Brewhouse & Kitchen — Restaurant in Chelmsford

I unfortunately can't share the great experience others had. We had a date night in their first real week of opening (not their softlaunch week). I arrived at the venue and it was busyyyy which is great! We were seated in the room to the right hand side of the main room which on one hand was great because it was simply too busy in the main room but on the other hand we preferred to be in the upstairs dining bit to have a little bit of the atmosphere. This wasn't a bit issue though. I sat down and the first real issue occured - the app doesn't work. Well, better to say the app works but only for any other brewhouse and kitchen and if you want to order from them for delivery or pick up which just was weird. They did have some great people working the tables and taking orders though, I want to give a special shoutout to the waitresses that night because we had 2 or 3 people bring drinks and take our orders and absolutely all of them were lovely, kind, funny and quick. The next big issue we had was with the beers. I tried to order 3 beers and none of them were available. I first went to order their own brand Lager, which was sold out. I then tried to order their own Pilsner, which was also sold out. Then I wanted to order Augustiner Edelstoff a lovely german lager which, you guessed it, was sold out too. I am sorry but I think it is inexcusable to run out of your best seller the lager in your first week, let alone before the weekend. I did have the Stigl Grapefruit lager which came from a recommendation of our lovely waitress and I can not praise that enough, it is delicious! I tried the own brand IPAs which were... meh. It wasn't what I wanted so they had a higher hurdle to jump but even so they weren't anything special, having said that though they were perfectly drinkable, nicely temperature and came quickly to our table. The next issue that I have is with the food. It was a big hit and miss situation. The freshly oven baked pretzel with cheese beer dip? GET THAT IMMEDIATELY. SELL IT, BOTTLE IT, FEED IT TO ME EVERY MORNING. The skinny fries with salt, pepper and hops seasoning? Yummy! Great idea! The rest? Very weird choices. The "foccacia" with rosemary and olive oil first of all isn't a foccacia. It's genuinely just a bit of toast, definitely not a foccaccia. It also doesn't come with any rosemary or olive oil but with a pesto on top of it. The pesto again is fine, but nothing special. The weirdest choice with this dish is that it comes with A WHOLE TOMATO. I'm not kidding, a massive, whole flesh tomato is just on top of it, completely not seasoned or anything done to it (see pictures). It's weird. Do not order. The next thing we ordered was the mac n cheese. It is TINY. If you wanted you could eat that portion with in 2 bites with a table spoon. It is weird why it's so tiny. it unfortunately also doesn't come in the same beer cheese sauce that the pretzel come with so the macncheese is just.. meh. for the price just not enough (and no baked cheese crust on top which is a sin in my american opinion). I also ordered the tomato and feta salad (can you tell I fancied sides that night?) and it was less a tomato feta salad and just... a normal salad. This tomato feta salad had less tomato in it than the focaccia. It was just so weird. I can't fault the taste itself the dressing was nice and fresh but it just isn't a tomato feta salad. I also ordered the corn ribs which were seasoned nicely, no complaints here at all. We left with a bill of £78 which seemed too expensive for what we had. If you take into account the fact we didn't get any of the beers we wanted, some of the food choices were questionable and some of the portion sizes were just comically small it just wasn't worth our money. Would we go back? I think so when things have calmed down. They offer some great experiences like a whole brewers day or a beer tasting which might tempt us back. We love beer, it is super close to our home, and we really wanted it to work but for us...

Night started off very poor and continued to snowball from there. We booked a table and when arrived it had not been cleaned, still dirty glasses on table and nothing had been wiped down. There were no menus on the table and had to go and source ourselves.

We went to the bar to order some drinks, when we ordered, the lady behind the bar looked lost and could not find the drinks we ordered, she had to ask a colleague, who then turned round and said they didn’t have Walmart we wanted in stock (chase Rhubarb vodka), being a Saturday and peak time, I would expect a bar to be fully stocked. We asked if we were to order at bar or if someone would come round, advised someone would come to the table or wave at a member of staff, as we went back to the table, we waited for 20minutes before realising that no member of staff was ever going to come. We eventually saw the gentlemen in grey shirt that served us, from our point of view he tried is upmost to avoid any alter contact and walks passed us without any acknowledgement, walking passed dirty tables round us.

We got up and went to bar to order food, food order was taken down, then was eventually told they had sold out of fish and chips. From there it really snowballed. Small plates came out first and were treated as starters even thought they were to come out with main. For anyone that reads this, avoid the calamari like the plague, it was horrendous and after one bite we pushed it to the side, 20 minutes later and having to go and chase, one more main came out, at this time we were waiting for a simple salad to be made and 2 portions of chips. 20 minutes on from this, 40minutes late , salad and chips arrived. We sent these back as we decided enough was enough and we chose to leave, not before getting a refund.

From the time we walked in to the time we left, we felt none of the staff wanted to be there, this showed by the avoidance of being round the tables cleaning and a lack of presence.

I would comb back the menu and perhaps start offering a more simplified menu that chefs...

This place discriminates against people who don’t look “ normal”

We attended in a group recently with one male dressed in leather with eyeliner on. Within 30 minutes, this male was targeted by the bouncers, stating he was too drunk and couldn’t be served.

This male wasn’t too drunk, he was told he was “ wobbly” on his feet and therefore couldn’t be served, we didn’t argue and we left on our own accord.

As we made our way down to another pub, it was only 10pm at this point… they stayed our group couldn’t come in as one of the members ( pointing at the alternative male ) was too intoxicated and we had been evicted from the Brewhouse. This was complete lies, he had been refused service for no apparent reason, but we left on our own without being asked to leave. We were told no club or bar in Chelmsford would allow us inside due to this so we went back to the Brewhouse and asked them about this.

The bouncer stated that he never said we were kicked out ( an obvious lie ) and that only one person was drunk. He stated being “ a little wobbly on your feet” was enough to ban someone and stated he didn’t care that we then couldn’t get in anywhere else. This bouncer was told of stories within the Brewhouse only 2 weeks prior where a typical looking male in his 50s was EXTREMELY intoxicated, stripping off, shouting and dancing. This male was never questioned or banned or kicked out but our group was targeted due to the individual within our group who dressed differently to everyone else.

This place discriminates against people that don’t fit their “ ideal customer” I wouldn’t recommend attending if you dress in anything other than a dress or jeans as you too might be discriminated against. Even after explaining that when you sell alcohol some people may become slightly “ wobbly” on their feet they ignored us and didn’t care. No one was being aggressive or overly loud, everyone was seated and talking sensibly and there were absolutely no issues. This place is already overpriced for where it is and the service...