The British Beer Company

My fiancee and I came here to celebrate my birthday the other night. She mentioned it was my birthday, and we were told I'd get a free cake. I thought a slice. Nope, it was a whole chocolate cake to take home. For free. I was surprised, and I also felt a little bad since my birthday was on a Tuesday and one pizza was free too that we took home. We loved the Margharita pizza, and I enjoyed the Shepherd's Pie. We actually think that even though the BBC is not touted as a pizza place, the BBC has the best pizza in the area. The atmosphere was exactly what I hoped for...cozy, old pub/tavern style, with great alt rock music playing in the background. Our server was so friendly and well deserving of a nice big tip! This is definitely our favorite place to go.

This was the 3rd strike... BBC Pembroke is now out!  Over the past two years, the experiences here have gotten progressively worse.  I so wanted it to get better here, there's a good menu, I like the decor and it's super convenient... but this was not the case.  Against my better judgement, my boyfriend and I stopped here at about 10 pm on a Friday night.  We sat at a table in the bar area and found it humorous that for 45 min of the hour we were there, the band was warming up...  tap tap tap on the drum, test the mike, test the guitar... for almost an hour.  Anyways, we got a beer and split three apps, one of which was the spinach dip.  Hands down the worst spin dip I've ever had... clearly frozen and must have had ice on it because it was extremely watery and a soup-like consistency... wouldn't even stay on the chip.  The servers were completely aloof, waited quite a while to be asked if we wanted a 2nd beer... my bf suggested I text the server that I'd like another, since she was on the other side of the bar on her phone for several minutes at a time.    We didn't get another drink so we could just get out of there....  So much potential, but needs a management and staff overhaul.  For now, the BBC is 86'd!

I took grandma here on one of our date nights... so you'll hear two opinions alright.  

For starters we got fried calamari.  To be honest, this was the best dish of the night and although the portion was small, it was tasty.  Part of the reason is that the calamari is doused in a sweet and spicy sauce that made you feel as though you were eating "Chinese."

Moving on... I ordered the basil pesto encrusted mahi mahi.  Basil pesto sounds delish doesn't it, especially if it's "encrusted."  As it turned out, it was a bland piece of fish with tasteless pesto simply spread on top after the fish was cooked.

Grandma got the grilled chili shrimp orzo.  What sounded great was a disaster of a meal for an 86 year old.  For some reason they felt the need to blanket the entire salad in an inch high pile of bean sprouts.  As I was watching her carefully wade through this jungle like game of pick-up-sticks to find the shrimp and orzo on the bottom she was exhausted.  I tried the shrimp though, that wasn't bad but the rest was bland.  

"Kid tested... grandma not approved."

An extra star because of the the beers on tap.