Hickory's - Castle Bromwich — Restaurant in Metropolitan Borough of Solihull

It's nice to see an attempt at getting a southern USA style BBQ in the UK, I'm actually quite sad there aren't any of these down in the south east, as I'd definitely want to visit more. Food: I had frickles to start, these are pickle spears, battered and deep fried, with a nice dip too. Portion size is good, could do with a little more sauce, I was really scraping the bottom of the pot on my last frickle. Tasted good, might've been nice to have a little something going through the batter itself but the actual pickle was sharp, tangy, salty and a little sweet - exactly what I'd expect from an American pickle spear, compared to the more mustardy, spiced and much more sweet sliced gherkins that are more prevalent in the UK.

For main I had the brisket Sub. It comes with fries, slaw and pickled onion and jalapenos. Oh and a side of gravy. This was the reason I wanted to try Hickory's. If I hadn't been squeezing into company expenses budget (more on that later) id definitely have tried to get more of a platter style with lots of different meats. But this seemed like a great option for me. First and foremost, this thing is hard to eat cleanly. The bun is soft, perhaps a little too soft, and the amount of sauce in there makes it a delicious sog-fest to get through. I cut mine in half and took my server's warning to heed that it would likely leak as I picked it up - shocking no one, it did just that. Flavour wise, I enjoyed the sub, and dipping it in the gravy gave it an extra boost of salty umami-ness which was thoroughly enjoyable. However, you might notice I said the amount of sauce made it soggy and not the amount of meat juice and unfortunately that's because the brisket was dry. Not unbearably so, as it was mitigated heavily by it's saucey accoutrements, but the brisket itself was definitely not oozing that characteristic juice that I'd expected from watching many BBQ reviews from US foodtubers. I think if I'd ordered that by itself I'd have been a bit more upset. Aside from that the only other detractor was that the slaw, while crisp and creamy, was a miniscule portion. I'd have loved another couple of spoonfuls of that. The Skin on fries were fine, and seasoned well enough. The pickled red onions and jalapenos were lovely, and had the brisket been a bit fattier and juicier, would've cut through it perfectly. I saved some for my last mouthful because it felt like the perfect zingy cleanse for my mouth after salty chips soaked in all the sauce and gravy leftover. Service: I was a walk-in table of 1 on a Wednesday evening, around 18:30. There were no regular tables available, but I got the choice of bar stools, not in the bar proper, but in front of the kitchen. I chose one directly on the divider between the kitchen and restaurant, great view of everything going on in there. I can't fault any of the servers I interacted with, aside from one minor thing that I had asked for the frickles to come out at the same time as my main, which didn't happen, but honestly that was fine, given how big a portion of frickles you get. Atmosphere: It really feels like the UK expectations of what a BBQ pit in the deep south would be like. Lots of wood, evoking the sort of 'wild west'/cowboy motif. Nice low warm lighting and comfortable chair style bar stool. On the other hand, it was LOUD, but it is touted as a family location, and there were 3 different renditions of Happy birthday in the hour and a bit I was there. Price: So I paid just shy of £29.00 for this meal, that being frickles and the sub (comes with fries, gravy, slaw and pickled veg as standard) and a raspberry lemonade. There is an automatically applied 7.5% on the bill for service, being that I was on the company card, I asked for it removed as it put me over my £30 limit for the night (don't worry I left exactly 10% tip in change instead). Frickles were good value, sub should've had more volume of sides or been a bit less than £17.50. The drink was pricey, but nice. Free sweet and salty popcorn when seated is nice too! Rating: 8/10, enjoyable especially...

Earlier in the year I paid a visit to Hickory's Smokehouse, in Castle Bromwich, and to be honest I was quite impressed. Walking into the place the smell of smoking and grilling meat hits you instantly and within seconds my mouth was watering. We hadn’t booked a table and, with it being fairly busy, we had a slight wait, this wasn't unexpected and thanks to the layout of the restaurant it wasn’t too bad. The restaurant has been separated into two main areas, a larger eating area and a smaller bar area, we walked over to the bar, found ourselves a couple of stools and ordered drinks. The bar has a decent selection of good quality beers, ciders, spirits and soft drinks to keep you ticking over while you wait, in fact I’d go as far as saying the selection was better than a lot of pubs I’ve visited as of late.

After waiting for about 40 minutes a member of staff collected us from the bar, took us to our table, spent a few minutes explaining the menu and left us to our deliberations. As there was 2 of us, and it being the first time either of us had visited, we went for the Smokehouse Platter to get a little taste of a bit of everything and, as it turned out, we were in for quite the treat. The platter came with several types of ribs, smoked beef sausage, beef brisket, pulled pork and beans, fries, slaw and pickles, we split everything down the middle and shared it out onto two plates. All the meat was absolutely gorgeous, so much time and effort had clearly been put into preparing, smoking and cooking each different cut that I honestly can’t fault a thing with any of them, even the pork and beans was absolutely amazing and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending any of the meats we tried. The pickles and slaw were decent, they made a fairly good side and a reasonable counter point to the meat, though I would have personally preferred frickles or mac n’ cheese. Unfortunately they were slightly let down by the fries, they weren’t great, they were somewhat tasteless and greasy. They seemed like run of the mill frozen fries to me, the likes of which you’d expect to find in a chain pub, this is something that I found disappointing in a place that clearly puts so much effort into other aspects of their food and, seeing as the fries come with virtually every meal, I expected them to be better.

Overall I really do recommend this place, it’s a great place to eat with decent decor, a good atmosphere, a good menu and, for the most part, excellent quality food. Obviously some improvements could be made, but I left feeling full and happy with my...

We dined at hickory smokehouse Castle Bromwich on Sunday the 25th of February and I must say we were disappointed with the experience we received. I should mention I worked at Hickory smokehouse Wall Heath for almost a year before it burnt down and am well aware of the service that is expected of management by their waiting staff. We were greeted by the host and taken to our table and were then brought popcorn and water by a very miserable waiter who made it clear he did not want to be there. He took our order and I order baby back ribs and was then informed by him 5 minutes later that the restaurant had no ribs available. I then tried to order a different style of rib to be met with "no ribs, we have no ribs". There was no apology or explanation so I settled for a burger which was alright- nothing special just alright. I asked for hot sauce and was given a bottle of this random sauce with less than a teaspoons worth in for the entire table. When I worked there we were given hotsauce training and were told to ask customers what kind of hotsauce they were looking for. This was a little bit disappointing. Once finished the table was cleared and we were asked if we wanted dessert to which we said yes. We waited 5-10 minutes before asking the same waiter if he could bring the menus as he had clearly forgot. Desserts were nice- no complaints there however when we asked for the bill he threw it on the table. No questions of if we enjoyed the meal or anything. We were all very shocked at this point having just had a £250 meal we thought we may have been given a bit more respect. When I worked there the main focus other than the food of course was providing the best southern hospitality possible however what we received was from it. It may sound like I'm a disgruntled ex employee but the truth is I genuinely enjoyed working for hickory's and would have hopefully continued to work for them had the wall heath branch not burnt down. I hope this employee can get the training he needs as the service we experienced was sub par from what I expected. Also, no ribs... come on this is your major selling point and half of your smoked food options- this was also pretty...