Lockside Steakhouse — Restaurant in Dudley

Date of visit: Sat 12th March, Breakfast. Some good points but many bad points. I was excited to try here but I don't know whether we'll be back :( I hate leaving terrible reviews because as a local/new business it would be brilliant for you to do well. It was our first time visiting the Lockside Steakhouse, we had wanted to for ages after having seen lots of their FB posts. When I saw that they were starting to do breakfasts I was really excited as me and my little family love a breakfast outing! We arrived at 11.15 am & were nicely greeted by a young gentleman in a white shirt who kindly said we could sit wherever we liked. He was courteous and professional and took our order in good time from us arriving however it all went a bit downhill from there because the wait for the food was 1 hour 30 minutes. I understand it was the first day of your serving breakfasts - however I think the downfall in all of this is the service. If its is going to be a long wait for food and your staff know that - simply tell the customer and then it's a known point from the start. In my experience people generally don't mind waiting if they're kept informed. My husband asked for a latte and I wanted a hot chocolate - sadly only 'instant coffee' was available nor was the hot chocolate. During the last half an hour of our wait, I had to get out of my seat three times just to check what was happening. My toddler was getting irritable and I wanted to know how long it would be. It was weird because although the kitchen looked busy, many of the waiting staff weren't and that's even more so a point about how they could use their customer service to check in on tables, apologise/keep people happy whilst they wait. At one point I got up from my seat and asked if we could have a couple of cups of teas whilst we waited. At 12.30 pm we were still waiting for Breakfast & so were 4 other tables. I just couldn't fathom why it was taking so long and every table looked visibly irritated/upset. I have seen another review from a lady with 2 children who was there and she looked really upset, her child was screaming at this point. I've read her review and everything she has said about her experience is sadly very true. None of the staff seemed remotely apologetic. 12.45pm our breakfasts finally arrived. I had ordered a vegetarian breakfast which stated there would be '2 premium vegetarian sausages'. When it came out I was shocked as there was something that looked like bacon and no veggie sausages. I asked the lady what that was and where were the sausages and she said 'we don't have any veggie sausages in stock'. How can they not be in stock on the first day of offering breakfasts? My husband had the full English breakfast and he said it was nice but the beans a little cold. Other observations I think worth noting are; perhaps teach a bit of self awareness to your staff. Some really unprofessional things happened in my opinion and you never know who is listening in! An interviewee turned up for her interview and all the staff seemed to be gossiping about how they knew nothing about this interview and omg where has she come from. That kind of hysteria just looked really unprofessional and the poor girl had made the effort to dress up and show up; at least have the decency to carry out your interviews in a professional manner. The poor girl had to sit with a lady who obviously worked there was wasn't 'working' because she was with her 2 kids at the time. The professional thing to do would have been to ask one of the staff members to sit with your kids whilst you carry out an interview. 2. The same lady asked one of the male waiters 'how was last night' (referring to how the Friday night shift just gone had been) and he replied 'it was absolutely dead'. Again, if that was my restaurant, I wouldn't want my staff on the floor talking in front of customers about how 'dead' it was last night. In summary; If you are charging premium prices - people expect premium service and the service is the biggest thing that really is just not...

TROPHY FOR PARTICIPATING....... THAT'S LOCKSIDE.....

Word of mouth got us booked at this place. Now let's be fair your obviously doing something right if it's recommended time and time again via word of mouth.

What that something is or was unfortunately I couldn't tell you........ 🤷🏼‍♂️

But what I can tell you is what our get together experienced on Sunday 15th of December.

To summarise quickly the service was terrible and the chefs CANNOT cook a steak. I mean genuinely CANNOT COOK STEAK.

You'll see / read why if you choose to read on.

We visited early afternoon but we're still there well into the evening, not by choice but because the service was just not there. 4HRS the visit in total 4 HOURS!

45 minutes was waiting for the first order of drinks to arrive, chased up when a member of the party left the table to find a member of staff.

Then repeatedly you were asked if you would like more drinks, which is what you want right? Not when you've placed your order, waiting on your order and having to repeat those orders to the various staff just wandered around. It got very WTF.

Delays also resulted in recommending the infants eat first as they became so hangry, obviously eating separately to the adults.

Further poor service resulted in our group being offended by the 7% service charge stealthily added to the final bill. Especially seen as a complaint had been made and not satisfied, admittedly not for the service but for the food.

Why was the service so poor? All I can say is it wasn't busy and they had plenty of staff on site.....

Anyway as I stated they cannot cook steak.....

Out of four adults one ordered lamb which was clearly not cooked it was pink inside and actually resulted in said person being ill upon arriving home. Not nice........

Anyway back to the steak issue....... Why?because it was that bad!

Two people had fillet and t bone and to be fair they were okay nothing to shout about but okay good job they like steak rare.

One had the tomahawk thou..... Not the steak love affair they were expecting instead just disappointment! I mean l genuinely saw this man's heart sink....... What a Shame it was....

I will add all this food came out presented beautifully we were all there smiling at each other.... Thinking this almost looks worth the wait.

Was it worth the wait no...... Especially for the tomahawk steak order it went from hero to zero finding more and more of it inedible and what was edible raw..... I mean not medium, not medium rare, not even rare like 🤢 raw. Thankfully raw (blue) is a thing with steak otherwise it would of been another person ill.

Needless to say having seen how upset he was another member of the gathering left the table to complain........... Well just politely point out only to be told

The reason for it being raw..........

"When ordering a tomahawk steak you should always order it more cooked than to your liking!"

😳 Can you believe I thought that was the chef's problem not the customers!!!

Said person was then asked if he would like it recooked... Again WTF! It wasn't cooked in the first place.

Unbelievable really another show of the award winning service 😮‍💨

Anyway the odd good points to balance out this review the decor is good, the children's food looked good and tasted quality. Better than the adults to be fair. I would recommend the macaroni cheese off the main menu for children with a larger appetite.

The visit should of been good value too. Spending over £300, shame only £210.25 worth of it was edible.

Oh and £2.90 for some orange cordial...... come on.... Really?

Doubt we'll be going back in a hurry. Won't avoid the place, just won't be booking it up either.

Shame they don't want more than participation trophies as all the ingredients are there to be a winner.

Don't think miller and carter are to worried about the superb Macaroni cheese the one thing I know they do right.

judge for yourself check out the...

Quite possibly the worst experience at a steak restaurant. So the service was poor, we waited ages for drinks, 15 mins the waitress comes over to tell us they have no mint for the Mojito, not really busy enough to be waiting that long. Drinks arrived and we sent the Guinness back as it was flat, I was told the reason was because it’s out of cans (£4.80 for a can!) even though the drinks menu states it’s a draught drink. Placed food orders 1 couldn’t have the chilli chicken as they had no chilli, they also had no fillet steak 😮, Saturday night and the biggest priced steaks not available 🤦‍♂️. So the alternative was ordered with prawns. Starters came out the prawn starter had a plate full of salad a hard piece of flatbread and 4 prawns, the mushroom starter was just as bad with 2 mushrooms thinly sliced. The 2 cheese & garlic pizza breads came out 10 mins after the other starters, that’s after we had to ask for them and they had clearly forgotten to order 1 of them with the kitchen. So moving to the mains, it’s a bold statement to claim the Steak is the best on the market, although I would assume they got it from the local market, it was tough the kids were undercooked and most of it came out cold. The onion rings were cold, the mushrooms were cold the tomato hadn’t seen the grill and the steaks although apart from the kids were cooked correctly they were poor quality cuts of meat. We aired our concerns but unfortunately it fell on deaf ears, normally wine is cheaper when you buy the bottle, unless you wanted Shiraz. £8 per glass or £24.95 for the bottle (3 glasses to a bottle 🤔). To top it off there is a 7.5% service charge automatically added, not advised, we had that taken off but I always say tips are optional and the size of the tip generally suggests the level of experience. We were super excited to try this place and our friends spent over £35 in taxis coming over, but the experience has left us very disappointed, you have the basis of a very good business but in the words of my mate tonight, too many own goals were scored. Sorry to say we won’t ever return and will continue with our visits to...