Amesbury Archer Harvester — Restaurant in England

We went to this Harvester for lunch today and unfortunately feel we need to make the following observations.

Though the staff were NOT rude or unpleasant in anyway, we did feel that they were not very welcoming or hospitable. This made us feel uneasy and unwelcome during our visit.

The major issue appears to be the fact that we were obliged to order a full main course meal (Costing £22 each) rather than selecting a combination of side orders that would have allowed us to order a meal at the size we required. In effect, this would have resulted in our ordering a much larger meal than we wanted for lunch, just to waste half of it (what happened to people avoiding over eating and potential obesity!).You can only order a side order, if you purchase a main meal first, which defeats the object. As a result we were forced to order a single main course meal to share between two, which as you can imagen did not sit well with the staff, as they haven't foreseen this course of action. The waitress made a sarcastic comment to remind us that only one free salad would be forthcoming, something we really did not need to be reminded of.

Unfortunately, as regular customers to Harvester Restaurants, we may now need to seriously reconsider our future patronage.

This is not to mention the issue over gluten free menu information, and being told that the waitress is a soul fountain of all knowledge in regards to what does and does not contain gluten in their menu. Sorry if I do not wholeheartedly put my faith and digestive health in the hands of a potentially unqualified individual.

This may sound harsh, but it is an accurate reflexion of our experience today.

On a final note, we all agree that the food itself was excellent and very enjoyable. If it was not for the issues highlighted above, our experience today would have been...

Worst Harvester Experience in a Very Long Time.

Cleanliness was appalling, and fell far below the standard across the board on multiple aspects. Firstly we were escorted to our (pre-booked) table, where when sitting down my partner crushed their feet in food remains left from previous guests (full fries). The Salad Bar was grubby, but do appreciate that during periods of high demand this can occur, but the worst area was the Drinks Station area. The drinks table appears to have not been cleaned thoroughly in a very long time, with staining seen in the attached photos and leaking around to the rear of the machines also, indicating this is a systemic issue of poor cleanliness not just high demand.

Service was slow despite there being spare tables available, therefore not at capacity. Our waitress was polite, however the staff member delivering glasses slammed our glasses down and walked off with no communication, in a hurry.

Salad Bar... well this was the most disappointing aspect. Harvesters claim to fame, but letting them down here at Amesbury. The irony of a harvester poster advising that the Salad bar would always be fully stocked as a promise...well they have broken that promise well and truly tonight. A partially functioning Salad bar at best, soggy lettuce drowning water, and sweetcorn were the main aspects....no coleslaw, potato salad, bacon bits, crispy onion, croutons or mayonnaise...when asking staff a very short reply of "we've run out"

Disappointing to make a promise you, fail to deliver on Harvester, if you make a promise keep to it, by planning your stock levels appropriately, otherwise a false promise is only going to continue to push customers away with repeated poor performances...

This has got to be the fastest & most rushed dining experience I think I have ever had, my table was booked for my first ever visit to a Harvester Restaurant at 8pm and yet my bill was given to me after my salad, main meal & glass of wine by 8.30pm, the reviews say this place is slow, trust me it is far from it!

Lovely looking Restaurant inside & out, however I think my server took an instant dislike to me & couldn't wait to get me out the door!

Uncomfortable experience as I was alone staying in this beautiful area, i never got chance to look at the menu as the young lady came over as soon as i got seated by a nice young man and asked what do i want to order, so i ordered a Chardonnay which was put on the table warm ( a large one) which i discovered after i finally found the salad bar, come back to my table and sat down, my wine was then moved out of the way and my main meal was put in front of me when she could see i was starting my salad, after getting over the shock of this persons rudeness, i found the fish was paper thin, the batter hard, greasy and not very warm, the handful of skinny fries and the peas stone cold, i did order mushy peas, but when i went and found my server she was abrupt as if i was inconveniencing her, she then came back with a dirty scratched mug with some mushy peas inside and threw them on the table, needless to say, i barely ate a thing, very disappointing visit and i think it has put me off Harvester Restaurants for good, an utter...