The Yenton — Restaurant in Birmingham

Went in on saturday about 3-45 to eat, in fairness the bar looked fairly busy, several waitresses bobbing about but only initially ( until they were joined by a lady not in uniform not long before we left) a young lad and a guy who i assume ( and later had confirmed) as the manager behind the bar. Bearing in mind you trade upon being a bar and grill there WAS a bar ( which did have a pump for stowford press, ( the barman said it was off, but the manager later claimed that was not true, we never quite got to the bottom of THAT but never mind we had strongbow instead.. but nice for staff to be on the same page).. We ordered three drinks and paid. I then went back to the bar to order food.. not until I was about to order a mixed grill was i told " oh, the grill is off.. we cannot do anything on it". REALLY ? The whole grill? In a pub that calls itself "bar and grill!!".. and on a Saturday too! ? Wow...So, just to be clear, that is a pub without Stowford Press that actually did have it ( according to the manager but not the bar man.. any communication between staff at all here guys?) and a grill that did not actually HAVE a working grill on Satuday. Upon being told that two of the three meals we had ordered would not be availiable I sought out the manager. I explained that HAD we known there was nothing to eat we would never have ordered our drinks ( we were driving and it was no more than one each) as the idea was to enjoy one with food. VERY bolshily he said "well, we didn't know you were going to eat so I don't know what I can do about that".. I will TELL you what you can do about that, you can take ALL of the five seconds it takes during pouring a pint to say " guys, just to let you know, if you want to eat today we have a very limited menu".. or indeed you could just attach a little note to the back of the till saying the same thing. HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT PAGE ONE, NOT very difficult. He made no attempt whatsoever to meet us half way and was rude and aggressive and really bolshy. We wasted money on drinks we couldn't enjoy with our food and all left extremely angry. He also had no people skills and had this conversation across the bar with me in front of his staff and his other guests truly lacked any semblance of professionalism at all and, more disturbingly still,made zero attempt to ask me to step somewhere more quiet to put his point over to me. Well, long story short we left, I certainly did NOT appreciate being told " We're a wet sales driven pub and we did not know you were planning to eat".. SO WHAT ? A hospitality basic is just to let people know if food is ( and by food, in this case I mean the WHOLE grill, in what trades as bar and grill, so essentially LOTS of food, not just a couple of main courses) not on offer. This guy was rude, stubborn and appears to have the customer service attributes of Atilla The Hun to be perfectly honest. We were disgusted and went elsewhere to be treated beautifully to a nearly whole menu by great staff who seemed to be a whole lot more familiar with the concept of great customer service. As we were talking about our experience in your place between ourselves we were over heard by a group of guys who told us that the service they received in your establishment had could best be described as "militarian" and that one of your managers specifically Mick ( or Nick perhaps, i cannot quite remember his name so apologies, but they described him in a way that could ONLY be the duty manager in question) was the reason that they and many of their friends no longer frequented your bar, despite an apparently expensive refurbishment.....

As a family we used to love this place, great food, great service and most of all great staff. Since April though we have had 3 negative experiences leading us to go longer and longer between visits (at times we have visited almost weekly for food) Our first experience we wrote off as staff having a bad day as we waited over an hour for food, after which our son who was with us fell to sleep so when his meal arrived it was wasted. We could have forgiven the food situation though except for when my partner went to ask what was taking so long a male member of staff jumped down his throat before he had chance to finish asking. We have since encountered this same member of staff twice more, he is rather rude and snappy. Most recently though (around an hour before I wrote this review) we had the worst and most notable experience here. Upon ordering our food we were not warned about a long wait but then waited 50+ minutes. Made worse by the fact that when the food arrived our burger buns were burnt, but my chicken was pink. I was informed by the older woman waitress that it could not be raw as it arrives precooked and they just reheat it. I don't know what outcome is worse. That it took them 50 minutes to undercook the chicken or just reheat it?! Regardless she wasn't apologetic or friendly at all, not sharing in my concern as the chicken on my plate was clearly pink in places. I do not often complain but I was concerned as I had already consumed most of it when noticing the pink. I'll be updating this if I am sick. I wish I'd had chance to take a picture but i truly hadn't expected them to deny it when the chicken sat pink and proud on my plate, she hurried off into the kitchen to dispose of the...

Came today as part of a large group but sat separately due to not enough seats around the main table. My partner ordered 4 meals and 4 drinks via the app to the table. After 20 minutes the food arrived which was excellent timing, however the drinks still hadn't arrived. I went to the bar and politely asked how long our drinks would take as we had been waiting a while and my children needed their drinks with their food. For the (I'm assuming) landlady/manager (short woman, blonde hair) to throw her hands up in the air and raise her voice at me saying they were busy and I'd get my drinks when I'd get them, this was in front of various witnesses at the bar. I walked away from the bar quite shocked, eventually 3 drinks came out and one was out of stock so was replaced by another member of staff when she asked what id prefer instead. My partner got up to look for condiments to overhear the lady talking about me in a very unkind manner to other customers, who also stuck up for me saying they shouldn't have the app open if they cannot fulfill over the bar and app orders. Numerous times while I was sitting with my partner and children she walked past the table trying to be intimidating and making me feel uncomfortable. First and very last time I will be coming to this pub again. The waitresses were absolutely lovely however there was an atmosphere whenever they were around the manager. If you look down through other reviews it seems I'm not alone with my experience of this manager. A pub is supposed to be welcoming and social and this is not...