The Crunchy Monkey might be the best thing in Cradley Heath. After Tesco came and killed the whole…read moretown off in a matter of months, it's amazing to see a young business pop up out of nowhere. The quality of food and staff here are great. I often roll in here on my way to visit friends who live in cradley after I've caught the train to town. The inside is large and has a mix of comfy sofas and traditional cafe tables and chairs. The whole place is well lit and furnished with cream and warm colours that instantly let's you forget you actually in the middle if a dead town. The jacket potatoes are crispy and the chili filling was some of the best chili I've ever had. I've been there a few times for breakfast and it's always been great with generous helpings of everything on the menu. The prices are the best part, a whole breakfast you could pay up to £7.00 in a city for is around £4.00. The charge a little more of you choose to eat n but it's still seriously under what you'd expect to pay to begin with. All in all a great cafe and cradley needs more businesses like this.

Is it possible for a bakery to be retro? I don't mean in a trendy, 1950s candy coloured cupcake…read moreway. I mean in a stepping into the shop and feeling like you've stepped into the 1970s. The Bakers Oven in Old Hill certainly offers this feeling. Everything is very brown, with lots of dark wood. The cakes on sale are also of the old fashioned variety: slabs of bread pudding, jam tarts and coconut tarts. I purchased a slice of carrot cake. It was really rich, moist and spicy with a creamy topping and generous sprinkling of chopped nuts. It was only 60p! All of the cakes looked good and they also sold cold drinks.

Ordered 3 sandwiches via just eat driver delivered to wrong address called up they said they would…read moreresend order never came and to top it off after I spoke to them they marked it as delivered so it would be hard to get my money back called them again the next day after I left them a review for them to have the cheek to blame me and say I had the food and gave them the wrong address reported them to council as have all the proof avoid at all costs has happened to loads of people on reviews and they always blame the customer also reported to trading standards and just eat scammers

Gotta say, 'Crusty Cottage' sounds more like a gag-inducing euphemism than the name of a…read moredrool-inducing bakery. Driven by hunger to cast such doubts aside, I went in and ordered a ham salad sandwich and one of the nice looking jam tarts in the window. Had a nice chat with one of the women behind the counter whilst my sandwich was being made. From what she was saying it sounds like this place deals more with big orders than passing trade. This makes sense as the shop is in a bit of an out-of-the-way location. Nevertheless, my sandwich was very cheap and very filling (helped by the thickness of the crusty bread) it also seemed to have been made using fresh ingredients, not days old salad or tomato. On the downside, the way the girl wrapped the jam tart in clingfilm meant that half the jam stuck to the clingfilm when I unwrapped it. The jam tart also appeared to have been home-made although the visible boxes of chocolate eclairs stacked behind the counter suggested this may not have been the case.

Want to have your cake and eat it? Seemingly the staff here want you to do that - and before you've…read moreeven gone in, you're presented with adverts for local Slimming World sessions. Not *exactly* what I want when entering a cake shop about to indulge - are they trying to put customers off?! Aside from this, they have a range of cakes and cupcakes to choose from and do orders for special items as you'd expect - weddings, birthdays etc. The selection was ok but I'd been so put off by the poster on the door I didn't buy anything and walked back out.

Coffee and cakes seem to be everyones idea of how to run an independent business these days…read more Does this place try anything different? No Do they Have to? No Theres not much good in Halesowen so a cake shop is something brand new, even if they are using a tried and tested formular. Selection of cakes and drinks are standard and im sure if they didn't have the cake you wanted they could whip it up in no time. Staff didn't really seem to care much when i went in even though the place was empty. Not the freshest cakes i've ever tried but not bad.