Harvester Whiteley — Restaurant in Winchester

Ventured to the Harvester in Whitley as our dog was at the groomers locally so thought I’d take my mother for breakfast. The woman who sat us down was lovely, very attentive and welcoming sat us down and told us our server would be with us shortly.

Our waitress arrived “Sophie” and didn’t we know it her whole body language from the get go way awful, stood sideways, arms crossed holding into her tablet. She proceeded to ask if we have any allergies which my mother is allergic to eggs so Sophie stated she needed to go talk to someone to let them know and she left. She came back and was like “now the kitchen know, what would you actually like?” Now from my experience working in hospitality a “what can I get you?” Would’ve been a more customer friendly approach.

My mother asked for the classic breakfast to swap her eggs as she can’t have them to either bacon, sausage or hash brown extra. Which we have done recently in the harvester by us. Now I understand this is a harvester rule but it should be followed in all restaurants and not different in other as we won’t encounter this issue again… or bring back the unlimited breakfast as you can’t expect someone to physically not be able to eat something I.e eggs and not be able to replace it for something else and still pay the same price it’s not right or acceptable.

Sophie’s attitude was disgustingly rude.. she was like “no can’t do that” my mum said “well our harvester does” and Sophie continued “no all harvesters can’t” she wasn’t getting the customer perspective of it’s happened in other harvesters so why can’t Whitley harvester, there was no reasoning whatsoever, no customer understanding she was so rude and abrupt.

My mother then asked to speak to the manager, she left I told my mother I wasn’t eating in there based on her attitude. Sophie walked over the manager which we could see and hear majority of the conversation. Sophie said to the manager “the woman over there is allergic to eggs she’s asked to swap I told her she can’t… she wants to speak to a manger she’s sat over there” her hands were flapping and head was shaking her attitude was awful at least do it in private not right in front of us, disgraceful behaviour.

The manager proceeded to come over he was rather lovely and tried to explain… but understanding is hard when other harvesters do swap things out… however his staff member Sophie was just awful and her work ethic was unacceptable and behaviour and attitude towards customers was appalling.

Ended up walking out because Sophie was disgustingly rude, unwelcoming and full of attitude. Will not be returning.

After this we went to harvester in Fareham where the woman was rather friendly and allowed to swap the eggs for extra mushroom and even allowed me to swap my beans for mushroom, excellent service and...

Really disappointed because it used to be great here.

Foods fine but we ordered on the app. Nothing between the app and the staff working informs anybody that you're ready for dessert and since you ordered on the app, it seems nobody asks if you want dessert. I waited 10 minutes finishing the main and asked a waitress who had just finished dealing with complaint to another customer. Times running out on car park.

Anyway we waited after letting the staff know we had finished and were waiting on desserts and she called another staff over who asked the kitchen about it. Literally 30 minutes passed and I cannot take sitting there waiting having already been waiting just to let someone know we are waiting. So we got up to leave and on leaving I mentioned the dessert never arrived. It took longer than the main courses which came in good time...

The lady was very kind in going straight to the kitchen to get the desserts for us herself and we appreciate her good efforts. She was a good member on the team however looking over at the kitchen, the chefs were way ahead on the orders as the shelf was packed with ready food.... and at the entrance 4 members of staff leaning on the top giggling and having a chat??? OK so we see where the problem is here and it's not main waitress who enthusiastic and kind, and it's not the chefs who had all the food ready waiting.... If other waiters don't want to do their job, they shouldn't be there.

Sadly we won't be back here after this experience. The nice waitress was really rushing around to do everything alone, but she knows who she is for getting the dessert for us...

Appalling meal and service last night. Booked table months ago, had to wait 10mins for them to sort a table.

Once seated we had a long wait before our young female server came back to take our drinks order and food order.

She had forgotten one of the drinks.

Starter came (festive menu) the 4 of us chose the mushroom starter. It was lukewarm but the bowl was really hot. I ate 2 mushrooms and the 3rd was stone cold, so I sent it back to the kitchen.

We then waited more than 20 mins for our main course. 2 of us had the mushroom galette tart. Well, that was lukewarm, roasted carrots cold, broccoli, hardly cooked, (worse than al'dente) peas cold, the only thing that was piping hot were the roast potatoes. We had to ask for the sauce tgat came eith our dish as it didn't come out with our food. Yep, you guessed it, that was cold to!?

Our server, didn't ask if "everything was OK" or if we "needed anything else" The other 2 meals were, not hot enough!

Our desserts came, a tiny, tiny piece of xmas pudding, the only thing at the right temperature were the custard and ice cream.

They came with the bill (we didnt ask for it, or were we asked if we wanted further drinks)... We split the bill 4 ways and added our tip. The poor lass couldn't work out the final payment so my friend had to intervene on the card payment machine! We will not be going back! I know some people may have had a lovely experience, as we have in the past but this time round it was not. We won't...