The Black Boy — Restaurant in Metropolitan Borough of Solihull

Visited here last week for lunch, as it's one of the few local pubs around us we hadn't tried yet since moving to the area.

What a disappointment.

We weren’t even met with a warm greeting to the venue - the (I assume) landlord, after announcing our name and booking time, immediately responded with not a ‘hello, welcome to The Black Boy’ - just a morosely delivered ‘there’s at least an hour to an hour and twenty minutes wait for any food’, whilst gathering 3 menus together.

Not exactly the best first impression for a new customer.

Shown to our table, we then had to get the attention of any passing waiting staff to even order drinks, as we were left alone for an unreasonable amount of time. When finally able to order drinks we decided to get our food order in as soon as possible due to the elongated wait we’d have to now endure.

Food ordered: Fish and chips, chicken burger and chips, cheese sandwich and chips.

Food came out around 1hr 10min after ordering, and to say it was disappointing would be an understatement. Not remotely worth the wait.

The sandwich bread was, in fairness, soft and fresh. Although this had clearly been hanging around for a while as the grated cheese was warm and on the verge of melting - it tasted very ‘gummy’ in the mouth. Unpleasant.

Fish was dry and unseasoned - again felt like it had been hanging around on the pass since before we even arrived. Definitely not freshly done. Poor.

The chicken burger was, quite frankly, an embarrassment. An unseasoned, lightly breaded piece of dry chicken on a dry bun - nothing else. No sauce, relish, pickles, chutney, not even a smear of mayo. Just dry overcooked and unseasoned chicken on a dry bun. Requested ketchup to at least lubricate it, and a solitary tiny paper pot of ketchup arrived.

The chips for all of us were exactly the same - unseasoned, dry, ‘wooly’ interior, and didn’t taste remotely freshly made. And a lot of the chips on all 3 plates were burnt, wrinkled up and inedible.

Not to mention all the food was lukewarm at best. We all concluded we would have likely had a better lunch had we stopped at a burger van found on any UK A-road.

The staff in general were all pretty miserable, not attentive to guests, so we didn’t even bother with pudding. We ate what we could of our exceedingly lacklustre lunch, requested the bill and left with a sour taste in the mouth for what could be an excellent venue, given its location and garden outlook.

Unless this pub gets a change of ownership or a drastic overhaul of customer service and attitude & food quality, we certainly won’t be...

Reserved a table for two at this place on Bank holiday Monday (1st May). Will never ever return to this dreadful venue again. To say it was an utter disaster is an understatement! I expected it to be busy on a Bank holiday,but this place was beyond a joke (and not a funny one at that). We ordered our starters and main courses and waited and waited for our food to be served. At least an hour and a half later,we were still waiting for our starters to be served. We asked the young man who had served our drinks how long our food was going to be and he was not able to give us a difinitive answer. So, to cut a long story short, I eventually managed to speak to the lady who had shown us to our table on arrival and told her that we had been waiting for at least ninety minutes for our starters. She then went into the kitchen to see what was happening with our order. She then appeared and said our starters were 'coming out now'. After another ten to fifteen minutes,we were still waiting. My friend and I decided to leave. I approached the bar and asked to speak to the manager. The woman behind the bar said she would fetch her,but then surprise,surprise,I was told that the manager was too busy to speak to my friend and I (just a lame excuse in my opinion). From what we could see, other customers were becoming agitated by the long wait. If we had been told about the waiting time for food in the first place,at least we would have known the situation and could have decided whether to wait. Despite being full to the rafters,they kept letting more and more people in. My friend and I managed to get a very nice meal elsewhere,thank goodness,but our day was all but ruined by our visit to the Black Boy. Our starters did come out just as we were leaving, but it was too little too late. This place is best avoided. If I could score it with a...

Booked a day off to myself, I thought I'd go for a walk down the canal, try a couple new pubs and enjoy a proper pie. Only what pie? Waited and waited for 45 minutes, sat outside. Just about to get up to complain when some gravy arrived. Great...a pot of gravy and no pie. Turns out it had been delivered to a different table. Just avoid this shambles of a place. I waited more than necessary for my drink too. There were 4 people at the bar then suddenly all disappeared and 5 minutes later someone's asked if I'm waiting. No I just like standing at bars looking thirsty.

Edit to Owners response:

As others will read, I'm not the only one complaining about slow/poor service at your pub. A few points you missed out include:

-the table next to me wasn't really next to me, they moved table due to the wasps everywhere, after I was already sat nearby for 25 minutes. -the girl serving with her first job wasn't explained. I was told ‘shes new’. -the gravy boat topic is a poor excuse for it not only being 45 minutes since I ordered but my food being delivered to the wrong table. Clearly a minor point though. -my time waiting at the bar can be disputed all day. It was too long when no one acknowledged me and all the staff going away more or less at the same time just seemed like poor service. -the shift manager didn't offer an apology or a resolution but an excuse.

Overall, you're failing to remember, the customer is always right and I was no way going to wait another 45 minutes. Instead you choose to try and argue yourself right and hastily throw my refund in my hand, ‘here's your full refund, mate’ in a passive aggressive style.

I did enjoy the rest of my afternoon at a nearby pub instead, which I shall be recommending.

Shame on this pub and...