as im a local and live in Ripon . after me ,my husband & son had finished are walk , we decided to have a bit to eat at the water rat, we found a table & chairs out side , then my son went to get the drinks, on are table they had a plastic union jack table cloth over the table which was sticky and had ash on it , i went in and asked when they had time would they come out and clean the table, the waitress said yes when they had time. so we sat at the table with are drinks and waited, we waited 25 minutes in that time two waitresses had been outside five times between them to collect dishes and not at any time did they attempt to clean our table or any of the other table's that they had taken dishes of, we decided not to eat there , but i wanted the landlord to know what had happened at his establishment, so i asked if i could have a word with him , he was working behind the bar and made no attempt to come to the other side of the bar for a chat , i told him what had happened and all he said was we were busy i mentioned that they had come out side and cleared away dishes of other tables so why couldnt they of brought a cloth to clean are table as we were planning to eat there , then the waitress that i asked to clean the table said well i didn't know you wanted to eat, i said it shouldn't matter if i was eating or drinking which i was told from the landlord , people that are eating come first . i said your customer service needs looking at, so i said we wouldn't be visiting again, the reply was bye ! which he said in a arrogant manner then the waitress laughed, which i said wasn't very nice, i know this is long winded, but i do feel very strongly about it . The food is lovely there but the customer service really needs to be looked in to .. read more