The Barley Mow — Restaurant in Havant

Thought we'd hit the jackpot on the first night of our holiday. As we passed the Barley Mow on the way to investigate the beach, we saw it was 50% off all burgers. Deciding to take up the offer we were able to order directly from our phone via the QR code on the table. Two adult burgers and one children's burger for our son (we had our newborn with us too). One would assume the kitchen staff would be prepared to serve quite a few burgers and that service would be quick, given the offer that day they were promoting, We waited. There were two chefs enjoying a bit of banter with the waiting staff (open kitchen), from their body language you would never have have guessed they had a mountain of tickets piling up and a load of already very unhappy customers. The waiting staff were pleasant and knowledgeable about the menu, but clearly frustrated by the chefs. After 20 minutes or so we realised we had made a big mistake. Many other customers were inquiring about their food, but the bar staff were continuing to take orders with no warning about the wait time. The chefs still seemed to lack any urgency at all and by this time, the manager (I assume) had started to help in the kitchen. Every time a customer would enquire about their food the manager would say "it's literally the next order". We ordered some more drinks to pass the time. 45 minutes and At this point we decided to get some crisps from the bar as our son had begun crying out of hunger as he could smell food, but still no sign of our order. We ordered more drinks from the bar. 1 hour and things were clearly very wrong in the kitchen. At this point it seemed nearly every customer in the restaurant was complaining to the staff about their wait on food. At this point a family near us (that also had a crying son due to the wait on food), complained for the second or third time. Their food came about 10 minutes after. Now this family ordered their food way after we did (they came in after we sat down)and at this point I had really had enough as clearly the chefs were swapping the order of the tickets on order of most grumpy customers. I spoke to the manager (who was polite and apologetic) who informed us our food was next. When the burgers were put on the pass (1 hour 20 minutes later), I collected them myself as it clearly was going to be quicker than waiting for a member of staff to do it. My wife had a pot of coleslaw with barely anything in it and my burger had no coleslaw at all. I took the food back and complained to the chef. The burgers came back and the manager informed me that the vegan burger (mine) didn't come with any as the mayo used isn't vegan, but there was no mention of this on the menu. The manager bought two full pots of coleslaw and said the extra one was to make up for the long wait. I asked if that was to be the extent of the compensation and he politely offered a free drink and dessert for all of us. We took them up on the offer as at this point it was getting dark outside, so we had no opportunity to explore the beach and our baby needed to be fed. As we are only staying on hayling island a few days, this experience robbed us of a pleasant evening. I spoke to the manager as we were leaving (who I genuinely felt sorry for) and asked him if he was short staffed. He said yes and that staffing for that day had been messed up completely. I couldn't help but think that the chefs were still so complacent given the situation they were in. We left feeling miserable about out first night on hayling island and having spent way more on drinks than we intended. Only upside was the food wasn't bad. This was easily the worst dining experience I...

Absolutely horrendous experience. My family and I made a pit-stop here for dinner after a brilliant holiday on the island, and I really wished we hadn't of bothered. I booked a table for 5:30pm and upon arrival, despite a sign stating "Please wait here to be seated", no member of staff arrived to greet us or take us to a table. In fact, after a few minutes of standing by the door like confused lemons, it was one of the regulars who told us to "just go on through to any table" because "no staff will come". A bit bemused, and wondering what the point was in booking a table in the first place, we made our way through the restaurant and got ourselves seated. I ordered some drinks via the Stonehouse app which, to be fair, were served pretty quickly. It's a shame I can't say the same about the food. We ordered five meals at about 6pm and after a little while waiting, I noticed all was not well with the service. Other people were complaining and making comments about how long they were having to wait for their food - not a good sign. After waiting 50 minutes ourselves, I decided to go up and ask how long our food would be. I was polite, and even said "I can see you're struggling tonight", but, with all due respect, that wasn't my problem. I had paid good money and had three hungry & tired children with me, plus we still had over an hour's drive home ahead of us. I was told "your food is next, they're just doing it now" and given a time period of "another 10 minutes". We waited another 10 minutes, still no sign of our food. We'd now been waiting an hour. One of my children had ordered a carvery, so I just went up and got hers for her at this point, even though I'd asked for our meals to be served at the same time. After this, our meals came out staggered, with my other child being served last and had to wait a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes for his very small burger and small portion of fries. Absolutely unacceptable. We then realised there was no cutlery on our table, so I had to get some from another table and one of the knives clearly hadn't been washed properly. Tables around us hadn't been cleared, other families were still complaining about the service; it was just an awful experience. Also, some of the people complaining were offered free drinks and dessert as way of compensation for the terrible service, yet we were not offered anything. It seemed the harder you complained, the more you got, which isn't fair. The staff knew how long we'd been waiting and should've had the courtesy to come over and offer us the same, but we got nothing, which was charming. Needless to say, we will never be visiting this place again and would never recommend it to anyone. It was a very miserable end to what was otherwise a very happy family holiday. If I could give it a zero out of five, I would. Even 1 star is...

GONE EXTREMELY DOWN HILL! Visited on the 22/08/2024 with my husband excited to see the new refurb and menu, we were waiting an hour for our 2 pizzas which by that time our baby was getting tired and irritable, I asked staff 3 times where our pizzas were and the response was “it’s being done”. After the hour I asked if we could take our pizzas home as we had to leave. Another 15 minutes went by and no pizzas!! I asked the chefs and they said “it’s being done” yet 2 of them were too busy struggling to make a waffle in a waffle maker. I spoke to the manager who wasn’t helpful, multiple people were complaining about the wait but eventually our pizzas were put into take away boxes and I had to fight to get a refund for just one pizza. We then returned on 31/08/2024 with family members as they wanted to try the new menu and we thought we’d give it another go, maybe that was just a bad night…. Was we WRONG!! There was NO GAS for drinks so was bottles only, by 5:30pm the bottles were sold out. We had ordered a coke bottle on the app but the manager said only J2O was available, I told him that was cheaper and we’d be out of pocket and he said he would sort it.. that never happened. We tried to order tea/coffee but the machine was ‘broken’. When our drinks came over with a non speaking unhelpful young staff member (they’re all very young and you fight to get answers/words from them) she walked away but we asked where our carvery tickets were and she told us we state our table number up at the carvery section.. why not just tell us that to begin with?? Potatoes were the worst we’ve ever had, whole potatoes boiled and bland. No one knew how to cut the meat. Unfortunately the place is full of inexperienced young staff members who are doing bare minimal to get their wages. No one’s happy, no one greets you, I walk past and smile and say hello and I feel like I’m back at school with the girls judging. Not going to go back there again, plenty more places in Hayling with friendly welcoming staff and better...