Poms Lichfield — Restaurant in Lichfield

My husband and I had visited Poms a few weeks previously and had such a lovely experience that we decided to return on our next visit to Lichfield. This visit was completely the opposite. We hadn't booked, so we were grateful that we were found a table. The cafes atmosphere was busy and vibrant with lots of Christmas shoppers. On our last visit, we had a lovely, friendly waitress, a young blonde lady who couldn't be more helpful. This time, the waitress, a brunette woman, was direct, matter of fact, and lacking in friendliness. She took our orders and we were left to wait for drinks. They arrived a while later. The food order, however, took quite a while later, over half an hour, but it was rather busy so we didn't complain. When the food did arrive I was so disappointed. My husband had ordered the poms breakfast, so you can't really go wrong with that, but I had ordered the chicken kebab skewer with garlic tahini, tomato sauce and something else. What I got was a blacked chicken skewer that from taste was coated in Chinese 5 spice in my opinion but I could be wrong. Expecting it to be hot and juicy, it was semi warm, cold in places, dry to the point that it was grainy to eat, lacked any moisture or natural fats, I doubt very much that it was really barbecued. The rest of the dish was an even bigger disaster. Everything, and I mean everything was straight out of a very cold fridge. The tomato sauce (pasta with a few herbs in), the huge dolop of mayo garlicky taking, polenta or cuscus, I couldn't be sure, was crumbles with large lumps in oh and the flat bread, which as with the skewer, was meant to be hot was now stone cold as it had been lying on a plate of freezing cold ingredients. The whole experience of this dish was not pleasant, at all. The waitress did appear mid meal to see if things were OK (as I pushed the food around my plate), I just hummed and let her get on. I doubted anything could be done to save it to be honest and I really don't like to complain. When my husband had finished we asked for the bill. When it arrived and we were asked again about our meal, I mentioned that it wasn't a pleasant experience, the waitress got very defensive, reminding me that she had come and asked previously, in quite a defiant manner. I explained the issues but she argued back so I really couldn't be bothered to waste my time or energy any further and we paid and left. We won't be returning and I think the added 10% that they charge is quite cheeky, it's not a high end restaurant and the food is very expensive, my dish was 17 for fridge cold food and a dry tasteless skewer. So £41 something for brunch and unfriendly service, no, I know we won't...

It pains me to write this review but our favourite breakfast cafe Poms is not what it once was unfortunately.

Me and my partner have long been big fans of Poms, along with many of our friends who have visited following our recommendations, but unfortunately the quality and attention to detail has dropped and no longer justifies their premium pricing.

To give some examples, some of the classic Poms menu items that made it unique such as the Mexican Hash, Crab and Crayfish Benedict, Turkish Eggs, and Shakshuka have vanished, replaced with a more mainstream menu. The potato tots have also disappeared. Poms’ USP was always as a breakfast/brunch cafe with unique menu items so a move to a more generic menu is a shame.

The Poms Breakfast I had last visit was poorer than the breakfasts I have had historically, with a dry sausage in a ring shape (the breakfast had high quality normal shaped sausages previously), fatty hard bacon, and dry black pudding (at a cost of £2.50 extra). Perhaps a one off but the food was always perfect previously.

The other disappointment linking into my point about Poms being unique originally was the downgrade of the sauces (they were originally Hawkshead Relish Company sauces). For example no fruity brown sauce is available anymore, just standard HP or Heinz Ketchup. Fine in a Wetherspoons but an exercise in cheapening which is unnecessary and a real shame.

I hope Poms take this as constructive criticism as customers who used to visit regularly, as we would be willing to give it another...

We were in the area today and decided to have brunch at Poms. We were greeted and seated down straight away and the order for drinks and food was taken promptly.

We ordered two Turkish egg dishes, one iced pistachio matcha latte and one passion fruit and papaya matcha latte. The drinks took a while to arrive, which we were understanding about since we saw it was really busy. When they finally arrived, I could not taste the papaya in my drink at all and my partner's drink had a horrible artificial taste of pistachio. The matcha tasted more like milk than green tea...

The food also took some time to arrive and it was okay, the eggs were runny and the yoghurt sauce was nice. However, we thought it was quite expensive for what it turned out to be (£12 pounds/portion)- a small portion of 2 poached eggs with a bit of onion on top and two slices of toast.

When we asked for the bill, it took 20 minutes for it to arrive and we were not told you can remove the service charge. In normal circumstances, I don't mind paying that but the service was very poor today and it felt a bit cheeky to be asking for that. I think you should be more transparent as a business about what you're charging.

The staff were lovely and helpful and they are clearly working very hard. However, our experience was really disappointing and we will sadly not...