Chance & Counters - Board Game Café — Restaurant in Birmingham

I’m sad to see this place having changed for the worst over the last few months and would not recommend based on price, quality and experience. I attended with 3 other friends on Saturday, having been on many occasions before. The last few times we’ve noticed the service and food quality drop, up until this weekend where it’s unlikely I will be returning. The first issue we had was around the service. As this is a board game cafe, you’ll find, at times, you’ll be playing a board game. There used to be a system in place where you would raise a flag when you wanted to order, that worked remarkably well to order food and drinks at opportune moments. What we found this weekend is either, it was impossible to get service, or we were being asked in short succession by different people what we wanted, at times that interfered with the round we were playing. It took away from the experience of the games we were enjoying. Having booked for 4 hours, we ordered multiple drinks but there were two rounds of drinks through the afternoon that we ordered that didn’t turn up. A third order of drinks, which were placed alongside the food order, turned up 10 minutes after the food arrived. It appears these had been missed again. The food is usually great and we’ve worked through most of the menu over the last few years. This time it took 20 minutes for us to get the attention of a server to order food when we were ready, and there were plenty of people working with the place far from full. (20 mins is not an exaggeration.) This weekend the food was not good. The burger buns and one burger were burnt, and the chips luke warm. The last thing to mention was the price. Chance and Counters is no longer an affordable place to go with friends. We spent over £160 between 4 of us. Although we took our own games to play, we had to pay £32 for game use despite the website and information board on the wall saying that the charge is for use of their games. There was an additional £14.95 gratuity also added to the bill. When questioning the charges the manager’s answers were short, blunt and unsympathetic. She did not listen to our concerns with the afternoon’s experience and cut us off saying “company policy” and would not engage any further with us, not even giving us chance to discuss the issues with the food. This was by far the worst interaction we’ve had with anyone on having an issue and further cements my decision to not...

Visited Chance & Counters today with my partner and kids (booked for 2 hours, left around 8pm). Sadly, this visit was extremely disappointing compared to previous times.

Service: The gentleman who took our order was fantastic. I am gluten free and he was very helpful and attentive throughout. He also noticed straight away when my burger came out on a non-gluten bun and took it back without me even asking — excellent service from him.

Food quality: The kids’ meals were burnt, though they ate them as they were hungry. When my burger came back with the correct gluten free bun, the bun itself was burnt on one side, the patties were also burnt, and the chips that should have come with it were missing.

Accused of lying: When I raised this with another young lady server, she went to check with the kitchen and came back saying the chips had already been sent. I was stunned. I then had to argue my case and point out my plate, as if I was lying and trying to steal food. Being accused of lying and stealing over a missing portion of chips was absolutely shocking and left me feeling humiliated.

Manager response: I spoke again to the original server, who was brilliant and did what he could. He explained the situation to the manager and came back to tell me they had authorised a refund for my meal and asked if I wanted a replacement. I declined as by then I was too upset.

What shocked me further is that the manager never came to speak with me directly at any point, even after overhearing what had happened at the till when my partner paid. The manager did issue some game time vouchers, but still didn’t come over personally.

Overall experience: We spent over £80 on what should have been a fun family evening, but instead it was appalling, disappointing, and left me feeling accused of lying and stealing.

What makes it worse is that I genuinely love Chance & Counters. I’ve visited before and even a few months ago my friend’s burger came out burnt and was refunded. I assumed the kitchen issues would have been resolved by now, but sadly not.

I honestly cannot believe how poor this experience was and how badly it was handled. Hugely...

The perfect little table flags to announce when you want to order something: gone. Coasters to keep the board games and cards from getting sticky from spilt drinks: gone. Need for ID's from balding middle-aged men with beards. These are things that only make experiencing chance encounters so frustrating where there's just no need for it to be that way. The consequence is just endless interuptions of staff who well-meaningly have to bother me three times reminding me of the closed kitchen. I could live on with the rest of my life waving the flag and being told "kitchen is closed" or have it on the qr code menu. There are so so many ways you could easily let people continue to have their fun without pestering them 1.5 times and hour. I've been waiting to do this but I needed that "last straw" moment. My goodness.... whoever this new director is who must of come around december 2022 to janurary 2023, please. I'm pleading with you. Chance encounters was and can be such a wonderful amazing little pocket of social interactions! Whatever your new tact and business strategy is, it's not needed! I've been actively turned away from chance because of this! I don't want to be, You have a perfect setup and you clearly are very popular that i'm sure you'll get over the small chump change my business brings....but holy god, your a pro-athlete winning the marathon race shooting your right foot and then your left foot just for fun. And please. Social interactions with other human beings doesn't need to be policed until mondays- the day which humans may make the effort to speak to new humans on a day where it's socially acceptable to meet new humans. I'd give a 2.5 or 5 star if I could based on past events but, whatever direction this new director is going in is just frustrating and unnecesary. It just turns me away and I really want to just keep coming back to...