Yarrow Bridge — Restaurant in Chorley

Wish I’d gone to the Harvester. When debating where to go for dinner between my friends and I a long ways from home we considered going to the Harvester as we’d been the night before. Another local suggested this place. After we got done even the local said “we should’ve gone to Harvester”

We walked in and struggled to find a place for our five adults and one child. Fair enough, we hadn’t booked. A table had just been vacated by another party so the server offered to clear the table for us. Perfect. She clears the plates and many bottles and glasses and disappears. The table was covered in beer puddles. She never returns to wipe the table. After we start looking at menus one of our party goes to get our table wiped. At this point I’m struggling to see the menu due to the glare from the beer, grease, and whatever else residue all over them. Then I put my finger in a glob of ketchup smashed into the menu. Gross. The server arrives with a table wipe and fresh menus. The table is now sticky and the new menus are just as bad sans ketchup smear. The cutlery brought by the server wasn’t great. I went through three forks before I found a clean one.

Cue to ordering, no problem, we’re told that food will take between 30-35 minutes. “Do the starters take that long too?” We ask. “No, those will be much faster.” Fine. No problem. It’s busy and I appreciate the heads up.

The starters take about 15 minutes to show up. Nachos are cold and lifeless. Certainly the battered chicken fingers arranged hastily on a cold white plate could’ve been a bit more appealing. But we’re hungry and we want to have the main course. We have our starters and wait. And wait. And wait. At this point I’m starting to look around just to keep me interested. The whole place has a “just enough” vibe to it. From the poorly painted wall to the masking tape still on the wall from the paint job that clearly isn’t recent to the poorly wiped tables and unclean menus and mould on the ceiling in the corner it just wasn’t a good atmosphere.

54 minutes (I checked my watch when it came against my receipt) our main course finally came. Right about the same time that one of our party went looking to find out why it’s taking so long. 54 minutes is a long time to try and keep a child entertained. My burger was well cooked (the reason for two stars) but a little tasteless. I got less chips than my friend who ordered the exact same thing, and I asked for no onion rings, he didn’t, and if I could swap the onion rings for a few more chips which my server said was no problem.

The servers seemed pleasant enough, but service was poor, the atmosphere was run down the food lacklustre and the cleanliness was poor.

Next time I’ll stick with what I know and go...

The food was very nice and reasonably priced, and one particular member of staff (whom I didn't catch the name of, but she had piercings and tattoo's) was fantastic. She was accommodating, kind, warm and very helpful.

Here is why it's getting one star.

A judgemental fool of a manager, when questioned about portion, sizes not being as advertised decided that it was ok to try and publicly embarrass my family — shouting across the restaurant which was packed with a lousy attitude how he would bring out extra food while looking at us like we had two heads. What he didn't know when he judged based on appearance was that two of those family members have Lymphodaema, two have Autism, and one has Fibromyalgia. The extra food was for the autistic children as they quite often won't eat what's on their plate but will eat off others. The occasion was one of those childrens 13th birthday and by bringing attention to the table by being a loud, obnoxious judgemental moron, succeeded in ruining said child's birthday, causing her to become anxious and left her unable to sleep that night and wanting to leave the restaurant almost immediately. You will never know the full extent of the damage you caused by your unprofessional attitude but needless to say, despite having been regular customers as a family in the past, we will not be eating here again, and I will be recommending that other families don't eat here either. Not even so much as a colouring sheet for the children despite being advertised as a family friendly pub. Disgusted and devastated for my niece who had to go to school this morning on two hours sleep. Think before you judge. Think before you speak. Also other than the one lovely member of staff mentioned earlier the service was abysmal. Waited over an hour for our food despite having booked the table in advance as we always do with having a family with additional needs, then by the time all of the plates had been brought to the table the first person's food was cold. One of the waiters nearly burned my face on the sizzling hot plate as he carried it over my head. Overall a pretty miserable experience for a young person's thirteenth birthday. The worst thing is, she chose this restaurant. One of only five decisions she's been able to make in twelve months, and now she's taken three steps backwards. Truthfully. I am furious. Greene King, you have some serious customer service...

Unless you reserve don't bother, walk in's don't appear to be welcome.

We decided to give this place a try due to it's close proximity to fredricks, we arrived at 4:25pm, and had a look around inside for a table, lots of empty tables with reserved signs, mostly 5pm and beyond 6pm were observed.

Seeing a couple of empty tables in different locations with reserved 4pm on them and it being 4:25pm we decided to ask a member of staff to check if all the empty tables were still actually reserved or cancelled.

He had a look around for us and came back and said "I'm sorry yes, I think they are", I replied "no worries mate, it is what it is thanks".

At that moment another member of staff passing by (with management demeanour) looking annoyed spoke to the lad who had tried to assist us, he replied something regarding us looking for a table though I'm not sure exactly what was said, I'll be honest I thought this was management intervention to assist us but what looked like an annoyed response was uttered back to him and without another word to us they both walked off leaving myself, my wife and children stood in the middle of the bar not knowing if we was being assisted further or not.

Still unsure we waited a few minutes, after being ignored and looking lost and feeling kind of embarrassed we walked out.

A couple of questions.

How long do you hold reservations for before you give the tables away to paying customers stood in front of you?

At 4:25pm is it not possible we could have been seated, served and gone by some of the later reservation times such 6pm?

Do you treat all walk ins this way or should we take...