High Orchard — Restaurant in Gloucester

This is a long one.......

So it's that time of year again! you know, the time when your forced to spend time with people you wouldn't normally (unless your being paid). Yes, work christmas party season! I rocked up to the high orchard pub, with that nagging feeling of dread and "why did I agree to come" walked in and was immediately hit smack in the face with a warm, welcoming and friendly atmosphere. It put me at ease as I trudged over to my table and took a seat along with 16 others, and was struck by how much effort the staff had gone through to dress the table, floral centre piece, christmas crackers, and a generous and useful number of napkins per person. So off to a good start I would say.

Drink orders were taken and then it began, 3 courses of great quality and very generous food, the pub had our names ensured everyone had the right orders, then as we all stared at our food eagerly waiting to tuck in, more dishes came out. Extra roasties, veg and most importantly enough gravey to fill an Olympic sized pool. I was in my happy place! Dinner and chat progressed and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Then came the part of the night everyone who has ever worked in hospitality dreads, SPLITTING THE BILL! I don't know how they did it (probably some form of wizardry) but everyone paid for what they had with little fuss, zero confusion and with the ease of a gloucester seagull stealing your lunch.

Thank you High orchard for a great evening!

Most importantly a massive shout out to our hostess for the evening Makenzie (apologies if I spelt it wrong) this wonderful person deserves to be made a saint or at the least, employee of the decade! never in all my years of attending dining establishments has someone made me feel more welcome and left me with such a positive experience! There warm smile, friendly and positive attitude were a god send! Thank...

Absolutely shocking food and service.

Visited this place same time last year for my grandsons birthday, so decided to do the same this year as the food and service was amazing.

This visit was truly awful.

Was greeted on entrance and shown our table and was told our waitress would come to the table to take our orders. Drinks and food orders were taken. We asked for a couple of the starters to come as mains.

Starters came out first and the garlic mushrooms were still frozen and had to be sent back, only to be returned in the same bowl and reheated but without the garlic sauce.

Cheesy garlic bread had NO cheese and was cold.

Had to wait for 30 mins for the starter to be cleared.

Waited an hour for the mains and had to go and ask where our food was.

Ordered sirloins, but received rump steak (although ump steak wasn’t on the menu!!!)

Mushrooms were cold, tiny and all shrivelled, peas cold.

Steak was chewy

Forgot our sauces and had to wait for them.

At no time we’re we asked how our meal was, whether we wanted any drinks, sauces etc.

Complained to the manager about all of the above and was just given excuse after excuse.

Was offered free ice cream as a sorry, but we declined as we had a birthday cake. No offer of plates for the cake or even any drinks, even though I complained we had been here for over 2 hours and not offered any drinks.

Was given the bill with 30% off.

Never ever have I had such poor food and service, which was very upsetting as it was for my grandsons birthday.

Definitely will NOT...

I've been here a few times before and compared to those times, this time was very disappointing. I came here with my partner and stepson, it took a while for someone to come and take our drinks orders and then to take our food orders too. We all ordered something that had coleslaw with it (as stated on the menu), but when our food eventually came, none of us had coleslaw. When I mentioned this, the colleague who brought us our food told me that they were making some and it would be brought out, he just thought he would bring our food out so it wouldn't go cold, this wasn't stated when he initially brought the first plates of food, I felt like he thought I was stupid for asking in the first place. We started eating our meals so they wouldn't go cold and there was still no coleslaw by the time we were finished. I know it's only coleslaw but I would imagine that food would be prepped ready to go, and I wasn't expecting to wait 20 minutes for some coleslaw. Someone came to collect our plates and ask how our food was so I told them that we were still waiting for our coleslaw, which obviously wasn't needed at that point. He gave us some money off our food, which was good of him and he was very apologetic about it. During our meal, we also heard other people complaining that they were waiting a long time to be seen to. Usually, when we go here, the service is much better than this, the only redeeming thing from today was Greg (I think that was his name), he was really friendly and went out of his...