Birchwood Farm - Farmhouse Inns — Restaurant in Wakefield

Booked a table for breakfast at 10am on arrival we was greeted by a friendly member of staff and was told to sit wherever we wanted, which was nice. We paid for our breakfast, made our hot drinks and had a walk over the the breakfast buffet. There was 2 slices of very very welldone bacon, 4 very over cooked sausages, no eggs, no scrambled eggs, no veg/vegan sausage, no hashbrowns, no mushrooms and only very cold brown toast.

After having a five mins wait I decided to ask a member of staff if the food was going to be refreshed and she told me they are on with it now, 5 mins later a member of staff came out of the kitchen with 6 overly cooked eggs, 2 mins later the same member of staff came out with a tray of about 8 slices of very very well-done bacon. I asked if they had any that wasn't well-done and after a conversation about the bacon not being well-done because that's how people like it (maybe only 10% of people prefer well-done bacon) he asked if I would like him to put some bacon in that would be less cooked to which I said yes please if that's OK and how long would it take to which he replied '20 mins' I told him it to bother thank you. 2 mins later the the same member of staff came out with another very very welldone bacon and thus went on every few mins ( the food would have been out quicker if they didn't keep burning everything) I asked a member of staff if it was possible for her to go give them a hand to bring the food out to which she said there are 2 people doing the work in the kitchen, the gentleman that kept bringing the very very weldone food out and the manger who was cooking. In the end I decided to get my money back. The manager came out of the kitchen to make the refund and while making the refund she made her apologies and was very polite. I told her all.my concerns over there being no food and the refilling being very slow at coming leading to it being impossible to have a hot breakfast, all the food being very over cooked to which her reply was to apologise again to to tell me that its hard when it's busy and suppose it is but unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it it was far far from busy with probably what looked like less than 30 people in. The rest of my party (4 of them) still ate there breakfast and all moaned about it as there was never a time when all breakfast items were cooked at once, my wife had a plate of toast and tomatoes, then returned for bacon and egg, finally going to get some mushrooms and hash browns. There was no one point of time in our 60 minute visit that all items were available to create a ‘full breakfast’. One of my party asked when the vegan sausage would be brought out after ordering a vegetarian breakfast and the reply was would you like me to cooked you some? Yes please! 10 mins later 2 sausages came out that were again very very well-done, definitely left in the chip pan for far too long and we crossed our finger that they weren't cooked in the same pan as the pork sausages. On cutting one in half my friend started to eat one and after a few seconds in her mouth she had to spit the sausage out with a screwed up face saying 'that was disgusting!!'

Before we left the manager came over to our table and told me that the food is all stocked up and I was more than welcome to go help myself to which I politely declined (I didn't think it right I go eat after being refunded) and thanked her for her very kind offer.

While there not eating i noticed 2 other people/groups complaining

All this is a shame as whenever anyone talks about being at the birchwood they always say its nice and I've been 5 times now and the last 3 times I've vowed...

We had booked a month ago for Christmas eve, having the festive dinner. This was our Christmas dinner instead of having it Xmas day and honestly, I wish we hadn't bothered. Arrived to a not very busy restaurant and seated. Only a handful of tables were taken with people having the same meal as us. Having pre-ordered the entire meal we expected it to flow quite well, but after sitting waiting for over 45 minutes for our starters to arrive we soon realised this was not the case. There only looked to be 2 waitresses, one kept asking us if we had any food yet and in the end gave us a free round of drinks before our starters FINALLY arrived. At this point one of the staff started hoovering around us which hen lasted the whole of our meal time. Not very festive. Luckily we all had the carvery so didn't need to wait for that one and helped ourselves. Unfortunately the pigs in blankets we had to pay extra for weren't cooked and by the time they were, we had all finished our dinners. Nobody come round to clear the table, so we sat with dirty plates for the remainder of our time there, then about half an hour after someone asked about deserts. Again, these were all pre-ordered but we had to say what we had ordered, and one now wasn't available despite this. We waited another half hour before 2 kids ice cream finally made an appearance, leaving our 3rd child without his brownie and adults without puddings. Another 15 minutes past before I lost my temper with staff and called them out for a crap service, spoiling our families Christmas dinner and making us sit there for over 3 hours, keeping my kids there longer than needed on Christmas eve when they wanted to go home to get ready for Santa. The assistant manager knocked some money off the final bill and gave us the remaining puddings to take away (photo attached - definitely weren't worth the almost hour wait!) but honestly, I wouldn't of paid it but we just wanted to leave. Considering there was nobody else there eating when we left, and 9 people there in total just having drinks, I have no idea how they couldn't manage a good service. Wouldn't book here for a special occasion ever again. Only given 1 star because I couldn't...

Terrible. Booked well in advance for Boxing Day and submitted orders and paid £50 deposit. On arrival at the time we booked for the table wasn’t even ready or set. No one explained how to order drinks or if the food would be coming to the table. We were sat at the table for over an hour before anyone bothered to come to the table, had to wait even longer for the starters. Staff then said the booking system was broken so they didn’t have the order we booked in advance at all so we had to give them the entire order again.

After over an hour and a half we got our starters; but they missed one; then had to wait another half an hour for the last starter (how hard is it to warm up some cheese bites?)

Then took another hour for people to get mains course, we had children that had to wait for plain pasta (why does it take that long to prepare plain pasta)

After 2 and a half hours we then asked about the dessert and were told they would come and take our order (which was supposed to have been ordered in advance), and we were met with rude replies and made to feel like an inconvenience for asking. Also the hot drinks machine was broken and they were out of tortilla chips for the kids which again, were supposed to have been ordered in advance.

I understand they might be short staffed but the order was made way in advance, staff were extremely unhelpful and no one came to the table even once. We were made to feel like an inconvenience for finding a staff member asking about the food. When we arrived we were one of the first tables to be seated but it still took over 1 hour and 30 minutes to get any starters.

We noticed all of the other tables were waiting ages for their food too, and other people were complaining.

The staff member was extremely rude and just wanted to get rid of us in the end and said he was ‘fed up’ of talking to our table (maybe because not one staff member had come to serve us at all) and wiped the bill for the meal in order to get rid of us.

It was not about the money and would have happily paid, we just wanted to the meal we booked well in advance and to have not waited for 1 hour and 30 minutes before...