The White Hart — Restaurant in Surrey Heath

Honestly, the worst experience at a restaurant I've ever had. I arrived with two of my best friends, it was hot and sunny so we decided to sit outside, and then went back in to order some food. The pub was busy but most people were drinking, not eating.

After struggling to get to the bar, because two drunken morons wouldn't move out the way of myself and the waitress behind the till (despite me asking them several times whilst the waitress didn't bother to say 'do you mind moving please' or do anything at all to assert authority), we ordered.

We ordered some nachos and calamari to share between three of us, and then I ordered the grilled chicken burger and said could I have some cheese on it but no bacon, with sweet potato fries. The starters arrived super quickly, and were average at best. Then over an hour went by without our mains. My friend went in to politely ask, and the waitress just said 'oh I'll check.' nothing for about another fifteen mins.

Finally, when they did arrive, she gave me a fat oily beef burger absolutely dripping in grease. When I specifically said to her I'm really sorry but I actually ordered grilled chicken, please can we change this - she said 'No you ordered the gourmet burger' and kept insisting, rudely (not sure of her name but she was an Asian girl with long dark hair). I know what I said, and I don't actually eat red meat as I don't enjoy it, so why I would ever order a beef burger is beyond me. Maybe if she had asked the two drunken pigs to move out the way of the bar so she could hear me order, she would've heard me say GRILLED CHICKEN not gourmet.

After much back and forth she eventually agreed to swap it (for an extra £1, pathetic). Given our food took SO long to arrive (nearly 90 mins in total), I think giving me the correct meal with no fuss was the least they could do. I've worked in hospitality and retail so I know how rude people can be, so I tried to be perfectly polite but just received a spiteful nasty attitude from the waitress 'serving' us. Plus, how hard is it to swap a beef or a chicken burger? I had left the beef untouched, they could have even given it to someone who did actually order it.

There was no apology AT ALL for the lateness of the food either, instead we got the bluntly delivered excuse 'oh we are busy and there's lots of food to go out so.' Ok? Not my problem? I've worked in a packed out restaurant before where everyone got their food on time, because we knew how to run a kitchen properly. Oh, and when we got there no one else was eating, we were the only few who had ordered - so that is a ridiculous reason in itself.

Basically, avoid this total dump. The only saving grace was that the chef who bought our starters out...

Just an idea it but have you thought it might be beneficial to both your business and it's customers to consider actually telling those who order food, that when there is a long waiting time...maybe inform them of this? For a pub that is surrounded by offices and office people visiting for a QUICK pub lunch who are usually, most of the time that have 1 hour for lunch.

Some coworkers of mine popped in at 1pm today to have lunch, we even called prior to check that you the pub was serving food and once confirmed, we popped in. Ordered within 5 minutes of walking through the door. We waited a total of 57 minutes for 3 sandwiches and chips.

When the food actually showed up, it was completely below standard, the only hot thing was the chips. Glad collectively we wasted £30-ish on below par food. My complaint isn't because of the food, it's how the manager decided to handle it.

After explaining to the manageress that we are on a time limit and would like refunds of the UNTOUCHED food. She came out with probably the greatest response I've ever heard. "Well, you accepted the food because I put it down in front of you" Not being funny but what was I supposed to do, drop kick the plate across the pub?

No apologises, she got stressy and allowed us the refund we were clearly entitled to. She also decided at this time was the perfect time to lay into another waitress for getting an order wrong, this order also took over an hour and a half to get out.

We all paid card but she paid us in cash, after asking why she did this, the excuse was "I know you can refund onto a card but I DON'T KNOW HOW". Refunds are tender for tender, you pay cash, you get a cash refund, pay card, get a card refund but never mind. Clearly not a massive problem. I'll be interesting to see the other reviews that'll pop up on here very soon.

PS: Manager said her chef was on holiday for 2 weeks to a coworker of mine...here's an idea, don't say you serve food when you clearly find it all too challenging to do it up...

Visited white hart on 25/01/22 with 4 people. The pub was very quiet on arrival with a 4 person family sat opposite us and the surrounding tables empty and only a couple of individuals down the other end the pub. I ordered 3 ‘small plates’ from their menu at 19:01 (the receipt time). After 20 mins, I asked how long it would be, and the server said it would be there shortly.

Whilst waiting for our food, we observed a woman from the family sitting opposite us (as mentioned before) going over to the bar and heard her telling the server that she found 2 hairs in the salt and pepper squid whilst holding up two pieces of squid.

After 35 minutes of waiting, the server comes over to tell us that they did not have one of the plates that what we ordered, which indicated they still hadn’t tried making the food until 35 mins after we ordered. The food did not arrive until 19:55 and was cold, the burger buns were also burnt and hard - when I explained to the server that we’d waited a while, the food quality was not up to a good standard, and if they could do anything as goodwill, she said no and referred to it as ‘being busy’ although it was not busy at all and had been one the quieter times I had been there.

Another friend of mine who was sat with us also ordered a Brownie dessert which she found a hair in - we had also seen the chef leaving the kitchen without a hair net on and hair...