TGI Fridays (Birmingham) Review

TGI Fridays - Birmingham

Venue: 180 Hagley Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham. B16 9NY Tel: 0844 372 7902

TGI Fridays, I should have known better to call in at the Birmingham TGI Fridays after never having a great experience in both in the UK and New York. However I had seen the Birmingham TGI's had been refitted in recent years and Kelly had mentioned she had never been, to add a little further persuasion, some good friends of ours are frequent visitors and highly recommend. So we pulled off the Hagley road and went in.

Seated in a tall booth, our first impression was that it was very busy for 5pm on a Sunday...and by very I mean "Very"! That said we decided to get an order in ASAP as we may have a wait on our hands!

Easier said than done! It took 15 - 20mins before we were acknowledged by the staff, and then I had to remind them we would also like a drink with our order, which took a further 10mins to arrive! It seemed we were keeping the waiter from a job far more important than serving us, as it felt we had to coerce the waiter to stay at the table so we could actually order! As a rule of thumb… you know when things start badly they rarely recover!

We expected a reasonable wait and the food was delivered after about 25mins which was fine as we expected a far longer wait but getting more drinks and the waiters attention was like waiting for my invite to the Royal Wedding... it never came! (I'm still sticking by it was lost in the post!!)

The food was what you would expect, salt laden, sticky mass produced corporate chain food with fried sides... great when you want that hit of food but rather too salty for me!

In the near hour we waited for, first of all, service and then the food, we did see first-hand the exceptionally inept cleaning skills of the staff... frustrating to say the least, I felt like getting up and training them myself. Exactly how hard is it to clean a table? They wiped all the meal debris on to the seats, squirted some "Cleaning Solution" on the table then wiped over with a dirty cloth. Basically just smearing all the leftovers across the table!

We watched several customers be seated and every time if noticed the people had to wipe food off the seats before sitting down. If this is how they operate front of house just imagine what a un-organised mess the kitchen must be in?!

Poor service, bad cleanliness, salty food... I now realise the secret to running an extremely busy and profitable restaurant!
So if you're in Birmingham and thinking of popping into TGI's, my advice…. don't bother!

Service: 1, and I only give that because there were actually staff there, in body only!
Cleanliness: 2, complete joke!
Drinks: 8, for menu, when you finally get them.
Food: 5
Rooms: None