The Hartshead Inn — Restaurant in Birmingham

Myself and my partner came here about 17:30 on Sunday 21/08/16 for a nice romantic meal...bad idea! (not the romance before you ask..)

Well I had the pate for starters, and my partner had the croquet starter, started fine. I wanted the 10oz Ribeye, and they had run out...5.30pm on a Sunday, and they had run out! So I ordered the Beef Platter.

When my pate arrived, what a sorry looking starter it was. Had obviously been sat under the hot light, as my limited salad had been dried and shriveled up.

No chutney, or any anything else, apart from two slivers of toast.

When I asked about chutney, two small plates of what can only be described as baby food arrived, one plate of puree apple babyfood, and one plate of mixed berry babyfood. They were so puree'd they were more like wallpaper paste consistency, hence why I thought of babyfood!

My partners starter was so bland and tasteless, she said it completely missed any sort of seasoning, or even flavour.

We decided to just give up and go settle our bill, and go to a restaurant who knows how to serve good food.

When we find the shift manager, she TOTALLY agrees with us the food was not good, and due to limitations set by the chain, the chefs are NOT allowed to send good food out, they have to send the crap to the table, as set down by the chain. We were advised in future pick something from the specials menu, as thats when the chef can actually send out good food.

We would have done, if we had been GIVEN a specials menu!

The shift manager went on to explain that we must out a lot to know about pate?!? I replied, NO, we just know good food when we see it!

The food was just generally rubbish quality, and service was poor, was obviously under manned, as the barman had to constantly stop serving at the bar, to answer the telephone!

When you look around, you see lots of other customers who are not happy, but dont have the confidence to complain.

Its such a shame, as the Pub itself is LOVELY!! - Lovely interior design and looks like a real gem of a place, unfortunately, its a case of style...

I've marked this review 5 stars, but this is simply due to the outstanding service received from Lucy B.

My family and I visited here a couple of days ago and had a meal, my partner ordered Camembert and unfortunately it was under cooked. We spoke with the manager at the time and he apologised and refunded it. We had the amount loaded onto a gift card to use again as we enjoy the food here.

Today we visited again and upon food being delivered we had items missing from my Son's meal. I went to the bar and was then given the item missing with an apology. I went back to the table to find out that my partners soup was cold and I had items missing too. I went back inside and eventually spoke with Lucy B.

To sum up Lucy's service in a word.. Impeccable. She was rushed off her feet but took the time to listen to my complaint and showed a professional and compassionate response to my issues at hand. She was sympathetic and her customer service was the best I have ever seen, she is an asset to your business. It resulted in Lucy refunding the whole meal and then bringing fresh food out to us, she made a stressful situation (because no one likes complaining) into an easy fix. It felt like a transaction between friends. She catered for us and made us feel very happy and restored faith.

The food we ordered was outstanding I had the pork belly and it was so good, the only complaint I had at the end was that I'd finished it.

Thank you to Lucy B from the 4 of us, you are amazing at your job and if this is being read by the Landlord then I highly recommend that if you have a recognition scheme that she receives something. Best customer service I've received in years and for that reason we would still return.

I would also like to say that all staff members are lovely and approachable and that the food is always tasty. But I had to take a moment to publicly praise Lucy today for her kind approach and amazing...

Delicious food (lovely lamb duo) and a really nice venue, but customer service was extremely poor. We’ve red other reviews and we saw other complaints about the service but we thought that we won’t care because we were starving! So we phoned up and asked if they were serving food and if dogs were welcome. Luckily they were open and dogs were also OK but only within the bar area. But they said that they have 5 tables at the bar where they serve food.

We arrived soon after and the sign outside welcomed us with: "Simply sit back and relax and let us take care of the rest :)” but this turned out not to be the case at all.

First of all, we had to order everything at the bar even though the place was so empty that the waitresses could’ve easily served us. More annoyingly, nobody was serving at our bar, so each time we had to go down to the restaurant and then carry everything back upstairs ourselves. I asked the waitress if she can serve us at our table, but she said that they don’t do table service at the bar… We were actually the only people in the bar section and there were only a few tables at the restaurant, so I think the staff was just too lazy to care about us.

Luckily they brought the food over but then didn’t come back to check if it was OK or if we needed anything else or even to clean the table.

Also, we had to pay for everything as we went along which was very annoying, so I asked to open a tab instead. The waitress took my card but she charged me via contactless without even telling me or asking! We only found out when we went back down to place the food order!

Such a shame! The food was so gorgeous, but the service was a joke, so I don’t think we’ll be going back anytime soon, because overall it wasn't...