‘b one’ recently opened on Newhall Street and as I walked past last night one of their employees rushed out to shove a menu in my hand. As I work literally just accorss Great Charles Street from the resturant I thought I’d give it a try this lunch time (about 12:30).

The menu lists typical chip shop fare (fish, chips, batterred sausages, saveloys, pies, kebabs &c) plus sandwiches (hot and cold), jacket potatoes, soup and Panini. Being partial to a kebab I popped in and joined the queue. And waited. And waited. And waited.

I’d really like to comment on the quality of the food, but I can’t. After about 20 minutes of waiting in a queue that hadn’t moved forward at all (other than due to people in front of me giving up waiting and leaving), I gave up and went to buy a sandwich from the newsagents just down the road. My first thought was cannabis use amongst the staff was causing lethergy that was responsible for their inactivity in serving customers. This was contradicted by the fact that they were shouting and arguing with each other, obviously a much more fun activity than actually serving customers.

I realise that here in the UK we don’t put as much emphasis on the word ‘fast’ in the phrase “Fast Food” (many places don’t really pay much attention to the word ‘food’ either, the McDonalds in Broadstreet (opposite Old Orleans) bothers with neither word) as many countries do, but 20 minutes without serving a single customer when there is a queue nearly to the door is not on. One can only hope that the owner will whip the staff into shape (a whip may be the only thing that will get through to them) else the resturant will surely fail quickly.

‘b one’ is located at 58 Newhall Street, City Centre (0121 200 2662) and is open 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm on Saturday, closed Sunday