Rugby - Ryan Review

Stopped into this very shiny new Nando's on the way back to Brum. It's on Elliott's Field shopping park which is easily found about 1.5 miles off J1 of the M6 and offers hundreds off free parking spaces... which isn't enough. There's a large Next, Halfords, M&S and many other eateries and shops and at around 1:30pm I had to drive round twice waiting for a space to become free. It's on the opposite side of the road to a large Tesco, so you could get parking there too. It's also about a mile walk from Rugby train station.

This Nando's is a long rectangular shape with a dozen or so full length windows on the one side letting in a lot of light. There's a table/chair set in each of the windows along with a beige lampshade (which look like big chess pawns). Also dotted around in the windows and on booth separators are wooden sculptures in the style of a big web. The whole of the ceiling is has a wavy wooden-effect with spotlights embedded in, with hundreds of little coloured square glass pieces dangling down. The till area is clad in triangular tiles in different shades of blue and white bricks. There's a good mix of seating with bright green coloured booths running down the middle of the restaurant (to the right side of the entrance) and plenty of two-seater tables. The booths each have a little desk lamp which give off barely any light so must just be for decoration purposes... Overall, very nice and fresh.

On arriving there was a queue of five parties ahead of me, who were advised there would be a 20 minute wait for a table - and so four of them left so I was seated within five minutes. I was also advised when being seated that there would be a 45 minute wait for food, which turned out to be 30 minutes... all of this, even though the restaurant was only two-thirds full. It was still only the second day of opening, so am sure this was just all teething troubles. Staff were pleasant but doing as expected.

I went for a chicken fillet burger and chips. The burger was as expected. The chicken fillet wasn't too thin but wasn't thick either. It had enough sauce on it and was cooked well. It didn't quite fill the ciabatta bun. The portion of chips was very generous, but they were a tad soggy. Overall it was a standard meal, in a nicely decorated branch... which I'm sure once it gets into its swing, will churn the orders out quicker than on this occasion.