Harvester Arden Oak Birmingham — Restaurant in Birmingham

We visited the restaurant to celebrate my birthday. As a bonus you had the offer of 50% off mains, but we were planning on dining out somewhere that day regardless.

We arrived and were shown to a table. It took over 10 mins for someone to come and take a drinks / food order.

The first item we asked for (a combo) we were then told "we haven't got any combos". I thought this was odd as the combo we had asked for was just the one with three variety's of chicken (from memory a quarter rotisserie, a southern fillet and a plan fillet).

My daughter (who wanted this) couldn't decide in a split second on an alternative, so the server said she'd get our drinks and return to take the order.

Over 10 mins passed before she returned, and then it was only due to my wife trying to attract her attention (she then looked panicked that she'd forgotten to come back, and rushed off to get the drinks). Bearing in mind we ordered one pint of Carling and four empty glasses for the refill machine this seems an excessive amount of time.

When she came back we tried to order again. This time I started with Half a rotisserie chicken. " We haven't got any rotisserie chicken" I was told. How does Harvester, who are most famous for their chicken, have no rotisserie chicken?

I'm slightly annoyed by this point. Firstly we weren't told when we were first seated what wasn't available, and then even after being told that one item wasn't available still wasn't told what other items also weren't available.

When I queried why there were no combos and no rotisserie chicken the waitress replied "don't worry; I'm as confused as you are" whilst smiling as if this situation was actually funny.

I'm sorry, but she isn't meant to be confused, she's meant to know what food is available, and ideally tell customers when they're seated.

So i asked what exactly we could order off of the menu and was told 'no combos, nothing that involved any size of rotisserie chicken, no mixed grills and something else.'

So basically more than half the menu was 'off the menu' if you actually wanted to eat meat.

At this point it became readily apparent that we weren't going to be able to find 5 meals that would suit us out of the seriously limited offering, and left.

We subsequently dined elsewhere, so Harvester lost our custom that evening. We have dined at the Sheldon, Birmingham branch previously, and if I'm honest the staff are always slow to serve you, so on occasions when just my wife and I would dine, we would make the effort to travel to a Harvester further away to have a better experience. With all five of us though we tried to take the easier option and ended up walking out before we'd even ordered.

I'm quite annoyed that the lack of service (and food) at this Harvester put a bit of a dampener on my birthday, with three children to consider feeding and putting to bed on a school night, the rest of the evening was a bit of a rush.

It also means now we have missed out on the 50% off offer, and it will take a lot to make us risk paying full price for that level of service again.

I would appreciate it if you could send us another 50% off voucher, as if you check my account under my email address you will see we never used our...

I rarely post reviews even if I've had a bad experience but I've been visiting the Arden Oak for 20+ yrs and have always had a good dining experience. My previous meal was poor but this time you've surpassed yourselves. As a family of 6 we went for Breakfast today and even though we had to wait abit longer today as it was a key date to be fair it wasn't that busy. There were 2 saucers missing for the hot drinks and we had to ask for tea spoons and was given sundae spoons small issues but still unprofessional. The toast come first which should have come with the meals so was cold when the breakfast arrived. 4 of the meals were missing items which were bought to us when asked but again not good enough. I asked for the bill as soon as the food came so we could leave straight away after we'd eaten and the waitress tutted. I wasn't going to name the waitress but as she didn't have her really long hair tied back 1 of the meals had 1 of her hairs across it, her name was EM. The food itself was awful, the beans were cold, there were 2 tablespoons of scrambled egg, the hash browns were soggy,every rasher of bacon was burnt the sausages were burnt and they were that hard I could have knocked a nail in with them and the plate was swimming in grease. The waitress walked passed and asked how the meals were and just carried on walking and didn't wait for an answer. I called her back to complain and demonstrated how hard the sausages were by using 1 as a drumstick to play a tune with off the side of the plate. She offered a fresh plate of food but as we were in a rush I declined and asked for a takeaway box so could could take it home to the dogs. Only offered replacement for 1 meal although all bacon and sausage on 3 meals were bad, offered no discount. As I said never had problems before at the Arden Oak but will be giving you a wide berth for awhile. Awful service and terrible terrible food. Would have included picture but hasn't given...

My Wife and I haven't visited Harvester for a couple of years we were regular visitors enjoying great food and members of staff were lovely. The last time we visited 2 years ago, I ordered half a chicken, I think I got "Half a Chick". We had noticed a decline in the quality of the food. From that day on I vowed I would never visit a harvester again.

Yesterday my wife encouraged me to visit Harvester again and reluctantly I agreed. We didn't book, but on arrival we were met by a member of staff and shown to a table and offered the menu. My wife and I decided that we would have a meal from the lunch time menu. My wife decided to have scampi and a Waffle ice cream sundae and I would have a Garlic bread and The Beef Classic burger, please note these 2 course options. The guy that served us I would class as a high pressure salesman, I was bombarded with question of upgrades and felt under pressure to make a decision, I questioned the guy "why so many questions?" This isn't the behaviour I would expect when visiting Harvester. We ate our meals paid for them and left. My wife kept the receipt decided I would take a look at it this morning, Not only had I felt pressured to make a decision on upgrades we have also been ripped off.

2 two course meals priced at £12.99 a pint of orange squash £2.20 and upgrade £0.99 for chips and £2.50 for and extra burger should have been £31.67.

Look at the receipt, Harvester Arden Oak has charged us for one 3 course option £14.99 an orange squash £2.20 upgrades of chips £0.99 and an extra burger £2.50 a separate portion of scampi priced at £13.47 which was a final bill total of £34.47.

One thing I noticed is what I assume is the Manager was sat at a table in the restaurant and it was only him that took the orders off customers not the table staff? I will also be contacting head office about the service received.

I will never set foot in Harvester again I don't expect to...