Wednesday 27 November 2013

When is a pie not a pie? Open letter to Nicholson's Pubs

Unfortunately I was incorrectly served a steak and kidney pudding, rather than a steak and kidney pie, tonight during my visit to Nicholson's Pubs Bacchus Bar in Birmingham.

To avoid my mistake and because their menu (in print and online) is currently wrong, please note the following in my open letter to the pub chain. I have included some of the feedback I received on twitter below (still awaiting my phone call) and aim to review the pudding and another pie I ate in a Nicholson's Pub in the coming weeks.

Open letter to Nicholson's Pubs

I have raised this with you manager on shift at the time but wanted to put in writing that, while this is not a massive criticism of the quality of your food, I was genuinely disappointed to find that what I ordered on your menu and what I got provided did not match in a rather fundamental way.

I run the web's leading pie reviewing website (www.pierate.co.uk) which is the number one hit when you Google "pie review" and was looking forward to rating the pie at your Bacchus Bar in Birmingham. However after getting over the initial disappointment of you having sold out of lamb and chicken pies by the time I ordered at 6pm, I certainly did not expect to be served a steak and kidney PUDDING when in fact I had ordered a steak and kidney PIE off your menu.

While the pudding tasted quite nice (I will give it a full critique when I review it on the blog in the next week or so), I'm afraid you've scored a rather big own goal here by having "pie" printed on your menu when "pudding" should be there. I realise 99.99% of your customers would probably not care which they had, but for me I was certainly looking for a pie. After all, I run www.pierate.co.uk and not "puddingrate" or any such thing. We have a readership of about 5,000 readers a month at present and they want to read our PIE reviews, not pudding reviews.

I'm afraid I will have to disappoint our readership with this news when I write up my evenings account on the blog. I am sure you will understand that while we want to promote pie selling establishments where we can, a pudding is not a pie and we report the honest truth.

It appears this is an error in your printed menu (and the online menu to: http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/bacchusbarbirmingham/food/) which I hope will be corrected shortly to avoid others making the same mistake I did. Happy for people to eat puddings if they prefer, but they should obviously NOT be labelled as a pie (and in my opinion, should not be under a header of "perfect pies" when they clearly are not pies).

I hope this has been useful, will lead to a correction in the menu and am happy to speak to you further if you wish to. I will aim to post my review of my visit to Bacchus this weekend on www.pierate.co.uk

Pudding v Pie


Nicholsons Pudding Pie
Ordered a PIE, served a PUDDING, had to pay for a PUDDING

Feedback from Nicholson's Pubs on Twitter:

We helpfully pointed out that the Nicholson's Pubs menu is in fact wrong and needs correcting (so that further customers aren't mislead):
Nicholson's Pubs don't plan to correct their menu error until sometime in 2014:
Nicholson's Pubs agree they mis-sold food to me by giving me a pudding and not the pie I ordered:
Nicholson's Pubs need up to 7 days to read my online feedback form and call me:
RAS

We have actually eaten a lot of genuine pies (not puddings) which can be seen in our Pierate Pie Rankings or you can click here for our steak and kidney PIE Reviews.

Where do you stand on the pie v pudding debate?
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and let us know your thoughts!


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