Manahatta Temple Street — Restaurant in Birmingham

If I could give no stars, I would. I definitely not not recommend this place. Unless of course, you enjoy spending your money where your custom is less than welcome.

I don’t normally leave reviews, but I’ve never been treated this poorly anywhere before. They have some sort of weird mean girls vibe in this place.

I found the hostess to be friendly enough when we arrived and she told us where we could sit since we only came in for drinks. We sat down and once we were ready, looked around to see if we could catch someone’s attention. I called over to the group of waitresses by the bar to grab their attention and the barman (instead of alerting his colleagues that there were some customers looking for service) shouted over at us with what I’ll only describe as an interesting tone to say “you CAN come to the bar, you know” to which I said I didn’t realise it wasn’t table service. He said it was, but I could come to the bar. We sat chatting a little longer and saw him go to the girls. We reasonably assumed that he’d gone over to let them know we were waiting for service. He certainly did tell them about us, but it seemed more like they were gossiping as they all looked over at us and then returned to chatting and laughing amongst themselves and still no one came over. At this point we were baffled by what was going on. I feel it necessary to point out that at no point were we rude. We were actually in very high spirits after a lovely lunch at The Ivy, so the way we were being treated was completely uncalled for. We decided that we’d rather leave, but before we did so, we wanted to speak to someone. I told the waitress that came over to us that they had a mean girls vibe going on and enquired as to why they were ignoring us when they even looked over at us and talked about us. She was extremely defensive and went on to tell us that it was very obvious that it’s bar service and not table service where we were sitting - even though there was a food menu on the table that we’d actually decided to order from. She went on to describe to us how very obvious this should have been and how it’s like this “in every bar, everywhere”. I don’t know what bars she frequents, but it is not like this anywhere I spend time. In the end, it actually felt like a lost cause trying to express our disdain at their poor treatment of us that we just said thanks and that we are just going to leave to which she shrugged her shoulders and seemed set to continue defending their behaviour.

I’d also like to point out that the place was not busy by any means, so it’s not like they were struggling with customers.

Word to management: it seems as though there is a terrible culture being fostered in your establishment. Your staff don’t care about the customer. Customers should not be made to feel like a burden or be spoken down to. There should never at any point be shouting from a bar to customers. Instead of shouting over to us, a courteous bar tender would have alerted his team members of customers. Having a flock of waitresses standing around, gossiping about and ignoring customers they know are waiting for them is in extremely poor taste.

We went on to spend our hard earned money elsewhere and received much more favourable service. I would recommend others do so the same. There seems to be a lot of other great options...

Very disappointing experience! Pick and chooses what fits the ‘dress code’ on the door. My family and I all booked for a bottomless brunch for a family members birthday paying £45 pp. on arrival my partner was refused entry due to wearing jeans, they could not explain what was wrong with them as I had pointed everyone else inside was also in jeans.

Told us that there was a dress code when we booked, I proceeded to get the booking link up and he couldn’t find where it tells the dress code! Also couldn’t show me on my booking confirmation. How embarrassing… made us stand to the side for 20 mins as they were trying to find a manager which no could seem to do? My family had already started the brunch at this point, everyone frustrated we were stuck outside!

After I was asked over and over, they finally explained the print on the jeans was the problem and you cannot wear “heavily branded clothing” as my partner was wearing jeans with a small print on the crotch. I then proceeded to point out 7 different people inside of the establishment with heavily branded clothing, I’m talking a full print on the back of the t-shirt. If this is their dress code fair enough but this needs to be clear on every single booking and needs to be applied to every person that goes in, not just the odd person that has already paid the money to be there!!

As no one could find a manager I asked for my money to be refunded and me and my partner would go home, missing my family’s 21st birthday celebrations because I did not want to stand on the street in Birmingham for 2 hours. Once we asked for our money back they instantly let us in telling us that the manager would come over when they can find him. Shocker, no one ever found the manager and he never came to speak to us!

Even though my family had been inside at the table for over 20 mins at this point, how laughable that they hadn’t even had their first orders taken! 30 MINS into the brunch they then took the FIRST drink order, which they missed 2 people off of! Our food came out before our first drink!!

All I can say is save your money, i would have actually saved money buying my drinks and food individually. £45 to miss the first 20 mins, 3 cocktails, 3 chicken strips with frozen mccan waffle...

Wanted to make use of their 50% off in Jan offer. Unfortunately, you can’t make same-day bookings online after 6:15pm. I called yesterday (17th) at 6:45pm to check whether a booking is required to receive the discount, as the website/terms weren’t clear on the matter (maybe even intentionally vague to catch people out). The woman I spoke to (I spoke to the Temple Row branch directly) said it’s at the manager’s discretion — totally understandable, although I couldn’t help but feel she tried to be as vague as possible on how this would work (e.g. would we find out at the door or would we first need to be seated and then wait for someone to check, which would be a terrible waste of everyone’s time!) Despite being a bit unhelpful, she still seemed relatively friendly. I thanked her and asked if I could have her name — as I thought it would flow better if we came in and said we’d spoken to x on the phone and she advised speaking to the manager — but she refused to give it and after hesitating, said I was speaking to the Reservations Team. I found it odd how she tried to conceal her identity — especially as our interaction hadn’t been negative at all. This kind of behaviour suggests a business that isn’t transparent and doesn’t value building trust with customers. For that reason, we decided to find another restaurant to go to and it is incredibly unlikely I’d ever consider visiting any Manahatta location in the future, despite wanting to do so for almost 2 years now. Lessons to be learned from this are a) try to be more helpful on the phone (e.g. she could’ve asked the manager how likely it was the offer would be honoured if we walked-in, or even better, made a reservation over the phone, as after all, she was the ‘Reservation Team’) and b) don’t refuse to give your name out, as it’s not like I could harm anyone with the person’s name. Hiding it only suggests you’re not proud of the way you handled my query — which come to think of it, is probably why you didn’t give it. As a result, you’ve lost sales through 2 customers today, any future sales if we liked our experience, and also some reputations damage as I definitely won’t be speaking positively about Manahatta to friends and family if ever I hear it...