Hickory's Smokehouse West Kirby — Restaurant in Wirral

Oh no, poor Hickory's. What a real shame, we have eaten here for years, we have celebrated birthdays, Christmas, New year's, leaving parties, across various locations. West Kirby, Chester, Rhos on sea, Southport and Wilmslow to name a few. One of the best and most consistent food brands in the north west. After not visiting for a while my wife booked for my birthday this evening.

The first warning shots where after driving past a local pub where roads where left like a car park due to the England game being on we arrived at a normally packed out car park to find an abundance of availability.

After a warm welcome we were seated near to a TV as requested over the phone so that I could enjoy the second half of the England game. Cutlery and associated children's menu and activity book where left with us at the table and we where left to browse the menu. After a few minutes our server came over, when I asked for the hickories IPA I was corrected on my terminology. Humoured we placed our drinks order and asked about the social media advertised "smokin deals", only after enquiring was the little menu offered to us, again I see these tactics as poor form from a multi million pound company. In hindsight the Thursday BBQ blowout which we deliberately attended for had seemingly changed from what it used to be and wasn't all that great of a "Deal". The normal BBQ blowout sharer is £60 for 2 people, the deal makes it £20 per person. However a few clever tweaks and the £10pp saving is soon absorbed in the fact they switch out the beef rib(Jacobs ladder) and the beef brisket for fried chicken. Again underhand tactics if you ask me and clearly heavily relying on marketing to get through what appears to me almost self inflicted tough times.

As we were celebrating my birthday and we had eagerly anticipated a BBQ blowout containing the beef rib and the succulent beef brisket we had feasted on previously at hickorys venues we opted for the standard menu version at £60 for 2. As such we skipped the starters. We also added a £8 kids meal of chicken burger and corn on the cob, to my amusement a handful of fries was a paid for additional extra. We decided to share the fried from the BBQ blowout with our little one.

After a short time our drinks arrived and not much longer after our food also arrived. For context the beef brisket is normally served lukewarm as it would be in the southern stated of America. The beef brisket was the hottest price of food on the platter. The rest of the food was only as warm or nearly as warm as said lukewarm beef brisket. The flavours of what is normally delicious smoked and succulent food was bland, lacklustre and to be frank really disappointing. It was edible and we ate it but only because I am firmly against returning food unless it is unsafe to eat. ( I fear food being contaminated by kitchen staff)

From sitting down at our reservation time to finishing our platter 45 minutes later. Not once was I asked if we would like another drink, our check back to see how the food was arrived before we could even plate our food. And after my wife informed when booking that we were celebrating a birthday not once did I receive the usual camraderie that is normally on show when celebrating a birthday at hickorys.

As such, upon clearing the plates the bill was requested.

Another tell tale sign of a drop in standards was I cannot remember the time when I have eaten somewhere and not been asked how the food was by ANYONE after the meal. Hickories used to do this by way of requesting you to fill out a short questionnaire on a handheld device with your bill. This didn't happen, a car machine was provided with the bill and my wife paid and we swiftly left.

Unfortunately I think tonight may well have been my last visit to hickorys. Most certainly to the West Kirby venue.

Again, not terrible food, but my local hungry horse could have done the same for half of the price and with the same standard of food...

in response to Hickory's reply: you've completely ignored the essence of this review which is you put undue stress on your customers and they're shamed and embarrassed into having to ask for the automatic tip to be removed. If you can auto add it, you can auto remove it and the spirit of what I'm saying is you know people will likely not ask for it to be removed out of embarrassment

I am so disappointed that 7.5% service charge was automatically added to our bill.....please, we can't have this happen to the UK. Americas tipping culture needs to stay across the atlantic, next to health care for profit.

I'm not angry, I'm just really sad. The position you people in just isn't right. I get it's a business, and even I want you to earn lots of money and be really rich because you make a great product.

There are people in society that have to count every penny and who are maybe borderline homeless. Say their child does really well at school and they want to make their child feel special and rewarded and so they put on their best clothes and head to Hickory's.

You're already not cheap (we paid £65 for 2 mains and 2 drinks with a side of onion rings) and for this family, the bill's already going to be a stretch for them. And then you add 7.5% which they're not expecting and definitely don't have the money for.....the feeling of dread, shame and embarrassment they feel right in this moment is something that I think business owners have so much power where they could do good.... All you need to do is not add it automatically, let it be a option.

I'm sorry for the long message, I just don't want the world to follow Americas broken way!

The food and service was excellent as usual and we will be coming again soon. We always tip a minimum of 10% anyway...as a business owner my self, I just can't shake the fact that I know that you know that auto adding it means people are embarrassed into paying it anyway and it's not our culture here and shouldn't be.

If you think it's so easy to just ask for it to be taken off with your "no questions asked" then prove that you believe that it's no big deal and not auto add it, have every waiter ask if they can add it at the end of...

Me and my partner came here for our anniversary meal. We were sat straightaway and the waiter took our order. 1.5 hours later the manager comes and asks us how our meal was. We were so confused as we hadn't even had any food yet but we're getting asked about feedback. We let him know our food hadn't came yet. Safe to say he was as baffled as us. He went away to check on our order and on his returned looked embarrassed and apologetically admitted that our order wasn't put in the system. And because this mistake, the mains were free of charge - which we were really happy about. So our mains come and we ask why our starters haven't come before this. Confused the manager went back and saw that the waiter hadn't even wrote what we wanted for our starters. We told the new waitress to bring all our food out at the same time to stop it from getting cold. Now the food we got was absolutely delicious. We shared the louisiana wings, dry rub wings and brisket with a side of mac and cheese. Now we can't put any complaints or say a bad word about the food. So scrumptious! So after we finished our meal, the manager came back, apologised again and said that the whole meal including drink were free of charge due to all the complications. Overall we had an amazing time at Hickorys. The atmosphere was good, the food was fantastic and the service we got in the end was excellent. 5 star. We will 100% be going back in the...