Hopwood House — Restaurant in Bromsgrove

very late opening We visited here on Saturday 23rd August 2025. Drove 22 miles to this location to meet some friends. Checked Google and the website which stated they open at 11am. So we turned up at 11am with my wife and 3 year old daughter to find the place was closed. Assumed they would probably open in the next 5 minutes so waited patiently. Was now 1120am and still not open so started to think maybe they were not opening. Although it's worth noting the outside tables were still full of empty drinks glasses suggesting they were open Friday but left outside overnight? Checked the doors and no signs present indicating any issue. Ended up having to take my 3 year old behind their play area for a wee as she couldn't wait any longer. We decided to let her play in the outside play area whilst we weighed up our options about driving to another pub nearby. At 1140am the doors suddenly opened....... I went inside and spoke to a young male with black framed glasses on. I asked him what time they open as website says 11am. His casual reply was, 'yeah we do open at 11, sometimes we run late on opening up'. I did point out we had been here since 11am and assumed they were not opening. There was no apology from the male staff member.

I then Went towards the toilets to be met with a pile of dirty mop heads on the floor in the corner prior to main toilet door.

Despite the delayed opening we did the order lunch as it saved us travelling further. The food was actually fine and no issues there. Only slight negative was the ordering process from our table using the app. So the app would not let me add any food to my order. So I had to go inside and again speak to staff who told me I can order via the app from 12 noon. Again website says you can order food from 1130am but the app won't allow you to order food until 12 noon??

Overall the visit was not a good one. 40 minutes late opening for a professional establishment is not acceptable. Really surprised as being the bank holiday weekend you would think they would open on time. Food was fine but service wasnt great. Despite the mop head issue the place did appear clean. If the place was managed better with better practices untilised I'm sure it could be a great place to visit....

I was part of a very large group (24 customers) who had a table booked for 7pm on Saturday night for a 50th birthday celebration. We started to gather around the bar from around 6.30. Our reserved tables were still occupied by other guests but this was no problem at all, we had some drinks and waited for everyone to arrive. At 7pm our tables were ready so we started to decide who was sitting where and headed to our tables. At this point a man appeared who I presume may have been the manager, he was clutching a pen and paper following us around and demanding to take our food orders “because the chefs need to go home” I am sorry but we were collectively spending a lot of money on food and drinks and didn’t not appreciate someone standing over our shoulders at 7.10 asking what we were eating before we were even all seated. I have worked many years in hospitality and I can appreciate a large table can be stressful to manage but we were given no time at all to settle and look at the menu. Why tell us the chef wants to go home?! Why is that our issue? If you were short staffed then have a polite word asking if we don’t mind trying to get our orders in quickly cos you are a chef down. There is a nicer way to word things instead of glaring at us waving a pad and pen making us feel like we were an inconvenience.

The drinks service was great, the food came out quickly and was hot and well prepared as usual and the rest of the staff were lovely and friendly. I just feel the need to leave a review about feeling harassed into hurrying up our food order when the place wasn’t that busy and it’s totally normal to give people at least 20 minutes to find our seats and look at the menu without someone hovering over our shoulders asking what we wanted all the time. Shame really cos it was a lovely evening and a great venue for a get together...

We ordered the chicken tenders for starters, it was a very small portion and the tenders were cut in halves for us which I thought was unusual, it came with basic salad leaves that looked dry. It wasn't what we expected at all so that was disappointing. I ordered the chicken hunter meal, ive had this meal many of times from different food chains, I was expecting a chicken breast as always, instead I got a frozen breaded chicken piece that was cooked dry, small amount of cheese melted on top and small amounts of bacon, again a basic salad side which were dry and cheap looking, the only decent part was the chips and you can't really go wrong there. We were given the choice to sit and eat in the main bar area or down the bottom as we didnt book, so we sat at the bottom of the restaurant that leads to the outside area, the entire window sills were full of dead flies big ones, small ones, dead wasps and it wasn't just a few it was all around the big window space, bits of hair and dust were collected it was absolutely appalling to expect people to eat when the basic hygiene standards aren't even met I have never seen that in a restaurant before. The standard of food was atrocious you are better getting frozen food out of your freezer and cooking something from that because you get much less for what you pay for. I will never be returning to the Hopwood house and i wont recommend it to anyone, it's always had a reputation of being up and down but this has proven that it's absolutely basic pub food if that, nothing is fresh, it's filthy, not to mention the host who was middle aged wasn't smiley, friendly or polite, he was very blunt and straight to the point which dampened the inital mood. Never again, i wish i took...