The Haywain — Restaurant in New Forest

It saddens me to say that this Stonehouse Carvery used to be good, certainly their Lee-on-the-Solent and The Alma at Upham carveries are well worth a visit. However, The Haywain is best avoided nowadays, there are much better carvery options in the area.

Speaking of my experiences in recent times there seems to be a management problem at The Haywain, not enough training and hands-on supervision seems to be the root cause.

On my last two visits I went despite having some reservations armed with a seemingly good deal voucher received by email. They were for a £6 carvery which could be 'upgraded' for just £2 more. This seemed like a really good deal, but when trying to upgrade the 'till' said it was not possible despite me pointing out the clear offer in the voucher itself. When I suggested the bar lady gets someone to help, a sour women then joined her and went on about the fact that the till was right in refusing an upgrade option, but the somehow managed to do it when I pressed the matter. Training obviously required!

Then onto the surly youth who was doing the carving who served up a smallish portion of the gammon and turkey having dropped most of it on the marble working surface before it made it to the plate, and when I asked him if that was supposed to be an upgraded portion he just abruptly said it was and walked away! On my previous visit an older foreign man on duty was equally offhand. Both of these poor staff seemed totally disinterested in providing good service, and I cannot for the life of me see why any manager would employ them in the first place and then not supervise them to achieve better customer service. There used to be an older lady doing the carving at The Haywain, and she was always both pleasant and efficient.

The vegatables were cold and sad looking on both visits even though it would have been fairly soon after opening, and certainly before 1pm, that I made the mistake of visiting.

Before leaving I went up to the carvery to observe the surly youth carving a very similar meagre meat portion to the one I had received to two people who both only had the smaller (ie not upgraded) plates!

I know I should have asked for the manager at each stage of the visit, but I resolved to email my comments to Stonehouse's Head Office website, essentially pointing out that a visit by 'mystery diners', or a Regional Manager might be a good idea. They then passed the critical comments to the manager who emailed me rather than phoning me saying he/she needed more information. Talk about marking your own homework! I the tried to ring Sam, the manager, but the phone just kept ringing for many minutes so I emailed saying I would be prepared to speak if I was rung on either of the next two mornings. Nothing happened!

I can only hope that Head Office do monitor the reviews I am making on various social media websites when I...

Absolutely shocking from the moment we walked in. Booked in advance to make sure we didn't miss out on a table added that we needed a high chair. Walked in with a sign on a desk stating grab a table and order at the bar. Spoke with a member of staff who couldn't be less interested explained we booked. I was told just grab a table we don't take bookings even tho there was 5 or 6 tables with reserved on them. After a while we and put an order in for 6 people with drinks bar tender didn't know what pinto was. Sat and waited for food for a member of staff to vome over and say they had run out of pizza dough and would we want to wait 10min or choose something else said we were ok to wait. A while later 2 meals came out and the 2 pizzas will be along shortly under 2 year old had eaten his full meal and the adult meal was eaten before 2 pizzas arrived no sign of an apology no futher customer service from sever which was probably for the best as 1 lady wanted an ice cream machine out of mix filled up by staff told wait 10 mins to return and staff had forgotten to turn machine on complete incompetence. After we had all finished went back to bar to get the free kids dessert to be told it would cost extra but it states on menu dessert included in price ar you needed to put the dessert on at point of ordering but we can charge you for it. At this point no more money was going in to such a poorly run establishment even tho 5 desserts were about to be added. To the management get a grip of your staff Absolutely disgraceful who ever your fron of houses is she couldn't care less if your customers are happy or not she will run the place in to the gutter.

Reply to so called owner: Read all of my past reviews they are always factual and i never exaggerate on any bad or good parts. Your staff are a pack of liars from who ever she was waiting tables to the 2nd guy behind the bar as for the so called manager Diana or Dana im guess that was them sat around other side of yhe bar shouting. Also amazes me that even the regulars were not happy his car reg hadn't been added to the carpark watch. I will now be escalating this issue...

On the Haywain website I booked an 1145 lunch for a party of 3 and requested a particular table. At 1130 I received a call from a Haywain staff member saying as 3 staff had gone sick there would be no pizza or burgers available. I arrived at 1140 where my two friends were waiting in the car park. There was a sign on the door saying the premises didnt open until 1200. I tapped on the window and a staff member (the same one that telephoned me) and I said our table was booked for 1145. A chef also came to the door and said that wasnt possible to book it for that time. Well it was and still is in spite of the chef saying the regional manager had changed the website so only tables can be booked from 1200. I have an email confirming my 1145 table and I have just gone on the site again and still allows me to book an 1145 table. I said can we come in and have a coffee while we're waiting for the carvery to open. The chef said no as the coffee machine wasnt ready, then it was ready but then said we still couldnt come in as the cleaner hadnt finished. So we had to wait in the carpark for 20 minutes. Others then entered the building before us so we then had to queue to pay for our drink and carvery. The only positive was in spite of them not recognising that our table was booked for 1145, they did reserve the table id requested. How odd how they saw that but not our reservation time. Very stingy on the carvery meat in spite of me paying to "go large". Id recently had a Toby carvery, they were far more generous and the quality and variety of veg was far superior. No english mustard, had to ask for it and wait a few more minutes. Apparently it has been removed as allergy risk. We finally ate at...