Harvester Cardiff Bay Penarth — Restaurant in Wales

In a covid world, the all you can eat buffet still works, it's just different 😁

Proper fancied a massive breakfast blowout so jumped online and booked myself a table at my local Harvester. Arrived, booking was there and was shown to a table and menu by a lovely woman. She asked if I'd been before and I hadn't so she explained that hot food is cooked to order and she'd take that from me when I'd had chance to look at the menu. The continental bar was there for cold foods and unlimited but the staff would get it for you instead and she told me what was on that.

Ordered cereal, crumpets, toast and yoghurt for round one and she brought that straight away for me, then took my hot food order. Not a long wait at all, I'd say about 10 minutes which is perfect when you're plowing through your coco pops. Cooked food was great, bacon was really good and tried 1x pork and 1x vegan sausage, both good but the vegan one was quite sagey, a bit like a stuffing ball you'd get on your cooked dinner. Not for me, but not a bad thing anyway.

The woman serving me came back to clear the plates and took my second order, I asked for yoghurts and crumpets again and this time asked if there was jam available, so that came too. Second hot plate was good, treated myself to chips because why the hell not. Bacon and eggs were great again. Asked for ketchup and I forgot to use it. I think the theme with them getting everything for you is that you just have to ask if they have it. They can't reel off every menu or condiment item for you, just ask for what you want and they'll tell you if they have it.

I'd fancied something a bit sweeter than jam so I asked if there was chocolate sauce or pastries of any kind and there wasn't, but I asked so that was ok.

They didn't have hot chocolate available which was a shame so I just stuck with water, did have to chase that up just once as it'd been forgotten and food arrived before the water but came straight away then.

All in all a good experience in my opinion, for £7.99 for all this food how could you possibly complain? Restaurant was clean and tidy, hand sanitiser available, one way system in place. Toilets were clean. As they get everything for you there were no people bustling about or queses at the continental section so it was great....

From the moment we entered it was bad, the queue to get in was massive and not a great atmosphere at all. I had booked a table for 2pm, we got there around 1:55pm and was made to wait 20 minutes before getting a table. There was a family of 3 behind us that were very rude and kept pestering the staff to find them a table even though they hadn’t booked. I had told them my reservation and the man at the desk said yes your table will be ready in 5 minutes which I didn’t mind waiting as it was busy but 20 minutes after the family of 3 got their table before us, I went to complain to the man that we were first and had booked a table in the restaurant for him to tell us oh your table is ready, you must have been in the toilet which we hadn’t we had been waiting all that time in front of him, there was no mention of an apology and we were then shown a table in the bar when I had requested to sit in the restaurant which was even more off putting as the family of 3 had their table in the restaurant! We sat down but with 2 young boys that had been waiting for a long time I asked one of the waitresses if we could have the salad bowl so I could get my children some food, to be then told that’s not the rule you have to order first but I said we had been waiting for a long time for no reason and hadn’t been seen yet, the waitress did eventually get me 2 bowls for my boys. We then went on to order our food and drinks, drinks came out fast which was great but me and my husband never had our salad bowls so I had to get them myself again (even though we had followed the rule of ordering first). We got our salad and sat down and found that we didn’t have any cutlery which I then had to go and ask for cutlery as well (not happy at all). We waited for our dinner which by now was around 2:45pm, when it arrived both my sons food was ok and my husband enjoyed his but mine was very over cooked (picture attached) my chicken was black and very dry. I’ve got to say we usually go to Harvesters thinking that we always have a lovely time and delicious food but this Harvester was quite disgusting, rude staff, burnt dinner, laid our own table and no soap in the toilet! I will not be recommending this place to anyone. Very disappointing 😞 Not even an apology or a way of...

A table was booked for four people for Mother’s Day. It was booked for 2pm. When we arrived our table wasn’t ready so we had about a 10 minute wait. When we were eventually sat down we all decided that we were going to go for the Mother’s Day menu. This was priced at £24:99 per person. We put our order in and before we knew it our starters were there. That wasn’t to bad but then we had about a half an hour wait for our main meals. Two people had the half of chicken and both were ordered with bbq sauce but no sauce arrived. The steak was supposed to be cooked medium but most of it was just too tough to chew. We weren’t even given a call back to check if everything was okay. The empty main course plates were left on the table for about 20 minutes. Then the desserts arrived which were probably the best part of the meal. When we got the bill we paid by car but then when we got back to the car we realised that we had been overcharged. We went back in to question it and were told that that was the price and that was that. My husband then contacted head office with regards to this and was told that a complaint would go into the manager and we would hear by Thursday. Thursday came and no contact from the restaurant. When my husband rang the restaurant he was told that the manager would be in by 6pm and he would then give us a call. Did this happen…not at all. When my husband did phone the restaurant he was being called”darling and love” by the colleague that answered. This is not the way to talk to customers. The head office have been contacted again and they said they would contact the restaurant and get them to call us but yet again this hasn’t happened. I can’t believe the service that we have had from the restaurant to head office it has been a total disgrace. This meal was booked as a Mother’s Day treat for my mum who has terminal cancer and also for me as I have not long got outta hospital with organ failure. To be over charged,totally bad service from everyone and just a total...