speight's ale house

wow, lovely restaurant but very pricey, you could eat at some of nelson's "fine dining" places for less. no complaints about the actual food or service though, but lets be realistic it is a bar/pub/family restaurant after all.

had a great evening. hubby's surprise 40th 20+ people meals service was great, bread was divine, mains were all delivered and presented well and were delicious. but best of all the music and music videos were the best. will go again.

top restaurant for service food and decor!!!! this restaurant is rated top of the top for service. my partner and i went for dinner and were treated like absolute royalty! service with a plus! please take a bow riley and naomi from nelson!!!! we had a night that is unforgettable. we have dined everywhere in the area and have never felt more important.... would recommend for dinner for two or function dining as have been witness to the most perfect overall dining experience. menu is absolutely divine! keep it up! we will be back with our friends.

my wife and i had dinner at the speights ale house last night, as i had visited a number of times with mates for a friday beer and really enjoyed the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. we were slightly nervous as i'd heard negative feedback about meal delays from a colleague who had dined there, but as it turned out we needn't have worried. i had the flounder, my wife the salmon - both delicious and exceeded expectations, although next time we wouldn't have the bread loaf first (it's huge!). our drinks order was taken before we went upstairs - and almost beat us to the table - both the meal order and subsequent drink refills all happened in appropriate time, despite the place being pretty full. all round we were very impressed and will definitely recommend to friends and family.....and be back for more!

i took my family to the speights ale house this evening for one of our children's birthdays. i had already eaten a couple of times with clients and had enjoyed the food, atmosphere and service.
with high expectations and tired children in tow we arrived to a warm welcome from the manager and were escorted to our upstairs table.
we were introduced to our waitress and she then made sure we were all happy and comfortable advising the daily specials and taking drinks orders. the restaurant was relatively busy and we were really well looked after in terms of understanding our needs, interacting with the children and just making sure everything was ok.
the food was lovely and plentiful and the kids were really pleased with their meals - and they are hard to please.
great flavours and great portion sizes meant we all went home well fed, well watered and content!
we will definitely be back and the manager and his team went out of their way to make sure we had a good experience. i will be recommending friends to try out the speights ale house and support the town's newest bar and restaurant which i believe has something for everyone...

i have eaten and drank (heaps!!!) at the speights ale house nelson - the food, service and welcome is exceptional. i have entertained clients there, and everyone enjoyed the experience.

try the whole flounder!!

honestly, thoroughly recommend it - and remember, most of the negative reviews on here are from opposition food outlets!

hi. 4 of us locals visited on 1 march 2012. my partner had gone to the bar to get us drinks but a waitress noticed i didn't have a drink and came and asked if i wanted one- well spotted. not long after we were asked if we were dining in that evening and the waitress guessed who we were and showed us to our table. great decor, noticed all speights detail of 3 stars on base of bar stools, restaurant chairs, etc. loved the tartan on back of some of the seating.

meals took 20 mins to arrive, unfortunately just the 2 arrived at once, we had to wait 5 mins for the other 2 which wasn't vg. all meals well presented. rib eye steak was done perfect to medium rare as requested. shank and cod and chips were also enjoyable. my meal- the beans were blanched for about 2 mins in water so were like raw and one i tried was stringy. the waitress was apologetic and while the meal was returned to the chef to sort out, she offered me a complimentary alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink. my meal was a goat, bacon and mushroom pie- when i tried the pie, all i could taste was an aftertaste of pepper- my friend also confirmed this when she tried it. we told the waitress to pass this info on to the chef which she did.

summary- excellent polite service from everyone concerned, 3 out of 4 meals were well received, just need to make sure all meals at one table are served within a couple of minutes so all at the table can start their meal at once- some restaurants 'borrow' another waitress to achieve this. we would return and would also recommend to others.

i recently dined at the speights ale house for my birthday. we had a table of 30 people and all left very impressed! the food was fantastic and the service faultless.

i had the black cherry chicken– which was to die for, and my partner had the drunken steak and he was very impressed - going as far to say its the best he has had!! the meals were large, very satisfying and beautifully presented. i cant wait to get back there any try more on the menu!

the staff were extremely friendly and professional and our waitress really went the extra mile. nothing was a problem for her!

we will definately be going back there and would recommend it to anyone. a+++++

my wife and i visited here on the evening of 21 february 2012. it was our first time here and arrived on spec, without a previous booking. first impressions were very good, decor and general setup pleasing. the young lady at the reception was welcoming, smiling and generally very helpful. because we had not booked we were told we would have to wait about 15 minutes while she juggled the table bookings and we accepted this. however, after five minutes, she called us in to the bar area for a two-seat table which was then available. on this occasion we did not require drinks and, after about eight minutes, a very pleasant young waitress took our order which was for mains only. while waiting for our meals, we noticed that all the staff appeared to be in the 20s/30s age group and continually on the move - the place was full. all appeared to know what they were doing and very efficiently did it!

the meals duly arrived after 25 minutes - in our view a reasonable wait considering the number people being attended to. the meals were well presented. quantities were very good but, as we found, the quality was at best only average. my wife's meal - vegetarian - was much too oily. my own meal - drunken steak - was good except for the main ingredient, the steak. i asked for it medium rare, which it was and tasted good, but i suspect it was not the cut it was supposed to be, more like stewing steak grilled, and was tough! if not that, then the beast it came from was not in the best of condition!

geoff (stoke)

i am an owner of two motels in nelson. i commend the 'speights ale house' for their decor and cheerful, helpful staff.
however - two weeks ago i took clients there for lunch, meal was great but the service was very slow. so i thought i would give the place a second chance and tried another lunch date. we sat there for 15 minutes without being offered even a drink, let alone having our meal order taken. as a suggestion from a mutual business owner - you have the basic great facilities, you really need to address you staff issues... a great manager could make or break the place, at present you do not have one of these....

last evening my family made our second visit to speight's ale house to see if things had improved since our first visit in mid january. unfortunately things had deteriorated.

on the january visit we took some friends from wellington to our new local. they paid for two rounds of drinks for our group and we then decided to order the seafood platter to share. this duly arrived and we disposed of it as we finished our drinks. the pate was accompanied by only four pieces of crisp bread - not nearly enough to use all the pate. we requested some more bread and were informed that this would be no problem but that an additional charge of $3 would be required! this was after a tab of more than $100 at the bar and $48 for the platter! so much for their byline " generous to a fault". this is not a good policy for a new establishment.

last evening our family went for drinks and a meal to give that place a second chance. we made a booking and were told that all tables would be in use until 7.30pm but we could eat at a bar table. we accepted this and arrived about 6.45pm. no one approached us to take our food orders. we eventually attracted a waitress who took our orders about 7.20pm. we requested a dining table if one became available . we waited nearly 1 hour for our food and were told that a dining table was available upstairs. at the table we were served our food but with no cutlery or water. we had to call downstairs for the cutlery and were advised that the water was coming.

the food was hardly average. it was just warm, lacked flavour, the scotch fillet steak was doubtful and seemed more like a cheaper cut, the tuna salad was not prepared as our vegetarian daughter had requested and still no water!

as we finished our meals the water arrived and the child in our group was offered his ice cream dessert at about 9.00 pm. we need to leave by this time so we took the dessert in a container.

when we paid to leave i complained to the duty manager. she attempted to defend her staff by insisting on retrieving the order docket to challenge my timing issues. so much for accepting my dissatisfaction and attempting to put things right!

the whole experience was very disappointing. this is very ordinary pub food at city restaurant prices, poor and slow service and a weak customer focus. this speight's ale house over promises and under delivers. we won't go there again.

my partner and i came here for dinner in late january just a wee while after it had opened. we booked for 7pm and it wasn't as busy as i thought it would be. our waitress was really nice and helpful during our time we were there.

i did happen to notice that the staff were all quite young (maybe no older than 20) that we saw. i think this could be an issue for when it gets busy as i've heard it does. there doesn't look to be a well experienced on floor manager which they could benifit from.

but the food was soooo good, and the beer was fantastic as speights always is, and the sevice was friendly and nice =)

good food. unfortunately our meals arrived 10 minutes apart. i had to ask the waitress where the second meal was after it appeared they'd forgotten about us. to their credit they comped a cider.

we enjoyed a sunday afternoon at speight's, good food and friendly staff, when we got to have contact with them. it was quiet, but the staff seemed to be enjoying one another's company too much to pay much attention to customers. we were not offered a dessert menu, or tea or coffee, and had to get up and ask for everything we wanted after the main course. staff probably went home reporting they'd had a cruisy afternoon, but the fact was customers were not being well served and they could have sold more if they'd been on the ball.

went to the ale house on new year’s eve with a group of twelve, it was a great experience and we ended up having a great night. we were welcomed by the manager who was a great guy and very polite which was the demeanor of all the staff. we were shown to a table where we had a few rounds of beers and wines ect, and the staff were quick to come and ask if everything was okay or if we required more drinks or if we would like to see the menu, which is fantastic and exactly what you want on a dining out experience. we ordered entrees to begin and completed these before our mains were brought out. the waiting time was short and the quality of the food was exceptional, the best we experienced in nelson over our new year holiday. we followed this by having a few drinks until about one o’clock, the atmosphere was great and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time.