Harvester Stag & Hounds Basingstoke — Restaurant in Basingstoke and Deane

What a terrible deal.... beware if you use a Groupon offer voucher... it's a rip off!

I bought a Two Eat for £26 Groupon Voucher to include 2 mains, 2 puddings and 2 salad bars. I thought this was a great deal. Three of us were eating, so we planned to use the offer and pay for the third person at the usual prices.

We got to the table, I explained I had a Groupon Voucher, waitress says 'no problem, we'll sort that out at the end'.... all good so far....

So we order our drinks, three mains, three salad bars, two puddings and a liquer latte.

Expecting 2 of the mains, 2 puddings and 2 salad bars to be covered by the voucher. We had not been told there was a 'special menu'.

Two of the mains came with corn on cob...uncooked and sent back as was really cold in the middle. The chips served up were tepid. The BBQ bacon stacks... one tepid, cheese not melted, the other was burnt & tough. But having sent back the corns, we were too embarrassed to make further complaint, so we made do.

Then, son who'd ordered Steak; medium rare, had his delivered tough and overcooked. Cringing, we had to call over the waitress for that to be sent back, however by the time it arrived, sons girlfriend and I had finished our mains.... although sons GF left most of her chicken as it was inedible.

So, then it's time to pay. Total cost £66. I then produce the Groupon Offer to be told " oh, we can't honour that because one of your puddings (an apple crumble) isn't on our offer with Groupon'... NO mention of this when we initially told the waitress on being seated...that we have a voucher.

Waitress then asks if Manager should come over to 'explain again'.... by this point I'm ready to get home... 'No thanks' I say....'I can't believe you won't honour the voucher you were told about when we got to the table... we got rubbish food, really slow service.... and now you're gonna quibble over an apple crumble!'

I'm sure they're trained to say 'sorry about that' while smiling, more than they are trained to offer a reasonable service.

So, we paid the full £66 something for shoddy food, rubbish service and no goodwill ... on an offer that turns out you can only order from the 'Groupon Menu', incidently most of what was ordered was.

I now am stuck with a voucher I won't use.... nor would I dare gift it.

A complaint will be made to Groupon with a request for a refund, as there is no way I'll be going back to The Stag & Hounds, Basingstoke's Harvester.... I should have trusted my gut and gone to the Beacon which is as close to where I live.

AVOID...

Just visited after it was closed for a 5 week refurb. Place looks nicely decorated but experience did not match. Have they forgotten how to run the place after 5 weeks?

They didn’t have the following: Drinks menus Halloween kids packs Straws Satay sauce for the skewers Rotisserie chicken

Not the end of the world on its own but…

Had to wait 15 mins past our booking for table to be laid, although cutlery and napkins are in a pot…

Food wait was 50 minutes + once seated.

Went to salad bar - a compete mess and mixed up - not unheard of for the Harvester but would expect more when it’s only be re-open for 3 days. Most trays were empty or near empty and had to ask for them to be topped up. No bread rolls, again had to ask for some. Crispy topping bits were all over the side, again not unusual but attention needed to be paid to clean up every so often.

Food wait was long but ok as we were having what there was for salad. 2 mains then arrived stone cold, they were cooked through and the flavour was ok but no heat at all, chips were ok. Server offered new ones but we’d waited so long and had 3 young children with us, so she offered to take them off the bill, which we appreciated. All other mains OK - but just about warm. We never received one of our sides but we didn’t realise immediately but it was taken off the bill.

Kids enjoyed their build your own sundaes, so this was a positive.

Floor under table was filthy, appreciate this is a family restaurant as my child drops stuff but it needs to be cleaned as food bits were everywhere; one of the kids dropped a roll, which we picked up and it was absolutely covered in fluff and bits. Assume when the new carpet was laid no one vacuumed it - not sure carpet is the best idea!

Womens toilets - one blocked with tissue, one looking like it was blocked and rather disgusting - paper around floor and sink areas covered in water/bubble mess - not restaurants fault customers leaving it like this but needs to be checked and cleaned up promptly.

Our server was very nice and apologised and it wasn’t her fault, she was doing a lovely job and was professional and friendly.

Needs to improve massively for us...

We came out for our annual get together this year (as we have the past 4 years+) and I can't say I'm very impressed! We were on a table that was very much squashed together against a wall! We all made it work together. We then felt we were rushed through our meal- starter through to our desserts were all brought out a different times so by the time the last person recieved there meal the first person was pretty much finished! Our waitress tried her best however she had next to no help from anyone! One of the people from our group had a discount to of which was refused! Granted it was for 6 people only and there was 14 of us which we have always used the discount for the table but to be humiliated and demoralised across the table by the manager was certainly not what we expected! It was simply wrong! There was no care in the way that she was spoken especially at the fact she is a member of staff from this business! Furthermore we had mentioned about splitting the bill as that was something that was mentioned by the manager to then be denied that, I'm honestly speechless! The manager was very much rude. The food quality was very poor, many people mentioned the food was cold/Luke warm, the vegetables were cold and dried out, gravy was like ditch water and the fact you got approximately 50mls was appalling for a roast dinner! We appreciate Saturdays do get incredibly busy however all of the staff looked exhausted... and telling by the faces of those working it looked as if the business only cared about the money, not how there staff were coping! I think in future we will go elsewhere for our get together as this wasn't the get together we expected and most definitely not how we expected the staff...