienced landlord wishing to integrate the pub back into the community and revive the visitor potential in this superb location. Hopefully when the kitchens are fully operational they can achieve an excellent rating.

Stopped for "Sunday Roast" during an afternoon driving around the magnificent dales, despite being June the two open fires were aflame in the bars but only about ten folks were lunching. Lunch was basic but good quality and we were served promptly and pleasantly by a rather odd character of a landlord who kept going out to talk to others about his Porsche car in the car park, he seemed on a disconnect with the business itself so I have no idea what the deal was. However the place has so much potential in its location and the building is attractive compared to many area pubs ,in all we had a solid warm lunch and moved on into the Yorkshire rain back to Kendal !

This pub has come in for a real slating on this website. Some of the comments have been fairly made, others over the top, unkind and hurtful.

Clearly people who have had a bad experience at a pub are more likely to go to the trouble of writing up their opinions than the many who have had an average or better than average experience. That is the nature of reviews. The relatively small proportion of customers disappointed and seeking redress grab all the attention. And if you look for faults, you will always be able to see them.

I know this pub well. It is not the disaster that some people have made out. It is an average place and most people have an average time there. A limited number of customers have reacted badly to some of the weaker aspects of the way it is run and they have sought to make their feelings known as far as possible. It is true that within the village, there are those who boycott the place (as the result of a minor incident a long time ago) but there are just as many who bear no grudge.

But that is all history now because yesterday the pub closed for business. Alf and Julie have left, both tearful and broken people. They put everything they had into the Buck and worked very hard to make a go of it. Did they deserve this outcome? I don't think so.

We visited the pub during the middle of a Sunday afternoon in glorious weather. There were just two people sitting outside and inside there were just two couples sitting at opposite ends of the pub. There was a very surly looking woman serving behind the bar and a man, also behind the bar, talking to her but completely ignoring us (he was more interested in his dog). Neither of them smiled at us or welcomed us in any way. I asked about the two Black Sheep beers that they served as I wasn't familiar with them and their answers were short and completely uninterested.

While we were there, sitting down, a man came in and stood at the bar talking to the landlady having a good old LOUD gossip about 'what he said and then what they said', which made the atmosphere even worse.

There was a huge blackboard at the back of the pub advertising Sunday Lunch but when a couple came in and asked if food was still being served they were told 'We're not serving food today' quite brusquely. They then asked if there were any bar snacks and were again told 'We're not serving any food today'. The couple looked at one another, clearly curious as to what they had said wrong but then must've realised the pub clearly had a reputation for being unwelcoming. They left.

During the following week at work I was telling one of my colleagues about the pub and he was horrified. 'Not the Buck Inn! We used to go there all the time and it was lovely. Are you sure?'. I told him that it must've had a change of hands so we looked it up on Trip Advisor and saw the terrible reviews. Including one where the landlord had told one customer that all the bad reviews on Trip Advisor were from disgruntled locals.

I want to set the record straight! I inspect hotels and guesthouses for a living in Europe - small family run establishments where the quality of accommodation, service, food, welcome are VITAL. Although the pub appeared to be clean enough (there was no-one in to dirty it!) the service was downright appalling and if my husband hadn't already taken a table prior to me buying the drinks I would quite happily have left. Even my 15 year old son asked me what their problem was!