Miller & Carter Penn — Restaurant in South Staffordshire

We first visited this Miller and Carter a couple weeks back to celebrate a promotion at work. We were served by a lovely gent (Marko) who was attentive, polite and even told us this was the first Miller and Carter. The food was amazing, and the quality we would expect from a visit. Due to this amazing service, we decided to attend for our anniversary (19/02). What a shame it wasn’t like the first time. We waited in the bar area for our table, no bother as we could see it was a bit busy. Got sat at our table, and due to us having attended many M&C restaurants, on many occasions, we knew exactly what we wanted. Waitress (an older looking lady with glasses and mousey blonde hair) came over and we ordered without issue. Starters came, lovely as they always have been. Wedge came out, started on that. 20 minutes later and still no sign of our meal. When it did come out, the onion loaves on the side were dry, a medium rare chateaubriand was charred on the outside and dried out. We couldn’t find our server to mention this so decided it was alright and continued to eat it. Out of all the M&C experiences we have had, we agreed this was by far the worst. We never mind waiting for the food when it is amazing. This was anything but. 20 minutes after finishing, still no sign of our server. No check in to ask how our black medium rare steak was. We stacked our plates nicely, continued to wait. I could see her standing around by the hot pass, yet she did not walk away with any plates for the 15 minutes I could see her there. Personally, I don’t like chasing down wait staff to ask to pay and leave, so we tried to catch someone else’s eyes. No luck so we got our things and headed to the bar to settle our bill. How easy it could have been to take off without paying, but alas we have morals. Disappointing experience for two people who absolutely love M&C…and for myself as a Mitchells and Butlers’ employee. Think this is the only time we have never even thought about how much to tip. Only reason for the 2 stars is due to the amazing starters and first gent who served us (Marko, who genuinely seemed to enjoy his job). A shame really as this is 10 minutes away. Think we’ll stick to Sutton Park who have...

The service provided was inadequate, our reservation was for 6 Inc 2 children at 9:30. We arrived in good time and got ourselves a drink at the very busy bar whilst we waited for the table to be ready. Table was booked for myself, my partner, my company contracts manager, his partner and 2 kids as a company Christmas celebration. After ordering we waited nearly an hour for the starters to be served. My soup came out slightly warm at best, and the mushrooms came out cold. Garlic bread and cheese soufflé were both great. Waitress apologised for the temperature of the 2 starters when collecting the plates. We then at 11:15 asked where our mains were as we had a booking to see the new year in elsewhere. We were told they were on the list to be dished up. But would be another 15-20 minutes. To which we said we’d have to leave it because of the time already elapsed and ensuring we made it to our next venue. At this the manager came over, she was rude, abrupt and then informed us that I was unable to get the prepaid £120 deposit back because the food was then all of a sudden ready and waiting to go to the table that we were attempting to leave. But also that the drinks and starters we’d had, had already exceeded the £120 deposit. She then presented a bill for another table to which obviously multiple items weren’t ever ordered or ever arrived at the table. Staff had no comeback to us highlighting this to them and just looked shocked when working out the actual cost of the items we’d had.

Having used many different locations. Including Hagley Road and Sutton. I’ve always been very impressed with the food and service provided. With the whole experience being of top quality. This however was far from that. Having ruined not only the company event but also everyone’s New Years Eve. Leaving the children in tears following the staffs attitude and raised voices.

Having also read other Tripadvisor reviews of this venue. Following my shock at this experience. I have learnt that throughout December 2024, many other customers have encountered similar experiences following the managers rudeness and incompetence at running a busy venue. Clearly booking in tables above the capacity of her staffs...

What was great, probably the first time we got drinks at the bar because we received them quickly. Not that I would have minded waiting a couple minutes. What would be better is if there was more seating area. Every-time we have visited we always ending up waiting at the bar it’s never a case where we are taken straight to the table which is understandable if you are running over time. We were supposed to be seating at 8:15 but we had to wait half an hour up to 45mins. Once we were seated the waitress was quick to welcome us apologised for the wait and asked if we needed any drinks and gave us a few more minutes to decide what we wanted. The starters didn’t take long but what was concerning was when the waitress came to take our plates she said “you ate that very fast” and if I knew how long we were going to wait for our food I would have slowed down and had a bite of my starter every 10minutes. We didn’t get our mains till about 10:30! The first time we asked where the food was we were told that they were waiting for the final push and that there was a wait and we could have our salad wedges to pick on. At this point we had also ordered drinks. More time goes by at this point it’s 10pm and we’ve watched people leave and complain about the wait time. I’ve watched the table in front of us eat their mains and dessert. Lastly we gave them a ten minute warning that we were going to leave. We also watched our drinks that we had ordered sit at the bar for 20min. The whole time we were told that there is a wait. It would have been nice to be told how much of a wait there was, we were ignored the entire time with no one asking if we were doing alright, no one asked if we wanted a drink until WE had to FIND someone. What was supposed to be a happy occasion on celebrating two birthdays just turned out on taking bets if we would get breakfast faster. When food did arrive at 10:30 there was again an apology for the delay but at that point you’d expect to be compensated for the 2 and a half hour wait.its the worst service I have...