Gough Arms — Restaurant in Sandwell

This review is for 'The Village Inn, Wednesbury but the management have just taken over this pub! This is a warning!

DISGUSTING, DIRTY and NOT WORTH £580!!!!! We had a family party here on 27th Jan and decided to have their buffet and also provide the DJ! Well..... On the day of the party, was when we realised we had made a big mistake! The pub has a awful smell and I know it is stale, dirty pipes, beer and the use of lots of bleach, trying to mask the smell... ( family ran pubs when I was a kid..) The function room is in a state, dirty, ripped seats, tables are broken and unsafe, I leaned on one and the top wasn't even attached and this was one of the buffet tables! The walls haven't been painted for more than 6+ years! and they are so dirty, stuck with pins, tape and bluetac from years of parties. Dirty, dusty floors and the bar was sticky and dirty! As it was a Surprise party for a 70th birthday, I arrived early so it could all be sorted. They were arriving at 7.15pm and at 6.50pm the DJ or Buffet still hadn't arrived!!! Eventually I enquired, they said the buffet was in the fridge and the DJ was on his way! I asked about table cloths (was told it would all be provided) but the people who do the buffet (I found out it was the people who run it) didn't leave any and they would have to call to get some brought in. By this point... I was panicking... they bought the cloths and the buffet was bought out! There was 2 big buffet tables and food was brought out in little plastic trays covering 1 table. I thought the other table was for desserts etc... I paid £250 for a buffet for 50 people!! ( there was only 35 adults and 10 kids) so it should have been more than enough.... once the party started I took lids off the buffet and realised there wasn't much food! Within 40 mins most of the food was eaten and I asked if they were bringing out the rest? there was NOTHING ELSE! My family was complaining the food was horrible, stale sandwiches and not alot to choose from.... it was DISGUSTING! People were still hungry! My husband ended up going to Morrisons and spending £60 on desserts and cakes for everyone! It was embarrassing! It would have been cheaper buying the food and doing it ourselves! My family were saying how bad it was and I had to stop some of the men "complaining" on the night! ( a deposit was refundable for the room 2 weeks after the party) I was scared we would lose our deposit! The DJ wasn't much good, he was stopping songs halfway through and restarting them. Luckily we aren't a dancing kind of family! I actually was so upset by it all, I left at 9pm!!! I cried all the way home! It has been 3+ weeks and I have had to go to the pub again, email and call to get my deposit back, which I got yesyerday! The people who run this pub, I was told did the buffet and have now taken over the "Gough Arms )" in Hateley Heath. I will not be going there again, either.... this was a nice pub! If I thought complaining to the management would make a difference, I would... but I would recommend you find a better place for any party's. This pub...

It pains me to write this review as this is my local pub I've eaten at every week and where i have done all my special parties and celebrations for ages. But today a manager whom I have never seen before intruded into our celebration. Two elderly friends and I went to our Christmas meal there as usual. We brought all of our gifts in and were unwrapping gifts. I had spent hours baking & decorating 2 special cakes to give to each of my lovely friends as Christmas gifts. They really enjoy my cakes as they are decorated very meticulously with fun themes. I spent two days making them! They opened the cakes and were really excited, ooh's and ahh's and taking pictures of them when the manager walked up, interrupted us and asked us if we were going to be eating them. Or was i selling them? What?? We were thinking is this guy mad? I said I don't know we may decide to have a taste, why?. He then said we cannot bring cake in without asking. We said we have always brought in birthday cakes and no one has ever said anything in fact they usually give us a big knife and plates. Instead of just backing away at that point he decided he needed to make a point of it and that he'd rather upset good paying regular customers so he went on and said you wouldn't bring a cake to McDonald's would you? We serve food, you cannot bring food in. To which we replied, "we aren't in McDonald's, and people bring celebration cakes into pubs all over the country every day. It's nothing abnormal. These cakes were not even brought in to be eaten anyway, they were Christmas gifts that were unwrapped and it was really none of his business who was going to eat what and when. My 79 year old friend was in tears and upset that he so rudely killed a lovely moment as it was her turn to open gifts. We decided that we did not deserve to have our meal ruined by a hot headed manager so we left. We went to another pub and told the manager about the cakes and the awful service and she gasped and said we are very welcome to bring the cake in and she was happy to have us as new customers. We ended up not eating any of the cake in the end anyway. I will never go back to The Gough Arms. We have spent hundreds of pounds in there and were treated like children being scolded. The really bizarre thing is that the manager was so bent on making his point that he lost himself great regular customers who have spent a fortune in his pub. We can just go to another pub it didnt hurt us at all although it was upsetting, but he's the one who's going to lose hundreds a year without our weekly meals plus celebrations. Not the brightest...

We came here for a family meal on Saturday. We arrived at 5:30 to be told that there was a 45 minute wait on food so not to order food until around 6:15 fair enough. So we went up the bar to get a drink, there was one person serving, the girl in front of us had been waiting 15 minutes to be served. Once it was my turn I asked for 2 pints and asked if they did fruit shoots (we had our 2 year old with us) the bar maid shrugged her shoulders and said no we don’t, no alternative was offered. 6:15 arrived and we went to order our food. There was still one barmaid serving, while having a conversation with another member of staff about her being in from 11, it being too busy and then took her opportunity to call the manager a few names that I won’t repeat but wasn’t very nice to hear. We ordered our food and waited an hour for it to arrive, while the manager was apologetic about the wait and that they was short staffed. Now if you know you’ve got a few big parties in that will be wanting food then pull more staff in, one person serving a busy bar really isn’t fair The food tho I will say was beautiful, I had Mac and cheese and it was lovely. My partner had a burger and it was huge, my little one had the mini kids meal of nuggets chips and peas and there was a lot there. I would go again but I really think they need to sort their staffing out, if they can’t handle that many parties then...