The Malt Shovel — Restaurant in Sandwell

(Before reading the review please note that after speaking to Stuart the manager, we were invited back to the restaurant on the 2/8/22, for a fantastic evening, with great service provided himself and emma. Upon being invited back the food was great and the service was better, hence the 5 stars. Thank you to Stuart and his team for providing a great evening and making us feel looked after as well as providing excellent food, will surely be back many more times, thank you again)

What can i say, ive literally had to delete a positive review of an experience the other day to provide this review of the embarassment of the service myself and my family recieved today.

Firstly when we arrived i asked a member of staff if we could use meerkat meals (who was lovely by the way) she replied with 'yes, as its a thursday'. So we continued to sort what we were ordering then myself and my wife proceeded to the bar, after placing the order and showing the barman the meerkat pass he stated he had to see the QR code which was on the app, although both a member of staff and the app itself was stating that meerkat meals work from monday till thursday he still wouldn't allow me to do so as the the QR code wouldn't load up correctly (although he had prior proof of membership etc). After dancing around this subject and requesting the amount for the bill i asked could if i see a manager just get this rectified, to which he replied 'well im the manager and theres nothing im doing about it without the QR code'. I then asked if the membership would suffice and he said no 'its full price take it up with meerkat' (i believe his name was jovan?). You would think as a manager of a chain restaurant he would want to at least help rectify this situation that he could see was clearly not our fault, but in this case clearly not.

After heading back to the table i couldnt believe that a place that has been so great in previous experiences would have a manager on shift who was so rude and blunt, nothing i would have ever been able to endure throughout working within the industry myself for over a decade. Once we went up to get the carvery, i was told by the chef, you can either have the last slice of beef or youre going to have to wait 40 minutes for anything else. Surprising considering it was only 3 in the afternoon. How when i have a one year old at the table is it even slightly possible to wait 10 minutes never mind 40? I really wish i had a picture of the meat i was given but in the haste of my complaint the table staff quickly cleared away the appalling food before i could take a picture of the singular slice of veiny fat i was presented with, a piece i wouldnt have even fed my dog.

I spoke to another member of staff he seemed nice and explained how he would report this to his boss but nobody came over and rectified anything after over 20 minutes of waiting. So not only had we been denied a discount that we earn through various online purchases, but were then treated extremely disrespectfully, and then to top it off given arguably the worst meal from a restaurant any of us have had to displeasure of enduring.

How embarassing that we have told several members of our family to come to this place as its amazing and the food is great etc, imagine the situation where we had to explain that we really werent setting them up and this really was happening in a place we have spoke so fondly of.

If they were playing a game today of how to make 5 customers never come back and make sure others dont too.. they would have won 1st prize.

My apologies to the staff that have to deal with a shift manager so poor in his ability to...

We went to the malt shovel tonight with friends. It was the first time we had came here for a meal and was looking forward to it. We walked in and all of the tables had half eaten food and empty dirty glasses on them, tables and seats dirty that had not been cleaned. I had to remove the dirty items from our table onto another one as I couldn’t see any staff around. We ordered our food and drinks and started to enjoy our evening until the food buzzer went off and we collected the food. The carvery all looked old and the beef was very fatty and chewy, but the burgers had been crusified, my daughter didnt want to say anything so had to pick the hard inedable batter off and picked at her food but my friends son couldn’t even manage to do that and just pulled the burger apart on the plate. The kids just had chips and a bit of salad even though we had spent £9.79 on one burger and £7.28 on the other. My friend called a member of staff over to explain the problems she said that she would speak to the kitchen. She came back around 5 minutes later and said that too much of the meal had been eaten to make a complaint, this was true with my daughters meal as she had picked the batter off to eat it but my friends son had not eaten much he had just taken it apart! They said we could have a clean plate to have the carvery vegetables to “fill up on” The manager was very rude when my friend went over to speak to him and he even raised his voice. He was very unprofessional and i will be telling everyone i know to keep away from the place Such a shame because this could be a lovely place if...

I would give 0 starts if I could the worse service i have ever received. Attended here for my grandmothers 70th birthday meal. First of all the starters came out before the drinks so we had to eat our starters with no drinks. Also only 2 starters were brought out at the same time the last starter 15 minutes later. We ordered calamari strips and was told by the waitress that these were halloumi fries despite these being actual calamari and sending them back and forth. Carvery was nice but the service and wait times outweighs the meal. We were told to leave the table by 5pm for other guests however we ordered our desserts at 4:30pm and it took 50 minutes to bring out 2 cookie doughs, a sticky toffee pudding and an ice cream sundae. I have worked in waitress industry for many years and I have never witnessed anything as appalling as this. No apology received for the wait and I had to personally go to the kitchen 3 times myself to chase up these desserts. When these desserts arrived the child’s portion was 3x the size of the adults portion despite a major price difference. I understand that it is a busy Sunday afternoon but looking at the staff gossiping and eating in the kitchen was ridiculous and no apology received from the staff whatsoever. Also went to order at the bar and people behind me were served before me probably because I’m a young girl on her own so just get ignored.

If anybody had any sense they would not step foot in this restaurant unless you want to wait almost an hour...