Hartland's Bar — Restaurant in Rock Hill

I suppose that I should preface by saying that I still find it befuddling how people in this area can completely overlook horrible service and mediocre food simply because the manager speaks to them and acts like they've been lifelong friends. I should also preface that this establishment is likely owned by the same people who own Charanda's on the other end of the strip and the manager at Hartland's was once a manager at that Charanda's.

Now that I have gotten the disclaimers out of the way, I'd like to take a moment to actually review Hartland's.

Environment - I found the decor at this restaurant both welcoming and attractive. There's a rustic and urban feel to the place from the wooden pallets adorning the walls and partitions to the metal chairs and well done bar area. There's several TVs peppering the restaurant but it's in no way overboard as has been done in other restaurants. The music throughout, while not my typical type, was at a tactful volume and didn't take away from either the food or the atmosphere. While I'm aware that the restaurant is still new and only recently opened, everything was well cleaned and in order. If this review was exclusive to the environment, I'd give a full 5 stars.

Food - I found our order's creation time quite reasonable and well within the normal range for similar restaurants. We ordered a burger with fries, Heartland's Nachos and a child's grilled cheese with tater tots. My burger was a little overcooked from the medium I requested but was still quite tasty. Fries were well cooked and not overly salted. The child's grilled cheese and tater tots were the highlight of the dinner as both were good and arrived hot. The Hartland's Nachos were none of the good things from above: they arrived on "lattice potato chips" that appeared to be straight from a bag, the pulled pork had no real flavor and the entire dish arrived lukewarm and even a bit cold in areas. The second batch they brought was considerably hotter but no more tasty. As what I would consider a condolence prize, they allowed us to pick a dessert for free rather than simply reducing the price of the meal since my wife had to eat by herself after the second coming of the nachos. The red velvet cupcakes were on par with grocery store bakery variety and tasted of freezer.

Service - as I alluded to at the beginning of this review, service in this restaurant is far below acceptable. Our waitress only arrived to our table to take our order, to bring half of the meal and later to do the closing song and dance such as a last drink fill-up, bring the check, and offer the dessert at the request of the manager. I sat for more than half of my meal with an empty glass while 4 servers STOOD IDLY at the front desk talking. My own waitress passed my table twice and never slowed to address us or look at my empty glass sitting on the end of the table. Eventually, I flagged down the hostess and requested that she tell our waitress that I was indeed in need of a refill. She happily took my glass for me and gave the refill herself. It took the overly friendly manager coming by the table 5-10 minutes after the food arrived to ask if everything was acceptable in order for us to finally tell someone that the nachos were cold and not edible.

You can be my buddy, shake my hand and give everyone hugs but none of that makes up for completely absentee wait staff and only passable food.

I have no intention to give Hartland's another try with so many quality local restaurants...

Great food! Definitely get your money's worth Update - went again last night and service was awful. Only 2 of us, seated around 745. Server got our drinks and was taking our order - didn't know what the BOM was - like even what it meant. We asked her to find out. She went to the kitchen for a while, came back out, got drinks for a table seated after us, and took their order. We had to flag her down to get her to come back to us - had forgotten to find out what the burger was and apparentlyforgotten to even get our order, so we ordered other listed food. This was about 8. Got appetizer in decent time. Around 820 she says our food is almost ready. Great! At 830 we ask about it. "We're really busy, and online orders, and door dash". We finally get our food at 845. Brought by manager (guessing?) He was rude and said "the ticket says the order was put in at 820" ... fine, but we ordered at 8. Refused to find out what happened, pretty much denied any responsibility. Most likely the server forgot to put our order in until she told us it was almost ready. Told another table (5 people I think) who were seated around 830 the same about "being busy", but their food was brought out about 5 mins after ours. Another table ordered a pie when she brought their check, she was to add it to the check and had the card to charge them. She brought back the receipts, but no pie. They sat there for about 15 mins waiting before the manager (?) asked if they were ok. They say they're waiting for a slice of pie. He immediately goes back and immediately comes back out saying they don't have that type of pie. So this server was just really slacking all around. I don't believe customers are always right, but at least find out what happened instead of disregarding what the customer is telling you about the server. We'll give it some time before we come back, and hopefully it will...

Great food and atmosphere! It was very clean. This was my first visit and I definitely will return soon. We were greeted upon entering and was able to choose a seat promptly. The servers were very friendly. I dined with my significant other and his cousin. We ordered two appetizers, buffalo hush puppies and Mac n cheese bites. Both were pretty good. The dipping sauce that came with the Mac n cheese bites was delicious. We enjoyed the buffalo hush puppies. Deliciously covered with buffalo sauce topped with bleu cheese crumbles and green onions. I thought they tasted like chicken bites. I ordered the Tavern Salad with added grilled chicken and raspberry vinaigrette dressing. I was skeptical about my choice of dressing with this salad but it paired great with it. The salad was delicious and huge! I had to get a to-go box. My S.O. ordered the pull pork sandwich with tater tots. The pulled pork was AMAZING! The sauce was delicious! He said his tater tots was too hard for his liking but he enjoyed the pork. His cousin (also a first time visitor) ordered a Caesar Salad with grilled chicken, double the meat. His salad was so big, he could only eat half of it and he’s a big guy. As first time guests, we were both very impressed with food and service. We were also happy the cost the meal didn’t ruin the experience. Everything was reasonably priced and the service was great! We weren’t too thrilled about the wait for our food but that was quickly remedied once our meals arrived. It was definitely worth the wait. Besides, we were really hungry and impatient. Also, it was lunchtime on a Friday. I will definitely return with friends...