Saw Grinders Union — Restaurant in Sheffield

We contacted the Saw Grinders Union to host our wedding reception, but both the service and communication were absolutely awful.

When we first spoke to and contacted SGU (this was initially in person and then via email to follow up) we enquired about hiring the whole venue, this was confirmed via email in October 2024 (image attached) and the deposit was paid for the price quoted to us by the manager we spoke to. It wasn't until we visited in March 2025 to refresh our memory on the venue for decorations that we spoke to another manager, who happened to mention that the booking was for just one room, the snug room with the large sofa in.

They had also changed catering provider and food menu during this time, but didn't think to tell us.

To his credit he manager we spoke to in person in March (I'm very sorry we didn't make a note of your name) did offer to provide the originally agreed food menu, he was also very apologetic and promised they would try to make this up to us by offering multiple things for free and even trying to move the booking in the other half of the venue if they could, but the email we received following up after (which very clearly wasn't from the manager we had just spoken to) was very abrupt and didn't take any ownership for the confusion, nor even apologise for their mistake.

The booking was for 50 people, there's no way that 50 people would have comfortably fit in just the snug/workshop room and a portion of the courtyard while also having space for tables and seats, a space to serve food, and a dj along with somewhere to dance. The offer of someone to serve drinks in our half also begs the question of what we would have done otherwise, was the original plan for everyone at our event to order drinks at the main bar and interrupt the other booking walking across each time? The same goes for using the toilet, there only seems to be one toilet section so you're going to have people from another booking coming across to use it.

The venue itself does look lovely, and the food we tried was very nice I have to say, but the incredibly poor communication between managers and to us was just ss so so bad, and we even had to chase up our refund multiple times which took nearly two months.

We asked for the refund on the 19th March, you told us it would be received on the 21st April but this date was missed with your response stating it had been mixed up with another payment "There was another refund request with two different dates, which we mixed up apologies for this." The refund was finally received on Sunday, the 11th May at just after midnight, less than a month before we got married and needed to pay for another venue.

Fortunately we found another venue and had a lovely time, but not to receive a single apology from SGU about the mistake with our booking, and to also have to chase up our refund multiple times was not what we needed at such a stressful time, which they...

Terrible service. I have attended the saw grinders union a few times now and have been disappointed massively. On various occasions we have been told there is a back log of drinks and would have to wait 30 to 45 minutes. Not only this last time we was told they were not taking any more orders and this was after paying for a ticketed event!! You can't sell tickets and know how many people are going to be there and still be under staffed. Also during covid would would make me assume that it's not even full capacity. I also think there is some blame on the staff too as granted at times they were busy but at other times were just stood chatting amongst each other. Also how staff didn't have designated tables or weren't trained on using the tablets fully was crazy. With our tickets at the last event we had food and drink included. We was told we had to order all at once (we was waiting on two members who weren't coming for a couple of hours) as this could confuse them? They have a tablet which they could add table notes too or again assume the tablet tells them we have this many burgers and this many pints remaining. It's also a fact the table had my name on it as they wouldn't allow us to move forward as the tables were allocated on a bookings basis.

In short I'll leave some positives and negatives and hopefully they can be taken seriously as the venue is really nice and has good potential but just seems poorly run.

Negatives: terrible service poor management expensive drinks - also seemed watered down overall a poor experience - not value for money

Positives: nicely laid out venue burgers! Despite waiting 3 hours for it and not being able to eat when we choose but being told when to eat. when it finally arrive it was a delicious burger. Although no napkins, cutlery or plates? Like seriously £10 for a takeaway wrapped burger? the bouncer who greets people! Huge fan of this man who as always been polite and welcoming. He is also thorough with his job ensuring covid restriction guidelines are met and checks bags for safety which I cannot fault. This man is honestly the biggest positive of this whole venue and the saw grinders union are lucky to have him.

I doubt I'll be back in a hurry to this venue, there's a lot that needs improving if they're going to charge £6 a pint. Hopefully this can change and comments are...

We came here for a bottomless brunch at the weekend but we hadn’t realised until the day before that the menu had changed to Turkish which was slightly disappointing as we’d been excited about one of the Korean dishes on the previous menu and a bit sad that we’d not been informed of the change beforehand.

The staff were lovely and very attentive with our drinks. I will say the Prosecco was very sweet & quite weak so not sure if it was actually Prosecco or maybe something in the Prosecco family?

We do quite a few bottomless brunches and I was really excited for this one as it’s not a chain but personally £40 each is quite steep for just one meal/two smaller mezze plates and bottomless drinks in my opinion. If there were more drink options and maybe another course would justify that price.

Food was good, my burger was tasty but nothing special and the others enjoyed their food. The Turkish eggs could do with an additional carb or maybe some more bread (which was delicious just needed more to mop up the aioli)

Overall the atmosphere was good but it was cold in there so...