The Secret Garden Cafe Lye in Dudley

So fresh and tasty! Kids really enjoyed them, & the freebies, thank you, we shall definitely return again.

Small shopping centre, but a good selection of mainly chain retailers.

We needed somewhere to stay for a friend's wedding and couldn't have been happier with our stay at The Fox Inn! The staff are super friendly and accommodating, the food and atmosphere were brilliant as well, big portions for decent prices. The rooms were very clean and comfortable and had all the amenities we needed.

We visited yesterday for breakfast with Santa as a family of 12. Upon arrival we were directed (not taken) to our table but having never visited this pub for breakfast with Santa before, we weren’t aware of what the process was, neither were we informed until I found a member of staff to ask. We then waited at least 20 mins in a queue for the buffet breakfast, this would be expected if the pub was busy but it wasn’t even half full! When we eventually got to the front of the queue, there was about 4 plates left. As we picked up the plates we soon became aware of how ridiculously hot they were after we all burnt our hands!! My son burnt his hand so badly I had to take him to the bathroom to apply cold water!!! You expect the plates to be hot but not just out the oven hot, and no signs to warn us! So as there were 12 of us and only 4 plates, and about another 20 people in the queue behind us, with no sign of anybody bringing anymore out, I had to pull a member of staff to ask for plates. Somebody then came from the kitchen with 2 PLATES!!!! These were of course used, leaving the rest of the queue without a plate again. My husband then asked the guy who was replenishing the food for yet more plates to which his half hearted response was “I’ll have to see if we’ve got any”!!!! Not what you want to hear when you’ve paid for a meal, in a pub, there are no plates?!! What the…….?!! He eventually strolled back from the kitchen with 2 PLATES again!! When we had all finally got a plate, there was then more waiting time as the amount of food that was out was just enough for two people so we had to wait whilst they went back to the kitchen to fetch another lot of food for the next two people! By the time we’d got back to our table, our hot drinks were now cold and so was our food!! Then a few of us wanted ketchup, so with nobody around to ask, I went on a hunt for some. I found 3 empty bottles so asked a member of staff for some more. She looked at me like I was totally inconveniencing her by asking then wondered off and came back a stupid amount of time later with a cereal bowl full of ketchup! A BOWL?!! She expected me to take a spoonful and leave the rest there for other diners however with half of our table wanting ketchup, the easiest thing to do was take it back to the table. All in all, my food was cold when I finally got to sit and eat, my drink was cold and I would have liked to go back for more food as I was still hungry but after the first experience at the buffet and the time it took, I decided it just wasn’t worth it! Then came our turn to visit Santa. In a huge pub that was less than half full, they had decided to place Santa and his grotto in between the bar and the entrance to the pub! To say this caused chaos would be an understatement. Families queuing for Santa were left having to stand in the path way of anybody wanting to get in or out of the pub and anybody wanting to get to or from the bar which resulted in a few drinks being spilled from excited children who were simply bored of waiting and had nowhere to stand!! ! The queue for the bar due to the fact that because of where Santa had been placed meant a till had had to be closed off, meant even more people gathered. We waited in the queue for Santa for 35 long minutes! That is a long time for young children to stand in a queue where they literally cannot move for fear of drink or food spillages or getting in somebody’s way or getting lost! Yet the other side of the pub was a lovely comfy corner where nobody was sitting with lots of space - wouldn’t this have made more sense for Santa’s grotto?!! Whilst Santa and Mrs Claus were quite chatty with the children when it was eventually our turn, I feel a bit more effort could have been made. Some of the children in our group noticed Santa had trainers on and wanted to know why he didn’t have his black boots on. May sound petty but when you pay for a Santa experience, it’s not difficult for the little details to be thought of really…. We were not the only family who were disappointed with our experience sadly there were others, and I think the overall opinion was that none of us would return again given the chance. The whole thing was way more time consuming than it needed to be with abit more preparation and effort it would have been great. Our family actually couldn’t wait to leave! Never again!

My family and I visited the Hilly House after our wedding and all the staff were absolutely amazing with us and made us feel extra special on our big day. Cannot thank them enough!