Fat Hippo Birmingham — Restaurant in Birmingham

Me and my colleagues regularly visit here on lunch times, and I've often promoted the place amongst friends, family and social media. However today's lunch experience has left myself and the rest of the group a little annoyed, even still discussing it in the office with the others. It was supposed to be a happy and celebratory afternoon, but unfortunately something so minor has left a sour taste in our mouths.

I ordered the 'Little White Buffalo' with my chosen side as Hand cut chips. This was clearly heard and noted down by the waiter.

The meals arrived and on my plate next to the burger was Tater Tots. I told the waitress I didn't order these, I ordered Hand cut chips. As she was about to take the plate, I said I'm happy to eat them(to save her/them the hassle) and I mentioned "oh you won't charge for them will you?". Her response was taking the plate and saying "well they're a pound extra" and saying they'll fry some chips for me. I didn't really have the time to reply or discuss with her. I was just shocked, and looking at the rest of the group who were smiling in disbelief, they were shocked too.

Lunch times are supposed to be quick and easy. I didn't know how long the chips would take but I ate my burger hesitantly in stages as I wanted to eat it with the chips and at no point I had no real apology or update as to how long the chips were going to be. I watched as the rest of the gang finished their meals and waited for me. Finally the chips arrived 11mins later. I had 2 bites of my cold burger left.. and the waitress said "sorry about that" as she dropped the fries and walked off. No real attempt at rectifying the situation of me eating a burger by itself which had now gone cold as I was taking my time and now having to eat a portion of fries by themselves whilst the rest of the group watched me and waited.

Yes.. I was given fries.. not the hand cut chips as I had ordered! I was very close to asking for a supervisor and requesting they take my meal off the bill. However I remained calm, ate my fries. We paid the bill and left, leaving nothing towards gratuity as we usually do.

I'm still sat here in disbelief that I am writing a review for such a minor thing which could have been easily solved. Mistakes happen, and I am very understanding and patient person. But instead of leaving me with the tater tots which I would have accepted, I was made to wait with half a meal and not given a proper apology or compensation at the end. No apology was given by the other waiter at the end when we asked for the bill and were making payment.

Customer service and some common courtesy massively lacking today! It's a shame, as we do enjoy the food and visit regularly - though today even the burgers were lacking flavour for...

Where do I even start and I’m not even a Karen! Firstly, big shout out to the manager who denied my friend a half coke half cranberry even when it’s been served to us before and we said we would pay for the half pints and combine them ourselves because “ my staff are taught not to do that, none of my staff would serve you that and no you can’t have it “ (her exact words). She then proceeded to ignore us for the rest of the night but spoke to both tables besides us. How lovely! Upon entry to the restaurant me and my friend where told to ‘go back and wait at the door’… there were many empty tables and the couple we were seated next to us did the exact same thing and when the lad told the waiter he said ‘ oh don’t worry it is fine’ but it wasn’t fine for me and my friend. This was the first red flag. We ordered one of the happy hour meals (honey shot burger with s’mores desert) and the hangover burger with waffle fries, when they came to our table everything looked fine.The honey burger should have had more sauce not just a dab in the corner of the bun but that wasn’t even the worst. Both burgers were cold and when asked how our food was we explained it to our waitress who told us “ oh it’s because you ate all your fries for a long time” and laughed before walking off, at this point I had not even finished a quarter of the fries… (red flag number 2). We continued to delve in because it was late and the closest thing to us at that time, eating more of the burger, my friend found her chicken in the burger slimy and most of it was just batter no chicken just batter (red flag number 3) which made the rest of the burger inedible because why would you do that to yourself. Upon mains I had desert to wait for, should have just left at this point but sweet treat! We waited around 10 minutes for a small pot of the worlds saddest ice cream. The ‘toasted’ marshmallow was hard even the ones inside the pot and not at the top and my chocolate sauce was swapped for caramel without asking me if the swap was okay - the menu states chocolate sauce and was the one thing I was looking forward too. After bitting my way threw them we were instantaneously handed the bill no time to breathe. We were charged for an extra item we didn’t ask for but just paid because we wanted to get up and LEAVEEE the place. No thankyou for your service or have a good evening from no one we just left. Probably don’t care but will not be...

Booked a table here for 4 on a Saturday night. On arrival, we were informed they had no chicken burgers, no onion rings and no waffles. OK, we can live with that, not a big deal. Sat down and michael came to take our order. He is honestly the main reason this isn't a 1 star review. He never stopped working. He smiled, was pleasant, friendly. I felt really sorry for him. After ordering, we waited for an hour for our food. The food coming out of the kitchen was painfully slow. 4 burgers would come out, then it would be about 20 minutes before anything else would appear for another table. Noone came to apologise for the wait. The drinks were really expensive, so maybe the long wait time is intentional to drive up drink sales, but in our hour wait only 1 member of staff came to see if we wanted more drinks (and tried to take away unfinished drinks). While waiting, kitchen staff came into the dining room to discuss ordering in a pizza (there's a great sign), and about 20 minutes later it arrived through the restaurant to be taken to the kitchen via deliveroo! How unprofessional! The whole time we were waiting the place was half empty (on a Saturday night) and waiting staff were just leaning on the walls chatting or playing on their phones (again professional). When our food did eventually arrive, they forgot to cook one of our sides. Michael did apologise, and offered to get it cooked but with how long we had already waited we just had it taken off the bill. 3 of the burgers were fine (nothing special), but the 4th was over cooked to the point of being inedible. Noone came to ask how the food was (they were too busy on their phones) and having waited so long we didnt want to wait for another burger, so when the plates were cleared we complained and that was also taken off the bill. Finally, I informed a member of staff there was no toilet roll in one of the toilets, and she just shrugged and told me to use the disabled. No effort made to get more toilet roll. The whole attitude of the staff was that they just didn't care. I did inform Michael who I believe is the manager of all of these issues. He was genuinely apologetic, and gave me an email address to book again, but honestly the burgers were nothing special (five guys is better) so I don't think we would go back, even if the...