Kiln By Mac in Birmingham

We tend to stop by after parkrun for a drink and a chat where we understand it’s busy, but often we find ourselves extremely disappointed by the service and the quality of drinks. Flat whites are never hot enough and generally take far too long to order and then to receive the drink. Last Saturday we ordered an oat milk flat white, a flat white and a green smoothie, with a croissant. I asked to take the croissant there and then which caused the lady serving to roll her eyes. The drinks took about 15 mins to arrive which is standard, but like most weeks, the waitress didn’t know which was the oat milk and which was the normal flat white. We finished our flat whites before they went cold, but shockingly I got the smoothie about 15 mins after we’d finished the coffees, having had to go up and enquire twice about it. No apology received. No urgency. Guy manning the hot food hatch where the smoothie eventually appeared from was too busy on his phone and almost took pleasure in my frustration with a grin on his face the whole time. His only feedback “it’ll be ready shortly”. Not what I want to hear after half an hour of waiting already. Would avoid this cafe and go elsewhere as we often leave frustrated and regretting money spent.

The food is nice enough with relatively quick, polite service. But the manager? thinks it somehow adds value to put a sheet of paper on the plate and then put the food on top of the paper. My half chicken was served like this. If you cut the food you also rip the paper underneath and are also forced to eat paper! or spend time removing the fragments of ripped paper stuck to the food. I assume the paper and ink are non-toxic, but I doubt that the Kiln can guarantee this. I should have complained immediately and asked for the paper to be removed, but like a fool I mindlessly perservered with this stupidity, trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid eating scraps of paper with my food. The Kiln tries to be greener with a price reduction for those who bring their own non disposable cups for hot drinks, yet wastes paper on lining plates. Can the Kiln explain their reason for lining (presumably clean) plates with paper?

Ordered childs pizza meal, which specified 2 x slices of pizza and fries. Came with one slice of pizza. When queried, the waiter took it back to the kitchen and returned saying the chef had cut the single slice in half, so it was now two, and that it had meant to be cut in the first place... The waiter was pleasant, and obviously following orders from the kitchen. The fries tasted old and like they had been cooked in old oil. Pizza was OK.

Lovely latte and good service. Too many staff standing around doing nothing when they could've been clearing tables etc. Tables are very unstable and our coffee kept spilling. Needs some TLC really otherwise great place for eating drinking

The service was wonderful – extremely friendly and welcoming

Not a single milk-free or vegan cake in cafe or takeaway - terrible -so had to leave.

It has been awhile since I came here. We had a lovely walk around the park and decided to get some lunch at the cafe. This place has been renovated and it’s looking fresh and cosy. We ordered coffee and pizza to share at the KILN. I was pleasantly surprised how good the plaza tasted. It was crunchy and fully of favour. I will definitely come back again soon.

2.5/5. Probably one of the least bad food in canon hill park but still not great. The service was a bit chaotic but staff was nice. Food, depends on what you get. The pizza was so thin, it falls apart when you lift your slice. Absolutely avoid the focaccia, it was just bread with garlic butter. The fries were the only thing good even although there was definitely no rosemary on them like we ordered.

Good food, decent prices and nice atmosphere (usually busy). The location is very convenient to enjoy some food after the walk in the park. You guys should really go back to your previous supplier of fries, it was the highlight of this restaurant for me.

The food is very good value, good portions and tasty. Can usually get a table but might have to clear some stuff away as the staff are very busy.

Came in for lunch on Friday the 7th June. Asked to change one of the pizzas to be vegan and the lady who served us was very friendly helpful and informative. We didn't catch the name but she had a lanyard, glasses and a pony tail. (Also my partner was v happy that the salad has rocket so that too!)

Had to ask for a cloth to wipe the table…. One was given to me and I had to wipe table myself!!!! It was sticky from previous people

The staff at the cafe are atrocious and absolutely rude.

The best espresso in Birmingham.

Very tasty Sunday lunch! Prompt service and relaxed atmosphere…will definitely be coming again!

We visited here for lunch and had a pizza, sweet potato fries, garlic bread and a hummus plate. The food was good, leaning towards the end of average which is fine for lunch. The staff were friendly and the place was clean. I would definitely return for a lunch and it's a nice escape from the wider park. Toilets are within the MAC.

Incredible pizza! Would highly recommend. Great cake selection too. Pricey, but well worth it.

Always a friendly experience staff very professional and veggie food is great and the cakes are to die for

I do like coming to the Mac and usually enjoy eating at the Kiln. However when I asked for no onions in the side salad I was then approached afterwards at the table to check if it was an allergy (it wasn’t). It only became apparent afterwards it’s because they either pick the onions out of the pre made salad or use the same chopping board or storage containers. Because the whole salad tasted of onions and I found a sliver on the plate too. It may not have been an allergy but there is just no need for this. I told a waitress who informed me they would pass on my feedback to the team but otherwise didn’t seem that surprised or bothered. Please don’t do that to customers. Onions may not be an allergy but it does make me feel bloated and is probably an intolerance. Picking onions out of a pre made salad is just not the done thing - I’m sure you know that.

Today I had the best fish finger sandwich ever! Fish fingers in ciabatta with homemade tartare sauce and rocket. Saw the young lady on the coffee machine practicing her latte art. My son enjoyed a well cooked pizza and my wife has a substantial baked potato. Well done Kiln!

I’m would suggest for the children’s meals when serving the orange juice or blackcurrant squash to provide bamboo or copper cups instead of glasses as children may have accidents and spill or drop and break glass. Especially for families who have children with special educational needs it would be beneficial if this was offered to put less pressure on the parents not worrying if the item may break or not. Service was friendly and staff were welcoming, food was served quickly and drinks thank you ☺️

Used this place many times - pleasant atmosphere; good service and food, but... This time it was all undermined by overcooked / partly burnt bases on both of our pizzas... Let it go this time, but, to be honest, we should have probably sent them back to the chef! Shame, as the pizzas here (like all the food) are normally excellent.

Lovely late and beautiful sticky ginger cake. The best cake I’ve had in a cafe!

Today I enjoyed a delicious lunch at the lovely Kiln cafe at MAC. All the staff were very professional, friendly and welcoming. I thoroughly enjoyed my cheese and baked bean baked potato which was totally scrummy with a fresh salad garnish. A lovely time was spent here today and all the staff -paid and otherwise - are a credit to MAC.

Poor response from staff for serving, expensive for what’s offered. Slow.

Chaos 20 minute wait to get 2 teas and coffee served to table? Why not serve at the counter. Had to ask for a refund as could not wait any longer without a parking ticket. Staff friendly, system does not work and needs changing asap. Very disappointed. Can't imagine what would have happened if we had ordered breakfast.

I like this cafe, it's always easy to get served, food and drink arrives promptly. Lovely pizzas. The only thing I noticed today was that the announcements for the cinema are extremely loud and distracting when having a conversation. Other than that, it's a nice place for a drink and bite to eat!

Great little cafe to grab a sandwich and coffee, unless that is you're vegan, in which case you're likely on a diet apparently. Not one vegan sandwich available and this isn't the first time. Come on guys, it's not difficult.

Lovely place to have breakfast before a leisurely walk round the park

Very pleasant ,modern deco venue and uplifting atmosphere. Staff are very professional, decent, helpful . Amazing customer service .food is decent quality ,a bit dear though , but good stuff doed not come cheap .

The toast was basically warmed bread

Very spacious place within Midlands Arts Centre. I wanted to order Beef, Guinness, Mushroom & Onion Pie but apparently that was the only meal not available from the menu! Instead staff suggested Festive Focaccia with Roast turkey, bacon and Emmental cheese served hot on a homemade cranberry studded focaccia. The food was disappointing, very dry and not tasty at all!

Fabulous food! Great roast beef dinner with plenty of varied vegetables. The Brie & spinach pie was flavoursome & delicious!

Usually quite busy. Plenty of room to sit. Great selection of cakes and drinks but somewhat pricey. Nowhere else to go for food in the vicinity, although the park has a cafe.

I so wanted to like this place, but being made to wait 20 minutes for a takeaway coffee is bonkers!

Nice pitstop near Edgbaston Stadium and set in the lovely Cannon Hill Park. Good pizza but could've done with a few topping options and less sauce. Nice though along with a few chips. Flat White was pretty good too. Not masses of choice (sandwich and cold pasta etc options were limited) but a relaxing setting and good service nonetheless. Nice to look around the gallery also before walking off the pizza!

Perfectly lovely for a lunch. Quite busy but the queue moved quickly and the food was swiftly cooked. Delicious food and an art gallery to explore after - what’s not to love. Decent prices!

I'm absolutely fond of this place. It's my first time here, and I accompanied my partner, who had a meeting to attend. I arrived early, even before they officially opened, and was pleasantly surprised by their courteous treatment. Once they opened, I placed an order, and I must say, the food was excellent, as were the drinks. What impressed me even more was that it only took them 5 minutes to serve my order at my table. the prices are okay but they donate two pounds to MAC's Green Future Fund, that is very respectful.

Very busy - not enough staff - wrong order delivered - very long waiting time for food to arrive. Disappointing as showing Brum off to guests!

No scones. Four waiters at counter, waited and waited for service and then walked out. I was invisible. I went back to coffee place where the serving counter was filthy with spilled stuff. Service quick. Too up marker and posh for scones.

Went for an afternoon tea ,although the sandwiches and cakes were very nice there was nothing to put on the scones when I enquired I was given rock solid butter cut into squares with water in the bottom and some pots of jam ,no cream. I was also informed we could have the teas refilled but not the coffee. We then paid for more coffees asked for the table to be cleared but no one bothered even though it had quietened down at this point . I feel it is not value for money at all and needs some attention to detail at the moment and would not recommend .

Worst breakfast I ever had, toast was not what you would call toast, just warm bread. Breakfast portion was that small not enough for child let alone an adult. Will not eat there again. One star is to much.

Got a child’s hot chocolate, the milk was so hot it burned the child’s mouth maximum 140f not 140c

Staff were not friendly and uninformative. Most places now cater for allergies, the cafe does not seem to have gluten and lactose free/vegan products, just either or. When we asked staff, there was no friendliness and the lady just replied "no we don't". An elderly friend ordered 3 coffees, only 1 arrived. When he queried this over 10mins later, the same staff member, still miserable came over, initially not with the coffees but to say he only ordered 2 (this was not the case he murdered 3),he calmly pointed out to her than this was not the case plus even if it was, there was still only 1 coffee! She then huffed and puffed off to bring back the 2 coffees also presenting milk to the person that had specifically gone up asking about lactose free because they had an allergy. Dreadful atmosphere too. Don't bother - go to the kiosk is my recommendation!

We are frequenting this place. Food is great and in reasonable price. Employees are always kind

Reasonable value for money. Daft ordering system. The general ambience fits in well with the general vibe of the arts centre. Seating is comfortable with the place being generally clean and tidy though with some sticky tables. The QR code ordering system has never worked on any phone during any of our visits so we've had use the 'host station' where a usually helpful person has taken our order. On one visit I lost my seat through having to order 'manually' so left and came back later. The wait for food is usually over 20 minutes for a simple cake and tea even in a not too busy café. The tea was OK and stretched to two cups. The carrot cake was a strange mixture of Christmas cake and marmalade sponge: slightly too heavy, a bit dry and with pink icing. But oddly it tasted great the first time I had it but so-so the second time. On our last visit, March '23, this host station was no longer there and the area closed temporarily due to being full. All in all it's a bit hit and miss in terms of access, the ordering system and the quality of the food.

Visited KILN at the Mac yesterday, I managed to get a table and order myself a breakfast and coffee. The coffee came out at lightning speed, closley followed by a member of staff telling me that they had ran out of sausage (at 11.15 - breakfast service begins at 10am) Agreed to have an extra portion of bacon. Order was placed at 11.15 and I ended up being served at 11.55! But was it worth the wait?? The breakfast honestly looked like it had been cobbled together with leftover items. The mushroom was the size of a postage stamp, and not much thicker. The bacon looked boiled, the egg was cold, the tomato was out of the fridge cold. It was served with a dessert spoon sized serving of tepid beans and 3 small hash brown bites. I complained to the server at both the wait and the quality of the breakfast and they were not interested at all. I suppose when you've ordered on a QR code and paid a gratuity up front then there is little incentive for the staff to put customers and service first. Awfully disorganised place. Will not be returning.

We ordered 2 jacket potatoes, they were cold, burnt skins on the outside and rock hard inside, we ordered a coffee which didn’t arrive, I would definitely NOT recommend eating here

Disapointing experience. Came in after a run at the park for a coffee. No clear signage of where to order. The QR code wasn’t working which didn’t help. You Have to order at a separate part to the main bar. Waited so long to be served the woman behind me walked out. This is despite 4 staff behind the main bar who could have helped or acknowledged our existence.

Very rude waitress. I was with my diabetic mother and asked for water and she said I can see your order and took ages to give it. Very rude polish women. Need a revamp

Arrived after 4pm on a Wednesday so went to the Express Kiln & enjoyed a lovely hot latte with oat milk, and a generous slice of vegan banana bread. All served in biodegradable/compostable cutlery.

Popped in for lunch after a morning at the commonwealth T20 cricket. They managed to turn a table around for us immediately, online ordering was easy and our order arrived very quickly. Pleasant staff and the food was great. Would definitely return!

Coffee was good and appreciated them tailoring the cup size down for my tastes. However the full english was awful.. Plates too small, sausage under cooked and smothered in beans.. Avoid this option

Very kind and friendly staff, avarage food and stuipid ordering system which doesn’t worked properly…

Visited with grandson. Have been many times over the years. The main cafe had a short queue so we went to the smaller coffee and snacks. Had blt, egg cress sandwich and vegan cake. All pretty horrible. Coffee OK. £13.85 not cheap for poor quality food

Very good. Limited menu but what I had was efficiently served and of good quality.

Chips ok but food portions are tiny. Jerk wrap was an insult to both ethnic food groups. Expensive for what it is. Shame really.

Extremely rude and unhelpful staff. Food arrived quickly and was decent quality, albeit a bit cold, but drink never materialized. When I asked after half an hour where drink was I got a very sarcastic, rude response. It's not a difficult or unreasonable thing for staff to let you know there's a delay on drinks, and people are generally reasonably willing to wait if it's busy - but by enforcing a table order only policy the staff here have removed any obligation on themselves to do that, and instead make customers feel unreasonable for expecting it. I've been here before pre-pandemic and had much better experiences - I can't work out whether the issue is the new process, rude staff, or an unhappy mix of both. Either way I can't recommend anyone come here.

Didn't live up to the hype. Portion sizes small, took a long time to arrive, and was cold. We ordered the veg pie & the chickpea curry. Substandard, both. Prob won't eat here again.

My granddaughter and I come to the park and the kiln restaurant therein every week for the past 6 months. Every week we go to the Kiln and have our lunch. This week however when we arrived we were told by the young women on a desk that we had not seen before that we couldn't sit at our usual table even though the restaurant was really quiet and sparsely populated. When I questioned this she couldn't give an answer and so we were allowed to sit there. When I asked for a child seat for my granddaughter her response was ill get to it when I can but it took about 5 minutes for it to materialise even though we watched her doing nothing else. So we sat and waited for someone to take our order as is the norm. The young woman concerned took an order from a clearly disabled person and totally ignored us. I might add I too am disabled but my disabilities are not visable. After about 10 minutes of her blatantly ignoring us I approached the counter and asked whether someone could take our order. The young man I spoke with approached the woman at the front desk who informed him that everything had changed and all orders needed to be placed with her at the front desk. The obvious question is why were we not informed about this upon arrival and being seated. The young woman's attitude was extremely rude and dismissive and yet I had not seen her behave in this way with any of the other customers. I was questioned by one of the other wait staff who were used to our visits as to why we were leaving and I explained the situation and he was very apologetic. We had never had any problems prior to this and I could not understand it. However I did note that I was the only Black person in the restaurant so perhaps that had a bearing. As we were leaving I questioned her conduct and the fact that we had not been advised of the new regime even though she had seen me waiting patiently to place my order. I am so disappointed that I received neither customer service or apology. I will not be using the Kiln at Cannon Hill Park again because of the bad conduct of one rude young girl.

Just amazing staff and delicious food here! I’ve been a costumer few times, enjoying a coffee or a soup waiting for a concert or a movie to start. I’m in love with the windows: you can see all the trees around, and the light is great!

The food is delicious, my son scored the chips at 10 out of 10. I had the seasonal turkey ciabatta which was also lovely and very filling.

They don't allow dogs inside. That's very, very disappointing given there are a good number of quality pubs and restaurants in Edgbaston that do. I hope the team behind Kiln would reconsider perhaps having a separate area that does allow dogs.

Long wait to be seated - staff don’t seem to notice when people are waiting, to the point that other customers were pointing out the people waiting to the staff. Then another long wait to order, unless you use the QR code. Lovely cafe but hospitality isn’t great at all.

Nice food and coffee. Breakfast Sandwich was bit of a let down. A little confusing in its menu description. Maybe my fault for not reading fully, but expected a little more.

Quality food and drinks, welcoming staff ... All you need 😁🥰

Pleasantly surprised What a great breakfast, meats are good quality eggs poached perfect Lovely wholemeal bread, tea and coffee high quality Service great