Albion — Restaurant in East Staffordshire

I had booked a table for 7 people 4 days ahead of time. On the day I called to let them know it would only be for 6 people and could I have it outside as we had a dog. I was told I could bring the dog in as they are a dog friendly pub and I was in the dog friendly area. I agreed to keep the table inside and was again told I was at a dog friendly table. When we arrived they told me I couldn’t take a dog to the table they had reserved and there was only two very small tables available in the dog friendly area so we sat outside. Annoying but not the end of the world. We ordered our food at the bar and after a 50 minute wait went to enquire about how long it would be. Initially we were told it was a 30 minute wait on food and when I said we’d already been waiting 50 minutes a different woman went to check. She told us 5-10 minutes and it was next to be plated up. After 20 minutes I again enquired where our food was and was “promised” it would be played next. More to an 5 minutes later it finally arrived. So well over an hour for the food to arrive, no apologies, but a lot of attitude. And just to state that it wasn’t that busy in there. We ordered food at 5:15pm. It was pretty standard food, nothing terrible, nothing to shout about. The service was very poor though. The woman I had asked about the wait time was rude and literally threw the items she was holding onto a nearby table as she stormed off to find out. The play area outside for the kids needs some serious attention. A wall at the back behind some bushes and trees has fallen down meaning there is direct access to the main road. There is also a big hole in a fence that leads to some water a few feet below. There were kids squeezing through and walking along the wall above the water. I couldn’t comfortably let my 4 year old son play in that area without me constantly being with him as I was worried for his safety.

Won’t be...

We will not be returning or recommending to friends or family. We haven’t been to The Albion for a number of years and we’re excited to try it again. We decided it would be a great place to go as it’s local, kids eat for £1 with an adult meal and there was a pizza menu which the kids were looking forward to. We’d been asked to send an email with our order as there were 11 of us but then we still waited an hour and quarter for the first meals to arrive. Then a further 10 mins for the rest of the meals so everyone was very very hungry by the time it arrived. I would hate to see how long we would have waited if we hadn’t pre-ordered. Food was excellent, everyone enjoyed their meals but the service from the bar lady (who I think was a manager or higher) was very rude and gave the impression she was being purposefully awkward. She said the offer of kids eat for £1 didn’t start until next week. When we showed her the offer on the website which clearly stated what days it was and wasn’t available, she didn’t even let me explain and said she’d honour it as we’d received an email and said she has since been told by head office it’s not on this week. When I explained it wasn’t an email and that I was on their live website getting the info, she didn’t even let me finish explaining and cut me off as she was annoyed I had pointed out her mistake. She then proceeded to be awkward when we asked to just pay our part of the bill, saying last time she did it her till crashed. So we explained we were 3 families paying separately and said we can tell her how much we need to pay each instead to make it easier. As we had to add it up and had taken a few mins, she asked if she could carry on serving other customers which we said we didn’t mind. But then she stood there angrily staring at us as the till wouldn’t let her carry on serving. Very disappointed in the service...

Disappointing!!!! We have passed this taphouse many times as we travelled down the A38 and said we would go in one day. Today was that day. We ordered two Sunday lunches, they didn't have any beef left so the only other option was half chicken. It was served with carrots, peas and broccoli, mash and roast potatoes, stuffing and Yorkshire pudding. The roast potatoes were hidden under the Yorkshire pudding and were near charcoaled. The chicken was very dry and the carrots were quite hard. We ordered an extra side of cauliflower cheese and this was, what can only be described as a bowl of mush. We called the waiter over and after I had showed him how burnt the roast potatoes were, he said "oh dear" and agreed to get us a replacement dinner. He came back out and asked if we would like chicken breast portion as the half chicken would probably be the same as the first as was out of the same batch. We agreed to this. When the second dinner came out, although it looked better, it wasn't much better than the first. When i stuck my fork in the roast potato it just went to mush. Both myself and my partner believed them to be something very similar to aunt bessies roast potatoes. I ate my stuffing and Yorkshire pudding but after that I just gave up. When the waiter came for the plates, he asked if it was any better. We were honest and politely told him that it wasn't really any better. He came back after and offered us a free pudding, we declined, after getting the dinner wrong twice, we didn't fancy chancing a third time, he then offered us a drink which we also declined because we really just wanted to leave. On a plus note the staff were very polite and they had a good selection of ales but I don't think we will...