Harvester Jolly Badger Edgware — Restaurant in London

I visited this Harvester on the evening of Monday 6th November for the first time in about 10 years because I had an offer in the Harvester smartphone app that gave me 25% off a main meal.

I had booked my table for 7pm, but I arrived 10 - 15 minutes early. Despite this, a member of staff whose name I can’t remember showed me to a pleasant-looking 2-person booth table because the restaurant wasn’t too busy. For most of my time at this Harvester, the man sitting at the table opposite to mine was talking quite loudly, sounded rather grumpy and probably spoke to someone on loudspeaker on his laptop (I didn’t know if he was a member of restaurant staff or another guest). There was also a woman sitting opposite him, but I also couldn’t tell if she was a staff member or another guest.

The member of staff who served me the most was called Emilia, whose name I recognised from other Google reviews for this Harvester. She was friendly and attentive and accommodating to my needs. Emilia brought me an ice-filled glass for the refillable soft drinks quicker than the server at the Toby Carvery in Enfield did. The refillable drinks machine was excellent as always and I had my usual Pepsi Max cherry and vanilla.

When Emilia took my order, I told her I was gluten-free and asked for barbecue sauce with my Original Combo (half a rack of ribs and quarter of a rotisserie chicken with sage and onion chips and corn on the cob) instead of the chicken gravy. She also brought me my empty salad bowl quickly (servers now bring empty salad bowls to guests’ tables instead of guests picking up the bowls from the salad bar). The salad at the salad bar was very fresh.

Shortly after Emilia brought my Original Combo to my table, I noticed my chips were plain and not seasoned with sage and onion as I requested. When she returned to my table to check how everything was, I asked her to change my chips and she did this right away. Despite this issue, the sage and onion chips were delicious as were the ribs, the chicken, the barbecue sauce and the corn.

After my meal, I waited quite a while to pay my bill. When Emilia came once again, I showed her the discount code in the Harvester app and she took my phone so that she could scan the code. When she brought my phone back, I used it to pay my bill.

All in all, despite the man opposite me spoiling the atmosphere slightly, the chips mix-up and the waiting time to pay being somewhat slow, I enjoyed my food and drink and most of the service from Emilia. 4/5.

Update: I have just realised that I wrote this review under the Google account I use for volunteering purposes rather than my personal one. The owner has also responded to my review and confirmed the man on the laptop was...

My recent trip to Harvesters was, I'm afraid to say, quite a frustrating experience from start to finish. My dining companion and I initially fancied sitting outside, but as it turned a bit chilly, we asked if we could possibly move indoors. Now, despite there being plenty of empty tables inside (honestly, only a couple were reserved, and it was a quiet weekday afternoon, so hardly peak time), we were told point blank by the staff that we couldn't move as we'd already ordered and hadn't made a booking. We were merely offered a spot in the bar area, which was, frankly, less than ideal.

This rigid policy, especially with all those vacant tables, felt terribly unaccommodating and, dare I say, a bit off-putting.

The service didn't exactly improve, either. Our food arrived before our drinks, which is always a sign of a bit of a muddle, isn't it? When I popped over to the bar to place the order, the waitress there was rather difficult to get a word in with; spoke in a very low, mumbling voice and didn't make eye contact at all, making it quite hard to communicate what we wanted. And to top it all, they didn't even serve my drinks when I ordered them there. Then, when the food arrived before our drinks, my partner had to go and ask for them. And even then, they didn't even give me a glass for my bottled beer, so I had to get up and go inside again just to ask for one!

And then, to cap it all, the manager's refusal to let us move to a proper table inside, even when the restaurant was clearly not busy and wouldn't be getting so any time soon, was utterly baffling. It just showed a total disregard for customer comfort and satisfaction.

All in all, the sheer lack of flexibility from the management and the rather inattentive service made for a thoroughly miserable lunch. Frankly, when the service is this shoddy, you start to wonder what the point is in even complaining – you certainly couldn't be bothered to be refused again or offered another lame excuse. I certainly wouldn't recommend this particular Harvesters based on this experience; next time, I'd rather just pop over to a Beefeater or Toby...

This is definitely the worst Harvester we have ever been to. We had already said before this last visit that we wouldn't be back but as we were at an event near to this Harvester we popped in. We booked a table on the way and when we arrived we were stood there while staff walked past us and ignored us. We were finally seated and waited ages for the waitress to come over. When she did she looked like she just couldn't be bothered to even take our order. I asked if they still did the Robinson refill and she said I don't know - how can the staff not know. So in the end I ordered an orange juice for my son and she brought over a fruit shoot, how is that orange juice?! I then went over to the drinks machine to get my coke and saw the Robinsons so I asked a young male to swap it and bring me a glass for the robinsons. The female waitress then came over with the fruit shoot again. We waited and waited for someone to come and take us to the salad bar and no one had come after 10 minutes of waiting so I'd had enough and stood by the salad bar with my son. The young male ignored us until the male who refills the salad bar asked him to come and help us. Our main came as we were still eating our salad. My son's burger bun was burnt as well as one side of the burger which was burnt too. We will never return here, even if we are close by. You really need to sort out your staff. The fact that we got a last minute booking on a Sunday for 5:45 shows the restaurant isn't busy and it's clear to see why. Your staff really let the place down and they are unbelievably rude...