Himley House — Restaurant in South Staffordshire

Serious need of training for ALL waiting staff.

Yesterday was my first meal at Himley House and will probably be the last.

We were seated as soon as we arrived and drinks order was taken. One tap water, one pint of soda. Twenty minutes later our simple drinks order arrived. NO tap water, just one miniature soda. The water was brought out separately with an apology.

We could hardly hear our server and requested a super food salad and short rib beef. At the end of our order the lady kept looking at us very quizzically which made us question whether the order was taken correctly. Our meal arrived and it was wrong. I was brought a beef dinner instead of the beef rib. My friends salad looked washed out, the avocado was over ripe and had no seasoning or dressing, we had to ask for one. When my replaced meal came out, in a matter of minutes, everything was at different temperatures. It seemed they literally flicked the beef off the original dinner and replaced it with a rib. All my vegetables were only just warm, as were the roasties and everyone knows how much heat roast potatoes retain so they'd obviously been hanging around a while. The veggie and gravy portions were really stingy too!

After dinner my friend ordered a americano and requested it come with warm milk. This order was taken by another lady. The coffee arrived........ With cold milk.

Then our original server just popped up asking if we wanted our bill. We weren't finished so it seemed to be rushing us to finish.

I then fancied a pot of tea. This order was taken by a completely different girl. Twenty minutes later my pot of tea had still not arrived. I had to wave to the server across the restaurant and signal a drink, within a few minutes it arrived and it was obvious it'd been just forgotten.

A party of three ladies came and sat at the table beside us. After thirty minutes their drinks order hadn't even arrived. We discussed with them how poor our service had been and that I had already decided I would be writing a Google review. As we left we actually wished them luck for their meal!!

Every member of staff needs to attend some thorough training days. It didn't seem like servers had set tables as we had so many different staff serving us. Our server needed to speak up, speak with confidence, serve with confidence, have the confidence to ask if she's not sure she's heard correctly. The food needs to be presented better, the food needs to be fresher, it needs to be similar temperature and the portions of vegetables should be a little more generous. The drinks orders especially when quieter should be arriving within a few minutes.

Looking at the reviews already made it seems there is an awful lot of one and two star reviews. The team reply of please give us another go to make up doesn't really cut the mustard! The odd review is fair enough but the amount Himley House has they need to recognise THEY DO HAVE PROBLEMS THAT NEED ADDRESSING and customers are not going to pay to come and receive the same service because it's pretty obvious they are doing nothing to rectify their...

Decor - haven't been for many years and to be honest it was a last resort today, but was pleasantly surprised of the improved decor. Its certainly much brighter, pleasant and inviting. The Christmas decorations are lovely and appears no expense has been spared. Service - extremely annoyed on being seated at a table to be advised that there is a time limit of 1.5hrs for dining.......the room was almost empty, that rang alarm bells. The table and menus was stained with beer and sticky, obviously staff hadn't cleaned properly- poor attention to detail. Food - we went with the idea of having Sunday lunch and 2 of my party ordered this but based on personal preferences from seasonal vegetables i opted for fillet steak. Meals and sides arrived but SL was cold, steak not cooked to spec and cold. Meals and sides returned with specific request to cook steak to my liking. Meals and fresh sides arrived on piping hot plates, veg raw, beef inedible on SL and fillet steak not cooked as requested and inedible. I returned the steak to staff and asked to speak to the chef, staff asked what was wrong? Whilst i understand a customer's preference on how their steak is cooked can vary, an experienced chef would be happy to accommodate as best they can to ensure satisfaction. No chef to speak to, the manageress dealt with the matter. I abandoned the idea of any further food. Having had two attemps to cook steak i didnt feel the kitchen had experienced staff to cook anything. We were now at 1.5hrs, the limit they had set on our table but this was extended. They offered free dessert and waved the bill. This wasnt what i had in mind when we chose to dine here, we were looking for a nice meal and satisfactory service which is not too much to expect at their prices. So here's my feedback for head office if they're interested: Limiting a guests dining experience when the restaurant is near empty is not inviting. Staff with little or no experience in the kitchen need closely monitoring by qualified staff, food should be pronged for temperature before leaving the 'pas', and vegetables either al dente or cooked to customers requirements (not raw or pinged in a microwave) Attention to detail in all areas of business are required at all times. It appears on this occasion the function in another room received the attention and the restaurant was left to junior/unqualified staff. The fact the bill was waved does not encourage guests to return, your chef has one opportunity to impress your customers and negative experiences will always travel fast around friends and family. We had genuinely visited your establishment for a nice experience and were willing to pay accordingly. We left hungry and...

Arrived a little early for our booking, but were shown to our table where we waited for a few minutes to be asked if we’d like to order drinks. This never happened so I went to the bar - no server to be seen. They were standing around chatting by the till, a theme continually repeated throughout the evening. Eventually got served, and once the rest of our party arrived, after another lengthy wait, we were asked if we would like to order food, not realising that our whole party hadn’t yet ordered drinks. The food came out eventually, but they were several minutes apart. The quality was poor and a couple of plates had to be sent back as were inedible - one was cold, the other burnt. Chips were not cooked properly some were still hard and the steak I ordered had a bone in it that gave me toothache for a couple of hours after. We then eventually ordered dessert after yet another long wait and having had to ask at the till where yet again they were all standing around for someone to take our order, they came back after a few minutes to tell us some of what we ordered wasn’t available so had to change order. The only reason we didn’t leave or ask to see a manager was because we’d gone out to celebrate a birthday and we didn’t want to spoil it for the birthday girl. They did bring us a free round of drinks - however they couldn’t get this right either because there was also one missing from this. There was one waitress who did go above and beyond by making our little boy a special dessert since, yet again, the one we ordered from the menu wasn’t available, so thanks are due to her, however this wasn’t enough to negate the dreadful experience we all had. The problems seem to stem from poor management and a terrible chef as the staff appear to be completely disorganised. Will never visit here again and I advise no one else...