The Barn Cafe Dorset — Restaurant in England

I'd have loved to have given a better review than this but to be completely honest I was accosted at the exit by one of the staff and grabbed by the arm because "I looked like the kind of person that was going to walk out without paying" as they had already predetermined this. My wife and I had even joked about the fact that because I was sat in my beanie hat and a puffer jacket as it was so cold in the marquee that they had thought I was "a bit dodgy". My family and I were sat in the marquee out the front of the building where we were placed by staff and we had our breakfast. When we were finished my wife asked me to go and put our children in the car as it was raining whilst she went in to pay the bill. As we stood up, I headed towards the door with my boys and my wife walked in to pay. At this point a female member of staff ran past my wife and grabbed my arm stopping me from leaving. I told her what I was doing and pointed towards my wife whilst she told me that "I looked confused" and that "He's was a charmer this one". My 13 year old autistic son and my 5 year old were quite concerned as this member of staff wouldn't let them near me and wouldn't release my arm. After explaining myself SEVERAL times she then pushed past me and said that she needed the toilet. This was in front of around 30 people. I have NEVER been so embarrassed in my life. Whilst my wife was paying she said how angry and embarrassed by the member of staffs behaviour she was to the lady by the till (possibly a manager). She refused to make eye contact, laughed about the situation and said that they had had a few walk outs this week. She said that she would "have a word" with the member of staff that stopped me. There was NO APOLOGY by either member of staff. If the member of staff that accosted me by the exit had explained her actions towards me straight away I might have understood and had been more forgiving of the attitude I had received. This was our first and LAST visit to The Barn Cafe and put somewhat of a dampener to our otherwise fantastic holiday in Dorset. We travelled home under a...

The family that run this place are amazing, Matt now excelling and growing what has been done before him.

The food has always been fabulous here and is still amazing, but the worst service in the tent we have ever had after years of great service which we still can't get our head around, this place always recruits so well.

As we entered the server in question failed to greet us, we initiated, after meeting our seemingly strained effort server and having always had table service, we got the servers attention who looked vacantly at us as we waited to order, didn't leave the chair they where sat on to assist or engage so we asked politely, met with attitude of can't be bothered and far from helpful, the only response was you have to order here as we don't serve at the table and it's always been that way (bluntly). Was more interested in her phone than checking on the customers. In 10 years prior she wouldn't have been old enough to work there so not possible. She also had to ask us 4 times for the drinks we wanted even though saying she had them, only to ask again.

We had a big family breakfast in the tent on the same table only the weekend before with table service. Confusing for the customer given sudden change or inconsistency. No table service in an area is fine but let the customer know.

One plus was the manager Matt who is always on the floor talking to customers and great craftsman, saw that part of an order was an issue and came straight over to offer an alternative. So the 2 stars is not representative of his stellar service or the usual standard. It may be this server needs more training or a very very bad side of the bed day ☺️ but it was poor to say the least. Disinterested, didn't smile and pulling strained faces, not sure why or what was going on, maybe just one of those days.

One thing is for sure 99% of the time it's always been a pleasure but the server reaction and general service was unusually poor from this one individual enough to trigger an...

We went to The Barn today to celebrate a couple of birthdays that we had recently and decided to go here for a afternoon tea. We booked our table for the afternoon tea online and received a confirmation email to confirm this. Arrived and got shown to our table and got told to order at the till when we were ready, looked at the menu selection and decided on what we wanted. We went to the till to be then told that a waitress would be over to take our order. The young lady came over took our order and went off to to the kitchen. A couple of minutes later she came back and asked did we book for the afternoon tea, which we replied yes we did and showed the email to her, she then replied saying that there was a booking for us but not for the afternoon tea. She went off and a older lady I presume the manager came over to the table and I must say her attitude towards us was very rude and she told us that we must have done the booking wrong and didn't put the afternoon tea experience in. She then said she could book us in for another day as they need to know in advance for a afternoon tea, at this point we thought why should we she was very rude, sound very stuck up and not very sympathetic or accommodating, so we said no we will go to Aunt Fannys instead. Not at any point did she say we could order off the other menu. Why have the menus for the afternoon tea on the tables if you cant have it on the day. All seams very disorganised. All in all we were very disappointed and will not be returning we will be taking our custom to Aunt Fannys in Wimborne instead by far much better service there and their food...