Revolution Bar, Birmingham > Reviews (1)

The office which I work at is a 5 minute walk from the Birmingham Revolution so I have often been in there with colleagues on a lunchtime and straight after work. It's pretty much the nearest place to the office which is probably why we go there so often! Over the last two or three years I've really started to go out a lot, both to eat and drink, so thought I would share my views with you on Revolution.

Location & Opening hours

Revolution is located on Broad Street, the exact address is:

218 Broad Street,
Birmingham,
West Midlands
B15 1BL

Telephone number is 0121 665 6508 and the website is http://www.revolution-bars.co.uk/birming​ham

Broad Street is a long and very busy road which contains a lot of clubs and bars. It's one of the main places to go on a night out, but has a bit of a reputation for being a little bit 'rough' compared to other clubbing / party areas in the city. Revolution is located towards the top end of Broad Street, furthest away from the city centre. The top end of Broad Street is a lot quieter than the bottom and looks a little run down with quite a few empty properties scattered around. You tend to get less people around this area during the day, at night it is still quite busy.

The opening hours are currently:

Monday to Wednesday
11.30am - 12am

Thursday to Saturday
11.30am - 3am

Sunday
12pm - 2am

The Decor

This bar has a very modern look which is one of the reasons it appeals to me so much. The wooden flooring and tables always look polished and clean no matter what time of the day or night it is. You can choose to sit in one of the many large booths dotted along the walls, or at one of the tables in the middle of the room which have really jazzy looking red stools for you to perch on. There are two huge screens either side of the bar which mainly show various adverts, but are also used to show football games whenever there is a big match on. The ceiling is high and the room is quite long making the bar seem very spacious. I've been to a couple of other Revolution bars and they were designed very similarly, so I guessing the style is the same across the chain.

Facilities

The male and female toilets are both located at the very back of the bar. I found that there were not many toilets or sinks considering the fact that it is quite a big and popular place, especially in the evenings. The actual bathroom is nicely decorated in silver and black, but sadly I've always found the toilets to be quite dirty and have 'water' (at least I hope it's water) leaking everywhere. The toilets seem to get blocked quite easily too, and I somehow get the impression that they aren't cleaned as often as they should be! There is also a pair of coinoperated hair straighteners in
there that you can pay an arm and leg to use if you suddenly feel a desperate urge to straighten your hair!

Privilege Card

You can buy an annual Privilege card to use in all Revolution bars, this will cost you £4 and saves you money on some of the drinks. For example, you can get a pitcher for £12 instead of £15.

These offers will change all the time so it is worth keeping track of what you're entitled to with the card.

Drinks

Revolution describes itself as a vodka bar, which is an accurate description considering the amount of different vodka shot flavours that are sold here! There are all different kinds, my favourite has to be the jelly baby flavoured one which is very sweet and a soft pink colour. There is also a Chilli flavoured one which has a skull and crossbones next to it on the menu, Bubblegum which is bright blue, a green one called Big Apple and many more. There is also a variety of cocktails which you can buy, pitchers generally sell at around £15, the most expensive pitcher is £50
and has champagne in it. This seems a very high price to pay when I have seen pitchers being sold at other places along Broad Street for about £5! Though if you have bought the annual privilege card, they will cost less money.

Food

The menu seems to change with the seasons, with there being a different one
for 'Spring' 'Summer' 'Autumn' and 'Winter'. I have eaten in there a few times and my experiences are generally a bit hit and miss. The menu offers a good choice, the food generally revolves around pastas, burgers and sandwiches. There is also a pizza menu/ Revolution boasts that they serve the 'Worlds only VODKA PIZZA' and have now also included a 'Vodka Burger' onto their menu if you are ever brave enough to try either of these! They also do special offers on different days, for example, Mondays you can get two for one on burgers all day.

If you order food from Revolution between 11am to 2pm, they do a fifteen minute promise, that if your food is not delivered in fifteen minutes it will be given to you for free. To make sure this is measured accurately, they will give you a timer to leave on your table. I've only ordered food twice at this time of day and the first time I did they went over the time and I was given a free meal. This seemed brilliant at the time but will also give you an indication of how poor the service is!

I will use the last time I visited there as a further example of what the service in revolution is like..

My friend and I both ordered burgers, I the vegetarian burger and my friend the cheeseburger. We waited.. and we waited.. and we waited some more. After it had been well over half an hour since we ordered, my friend decided to go and ask when we were likely to receive the meals. They were then immediately brought out as if by magic.. the chips felt really cold and the burger lukewarm, so my guess is they had been sitting ready for some time but the bar staff just hadn't bothered to bring them over. By that time we were so hungry we decided to eat them anyway, as if we sent them back we couldn't be sure we'd ever see them again.

Temperature aside, my meal was fine, nothing particularly special but nothing wrong with it either. My friend on the other hand was not happy, as bizarrely the cheese slice they normally place inside the bun with the burger had been placed on top of the bun and melted there (see photo)!

He'd also been given mayonnaise when he had specifically asked not to have it. The next time one of the bar staff came near us we decided to ask them what the hell was going on, all we were told was she was 'new' and didn't understand either, and that all the chefs have their own style of doing things. Obviously we were not happy but she wasn't going to help us further.

Staff

All the staff are easily identified as they have a black uniform with a star on the back and 'Revolution' written in big letters. I've already talked a little about how poor I think the service is in this branch of Revolution. The staff although they look good and are all well spoken, don't seem to do a lot of work to be frank. Although the majority of the time I am in Revolution it is very quiet (it's still quiet at lunchtimes as it's a bit out of the way), the service is always slow and the staff are often hard to track down as they are off and away doing other things. There is very rarely more than one bar staff member working when it is off peak time and you get the feeling a lot of the time that they don't really want to be there. If you are visiting Revolution on a night out, it is important to dress fairly smartly as there will be bouncers on the door who will not
let you in unless you are wearing smart shoes rather than trainers.

Private Hire

There are four different options if you wish to have a party or celebration
at Revolution:

The VIP (ideal for parties 100 - 200 people) - The area has a DJ, Private
Toilets, Private bar and Exclusive staff assigned to your area.

I have no idea where the VIP section is but I assume that it must be
somewhere either on the first floor or on another floor above it.

The Balcony (ideal for a party of 20-50)

The balcony overlooks the main downstairs area and is accessed from stairs
by the main entrance. Again, I have never been up there but you can see
most of it from below and there seems to be plenty of tables and chairs.

The Lounge (booth downstairs, seating up to 30 people)

This is a couple of booths downstairs to the right of the bar and quite
near the door. Anyone can sit here when the area is not reserved.

The Whole Venue ( for large corporate events, venue capacity is 580)

There isn't a price-list as such for all of these different private hires as it will depend on the dates and times you wish to hire. However, you can type all this information into the website at: http://www.revolution-bars.co.uk/lovetop​arty

Overall Impression

Despite the fact that I don't really like the food they serve in Revolution, I seem to continue re-visiting this bar due to the fact it's large and fairly quiet, and I like the way it is decorated. It's also located fairly convenient for me, although if there was better choice at this end of Broad St I doubt I would return there. I can't really specifically recommend this place though due to it's poor service and quite pricey drinks.