Hi! I live on the outskirts of London and I'm a professional singer. I'm promoting my own solo caree...
Hi! I live on the outskirts of London and I'm a professional singer. I'm promoting my own solo career, and I'm also part of a girl trio!! If there are any A&R guys out there please feel free to leave me a message!! LOL!
Member since:18.02.2001
Reviews:52
Members who trust:68
You are all gonna laugh at me now - because most of this opinion centres around my Jacket Potatoes!! LOL! I much prefer them to chips and they are far more healthy.
Harvester Restaurants are usually pubs with a restaurant in one side. You can also get bar meals if you do not want to eat in the restaurant. Personally, I think Harvester food is simply a glorified version of McDonalds - all the same whichever restaurant you eat at and pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. I used to think they were pretty good value for money, but recently I had noticed a steady decline in service and standard of food and after this episode I am about to relay to you, I would not go there again unless I was desperate.
Now, lets face it - no-one goes to a Harvester Restaurant expecting top class chefs or Haute Cuisine, but I do expect reasonable service
and pallatable food. One of the main reasons we ended up going to Harvester Restaurants was that they offered a couple of special deals which were pretty good value if you got reasonable service and reasonable food.
The first of these deals is the lunchtime offer which gives you a choice of a main meal (maybe 5 or 6 different meals to choose from) and soup or salad cart for £4.99. Sounds pretty good, in theory! The other is the "Early Bird" offer which promises you a third off your meal in the evening if you are seated by 6.30pm. Sounds reasonable, too! The salad cart is generally a good option as you can pile your dish high with lots of scrummy things and BLUE CHEESE sauce, which is really naughty. But beware - they do get busy at these times, which might be partly why we had such bad service.
Well, I know this sounds really sad, but on Valentines night this year, my boyfriend and I had not arranged a meal out anywhere, so we decided to try our local Harvester as all the decent restaurants were already booked. "Luckily", Harvester managed to fit us in.
They showed us to our table and sat us down. And there we sat, for 20 minutes before any waitress acknowledged our presence. OK, they were busy but this was not good enough.
I ordered scampi and jacket potato (healthier than chips!! LOL!). This combination was not on the menu but has never been a problem in the past. Five minutes later, a plate was "plonked" on the table in front of me with scampi and CHIPS, very badly presented with not even a hint of salad garnish or vegetables to colour the meal in any way. It literally looked as if it had been thrown on the plate. My partner's meal was the same.
When I asked where my jacket potato was, I was told that they didn't have any. I suggested to the waitress that it might have been an idea to tell me at the time I was ordering, instead of simply forcing me to have chips.
Ten minutes later, all the tables around us were being served with jacket potatoes, and the waitress came up to me and said "Oh, you should have waited - we've got jacket potatoes now!!)
Well, my blood was boiling as if she had informed me there would be a 10 minute wait for my potato, then I would quite happily have waited, as I not keen on chips. I found her attitude very rude and complained to the manageress, who knocked our drinks off the bill. When I asked her where the salad or vegetable were with the meal, she said that they had a "New Look Menu" and that they no longer offered vegetables or salad with these meals. (Sounds like cutbacks to me). Whoever heard of a scampi meal in a restaurant without veggies?? For God's sake - how much would it cost them to chuck a few frozen peas on the plate?
Anyway, after this pathetic service I wrote and complained to their Head Office. Over four weeks later, I received an apologetic reply; acknowledging that there had been a problem with the service in the Harvester on Valentine's Night, and they sent me a voucher for £10 to be used anytime.
So, a few months later we decided to try them again, using our voucher. This time, we tried a different Harvester as I didn't want anyone to recognise me in the last place (you hear all these horror stories about chefs spitting in customers' food, etc.....).
Anyway, we tried the lunchtime deal. We got dry chicken, a jacket potato that was hard and had to be sent back. And guess what - the next jacket potato they brought me was hard as well. So that's it - I'm not bothering with Harvester any more, unless I'm desperate and about to die of starvation. They had their second chance and they failed - thankfully we did not have to use our own money this time.
At least their customer service bothered to acknowledge my complaint, which is one redeeming feature - but I would say avoid these restaurants if you are looking for really tasty food. If you just want to fill up on loads of salad, then maybe they are right for you!!
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have you been back to Harvester recently? This review was left several years ago and on visiting Harvester regularly for years, let me tell you that Harvester is nothing like your review - if I were you I'd re-visit and post a more up to date review on this page to help people make up their minds now!
Its great value for money, its somewhere I can take my children and my elderly parents and everyone has a great time.
TallTone 14.09.2001 17:19
Never, EVER, go out for a meal on 14th February. Service is lousy and presentation is terrible, pretty much anywhere you go - if you can get a table. My advice? Get a takeaway in. Same service, same presentation, much lower cost. Go out on the 13th if you must! On the op, have to agree, Harvester is pretty bad these days, though I've never had problems with my jackets! Cheers, TT.
drusilla 22.08.2001 13:58
I personally love Harvester restaurants, especially the free salad bar. I also had my own jacket potato saga though - it came covered in dirt! I tend to believe this was a one-off as the quality of the restaurant overall seems to be poorer when it's busy.
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Advantages: Wide selection of meals, nice idea with salad cart Disadvantages: unhygienic, bad service, uncooked chicken, bad presentation of food, greasy meals
IShouldCoco 31.10.2005 (01.11.2005)
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Review of Harvester
Advantages: Wide selection of meals, nice idea with salad cart Disadvantages: unhygienic, bad service, uncooked chicken, bad presentation of food, greasy meals
IShouldCoco 31.10.2005 (01.11.2005)
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Review of Harvester
Advantages: Cheap, Great Food, Variety and Choice, friendly bar and staff Disadvantages: Can't book with the Early Bird, it's a fair way from the town centre
Athravan 28.02.2001 ·
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Aug 11th, 2001
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