Smash & Grab

This shop seems to have been on the castle square forever! But it caters for everyone’s needs. It’s cheap and cheerful the staff are helpful enough and if you go in here looking for something 9 times out of 10 your walking out the shop with it.
It’s sells everything the house whole needs from cleaning stuff to garden stuff, things for back to school, anything to do with the kitchen and a whole range of DIY gear.
It’s not a fancy shop it’s more of a stack it high and sell it cheap but the castle square would be lost without shops like this for the locals that’s for sure

Smash ‘n’ Grab might not be the smartest name for a shop on the Castle Square but I can’t see the stock tempting any budding thieves.
It’s one of those stores that sells everything, bits n’ bobs, chalk, cds, tuppaware, stationary, toys… really, if I stay here listing everything it will take me all night. It’s incredibly cheap and there are some useful odds n’ ends in there, even if they’re not built to last or of the best quality. They also have a few snacks but I’m a bit wary about that.
You know what you are after if you go to a store like this, it’s a budget place but it’s really useful too. Recommended if you’ve just moved into the neighbourhood and the landlord hasn’t left you any kitchen utensils!

How can you not love a shop with this name? Especially when said shop sells all kinds of useful stuff at prices that would make the Pound Shop blush. This is a great place to head for kitchen and DIY stuff — egg timers, lunch boxes and cooking utensils are plentiful and cheap and they have two big displays of screws and hooks and nuts and things that look very important, even though I’m not entirely sure what they’re meant to do. Stationery is another speciality — notebooks, pens, highlighters and pencil cases fill an entire aisle (heaven) and there’s rather charming selection of sunglasses by the till — not really the thing for the day I popped in, when they were having to mop rain water from the entrance. You can buy cheap biscuits with funny names here and all sorts of stuff you never knew you wanted, let alone needed. I ended up with a load of hooks that looked like they might be useful, a novelty lunch box and a bike light (I don’t even own a bike — it was just sooo cheap!)

Smash & Grab in Weoley Castle used to be an absolutely excellent shop, but in recent years has gone downhill and is nothing special any more.
The range of body care products is still very good and well priced with most items costing just 99p, but almost everything else they stock is boring tat which tends to be poor quality.
The store is well laid out and quite large with plenty of shelving units and racks, if only they’d pack it with more interesting and useful stock then it would once again be a wonderful place to shop.
As it is they sell appalling quality kitchenware (the enamel comes off after the first use), useless storage boxes made of low grade card, washing up liquid that doesn’t bubble and uninteresting looking novels that no-​one wants to read.
As I mentioned above the cosmetics side of things is great, they stock body lotions, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, handwash and anything else you might want to buy to look after yourself. They even sell pregnancy tests, which amazed me as no way would I trust the result of a pregnancy test which costs less than £1 for a twin pack!
My fella has bought DIY equipment and tools from Smash & Grab but always complains at what bad quality they are once he tries to use them. I know you’re not going to get a top notch tool for £1.99, but if you buy a hammer you don’t expect the head to break off after banging in a nail or two. He thinks the sandpaper is good, but you can’t really go wrong with that can you?
The staff in Smash & Grab aren’t great, they’re friendly enough but it annoys me that a lot of the time they are too busy chatting to the person in front to notice that a queue is forming. Last week the girl kept me waiting so long that I just put my basket down and walked out because there is no excuse for ignorance like this.