Harvester Durley Inn Bournemouth — Restaurant in England

A truly awful experience from start to finish. We booked a table in advance for a party of 6 at 1pm. We were routed by a server past empty round tables and window tables that actually had a view to what was the worst seating in the entire restaurant. We were told we weren't allowed to sit in the 'better' seats as people had booked. I asked if they had booked those seats, and the server informed us, "No, but the seating plan had been sorted out the night before!". It wasn't because of seating numbers, as we were given 4 small tables of 2 for our group of 6, and it wasn't because other people had reservations for those particular seats, it was purely pedantic bad management and inflexibility. We asked to change, as we had also booked, and they said no - just because they could! The tables we were directed to were covered in drink stains and still sticky from previous drinks / diners. The drinks menu was also soaking wet and sticky, obviously from a previously spilt drink, so we had to ask for a new one as it was dripping. My white shirt got drips on it from this menu. We received a new menu upon asking, but no apologies. So up to this point, terrible seating, bad service, dirty tables, and disgusting menus. Now came the completely woeful service. There were so many staff, but yet it took forever for the food to come. A would have been 1hr experience turned into a 3hr experience and not in a good way! The salad bar was nowhere near as good as it used to be, as saying deluxe coleslaw is laughable as it was so cheap and nasty, as was the potato salad, and the raw pepper looked like it had been taken from the bin, as it was that badly cut and discoloured. I would have said the self-serve refillable drinks were the high point, but even the strawberry syrup had run out. It's seriously sad when the best thing about the place is a self-serve coke dispenser. A couple of the meals looked great, such as the chicken skewer, but the 'Classic Chicken' burger was disappointing, to say the least. A very badly put-together double-burger and chips for just short of £20. It was one of the worst burgers I've ever had the misfortune of eating. After the disappointing main courses, we had to wait well over 25 minutes for the desserts to arrive. Now I would have said it couldn't get worse, but it did, as 2 of our party felt really ill afterwards (they were from 2 different households, which is important to remember!). I returned to inform them about this, and the incompetence and disgusting response and attitude was on a whole new level of disgusting. We were told that nobody else had been sick that day and that it must have been something we ate at home the day before, and it was our fault we were sick, not theirs. This comes to my point that we were from different households, so that was utter nonsense. We were utterly fobbed off and told to complete a form to Head Office. We weren't given a form or told where to find this form. What we did get was a young male server, talking over his manager, telling me I was a liar in respect of it was impossible to feel ill 3 hours after eating there. It just shows you how little their servers know about health and hygiene, as you can have severe symptoms within 30 minutes. If you want to get someone properly annoyed and upset, then this is how you do it. You give them utterly terrible seating, service, food, and afterservice, and then gang up on the individual when they complain. If you want to seriously anger and upset people, then carry on with your awful attitude to customer service. I barely held things together and was deeply upset how we were all treated from start to finish. Take some ownership when you give awful service and food and try your hardest to provoke hostility. I'm a professional person, and your team needs serious training on every level. Absolutely disgusting! I seriously can't recommend this establishment in any way! This used to be one of my favourite places due to the location, but now even the best location in the world wouldn't attract me back to this excuse of...

I'm quite fair with reviews and I leave a lot of positive one's but this has got to have been our worst ever visit to a Harvester!!! So from the time arrives there was problem after problem. We went for my birthday and requested a table in the windows, there's lots of windows with a great view of the beach! We were sat away from the windows and when asked if we could move by the window the manager Adam told us there was no spaces available. Upon arrival there was 4 x tables of 4 empty, while we were there (3 hours!!) 2 were used but not pre booked. We did pre book and asked if we could have one of these empty tables, eventually he said we could have 1 after a lot of walking backwards and forwards, waiting about and standing about (I'm disabled and this hurt a lot!) So we ordered our drinks and food after quite a wait. This is where things got worse!! They messed up our order, my daughter ordered a kids meal (she's 15 but a fussy eater) she ordered a kids meal and the waitress ordered her the one for 5yr old. My husband ordered a meal and the waitress had put each item through as a side so a side of chips, side of beans and side of halloumi sticks however one the halloumi sticks arrived. We questioned this and had to wait for the meal to be cooked, when it arrived the halloumi was only half battered and over cooked. The guy who brought the food over didn't speak English! We then had missing sweet potato fries and found out my daughter was given a smaller kids meal when we asked about this we never actually got a reply, the mashed potato was really chewy and had big hard lumps. We finished eating and ended up stacking the plates at the end of the table they sat there for nearly an hour, we had to ask for the dessert menu then was waiting another half a hour for the order to be taken. When the pudding did arrive items were missing and the waitress said its because the chef is ill!! We chased up the bill after we had long finished and just wanted to hurry up and leave. We get the bill and that's then wrong and we were charged for things we never had! The waitress said she had told someone else to take them off the bill and would sort it out. At no point did we ever get an apology for anything that had clearly gone wrong! The waitresses name I believe was Gislaine however with no name tag and staff with no uniform it was a guessing game. Needless to say we will not be returning! The food is adequate and the service is awful. We have been there in the past and even then it wasn't great, I had hoped they would have improved but seems...

Update 2022.date of visit Saturday 19th March..........We came for a long weekend and once agaun visited the wonderful Harvester at Durley Chine. We were welcomed by Lucy the deputy manager who ensured our party of 7 were all seated together. She was very warm friendly and welcoming and made sure we were all OK throughout our visit. Marcia our waitress did an amazing job with all of our orders and our food came very quickly and was soooooo good. We very much enjoyed our visit again and would definitely recommend to anyone visiting Bournemouth. Beautiful location and staff were so lovely helpful and welcoming. Thankyou so much. We will see you when were next down for a visit.......thankyou Mrs W gallett .

Update......... we are back in Bournemouth September and visited Durley Inn 22.9.20... We were a little early for our prebooked timeslot and were kindly advised we could come sit at our table but due to the other guests etc our order may take a little longer. Well it wasnt long at all. Our waitress Gislaine took our drinks order straight away and soon came and took our food order. After visiting the salad bar to collect our served salad our meals were delivered to our table quite promptly. It was all delicious thoroughly enjoyed them. Gislaine was very attentive which was great as she also had other tables to sort. Social distancing procedures being adhered to by the business and staff. Shame some visitors (young ladies !!!!)do not adhere to keeping apart especially queung for the salad. That aside thoroughly enjoyed our visit ........ below is our comment from visit in July ......................................................Our first visit post covid to Harvester. We booked our table in advance. Greeted by lovely young chap who showed us to our table and explained the new procedures and that our salad would be served to us when we go up. There was a small socially distanced queue waiting for the salad but this is to be expected and the staff were great in getting us served as soon as they could safely. Our waitress bought us all drinks as well as our meals with a smile. Everything was great the food the ambience the cleanliness the friendly staff. Highly recommend a visit. We felt totally safe and at ease enjoying a lovely meal out. First since before lockdown. Well done to all....