Fairway Inn: Sheffield pub responds after dispute with family over food brought onto premises for party

A Sheffield pub has responded after a disagreement with a family over food brought into the venue during a party.

Kyle Piggott, aged 38, claimed Fairway Inn in Birley Wood threatened to call the police to remove his family after they brought in food for his six-year-old son, who has a severe nut allergy.

The pub said: “The guests brought a large hamper of their own food and distributed it to members of the party.”

Kyle, a father of four, told The Star how he visited the pub on Sunday April 21 for a family gathering of 50 to celebrate multiple birthdays.

The group had booked a buffet, but they had been informed by staff that they could not guarantee that it would be free of allergens.

Kyle and his 30-year-old partner, who live in Gleadless, said they took a packed lunch made up of a couple of sandwiches and sausage rolls for their son, who has previously suffered life-threatening allergic reactions to nuts. 

But a couple of hours into the family get-together, Kyle said two members of staff told them his son was not allowed to eat the food that had not been purchased from the premises. The pub then allegedly said they would call the police if they did not remove the food.

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Kyle said he felt as though he was treated with ‘no compassion and no consideration’. 

“They were saying it was their policy - no food whatsoever,” he said.

“We were heart-broken to be honest. Everything was said in front of our son, which was not nice for him to hear himself. Then when they're threatening to ring the police if we didn't leave with the food, then obviously that caused him to become even more upset and scared.

“He has a life-threatening illness. It's not a nice thing to live with day to day in itself, and then to be treated in such a way that we was.”

He added: “They never said the issue was that there was too much food. Because if it was, we would have took it all out to the car and just brought it in as and when he was hungry.”

Marston’s, which runs Fairway Inn, among 1,550 pubs across England, Scotland and Wales, has disputed these claims. It has stated that the family had brought in a ‘large hamper’ of food that was being shared among the party.

It added: “This was not done with prior knowledge or approval of the pub and breaches EHO [environmental health officer] and health & safety guidelines which are designed to protect consumers. The guests were subsequently told they could not consume the food they had brought with them inside the pub.”

Fairway Inn currently holds a five-out-of-five hygiene rating score, following its latest inspection on December 4 2021, according to the Food Standards Agency.