Seriously? - Harvester festival.

Seeing as I had an extra 50p this week I decided to treat the family to a slap up Sunday roast dinner at a local eatery. We usually frequent a local pub called The Broadway however this is currently undergoing a refurbishment in the hope they can reopen for Christmas. This left us with little choice and the wife suggested 'The Nickelodeon' which while being under the same banner as the Broadway is a pretty poor 52nd in my opinion and that opinion was about to be confirmed!

The Nickelodeon looks really nice from the outside and is located on a canal which is very pleasant in the summer. The inside is open plan, I've never been a fan of large open plan pubs when it comes to eating. It sort of reminds me of dinner halls or factory canteens, anyway the family sat down and I went to the bar to place my order. A nice enough girl with either a broken arm or at least a badly sprained one attempted to serve us. The general system is you find a table, go to the bar with your table number, order your food and pay for it and then some underpaid overworked 16 year old or AOP brings it to you.

⛹ Me: "Can I have four coffees please?"

☕ Bar girl: "I'm afraid the coffee machine is broken"

⛹ Me: "Erm? what about tea?"

☕ Bar girl: "You should be OK, I think its still doing hot water."

⛹ Me: "OK four teas then."

☕ Bar girl: "Oh someone has used the pots for making hot chocolate I'll just go and wash them."

So I've still not ordered any food yet and a small queue has started to form behind me.

☕ Bar girl: "I cant get the pots clean I'll have to make it in mugs is that OK?"

⛹ Me: "Yes fine."

☕ Bar girl: "Oh the water is not very hot, would you like to order something else?"

⛹ Me: "Four J2O's please."

Never mind that its pigging freezing outside and I really wanted a hot drink!

☕ Bar girl: "What would you like to eat?"

⛹ Me: "Can I have 3 roast beef dinners and a steak and ale pie but with roast potatoes instead of mash."

☕ Bar girl: "Oh I'm not sure we can do that its not on the menu you see."

⛹ Me: "Can you ask please? all they have to do is not put mash potato on the plate and put roasts potato's on instead."

☕ Bar girl: "Tut, I'll put it down as chips."

⛹ Me: "Cool."

☕ Bar girl: "Do you want to go large? Its only an extra £1 per dinner."

⛹ Me: "Yes please."

Off I scurried back to my table trying to avoid the bottles, bricks and death threats from the three mile queue that had now formed behind me. After a short while our food arrived the waitress placed mine (The Steak & Ale pie) and one roast beef dinner down and tootled off to get the remaining two.

⛹ Me: "I did order an extra boat of gravy?"

⚢ Waitress: "Oh I'll just go and fetch it"

This should have been a warning to me to be honest but I was so hungry by now I started to tuck in.

⛹ Me: "Hang on where's your extra Yorkshire pudding?"

♕ Wife: "Oh should there be?"

⛹ Me: "Yeah I paid for you all to go large its only a £1 each but that's not the point"

I called the waitress over.

⛹ Me: "Excuse me I paid for 'large' but the roast beef dinners all only have one Yorkshire pudding?"

⚢ Waitress: "Oh I'll get some."

⛹ Me: "Thanks."

⚘ Daughter: "Dad, we should have two sausages and extra stuffing with extra veg. I only have four Roast potatoes?"

⛹ Me: "It would seem you have not given us the large meals I paid for?"

⚢ Waitress: "Well you do have the 'large' plates?"

⛹ Me: "Yes but I think you've put the standard meals on them?"

⚢ Waitress: "I'll get the chef."

⛹ Me: "Great!"

⛾ Chef: "I'm sorry I've made a mistake, would you like me to bring you the bits you're missing?"

⛹ Me: "Not really we've nearly finished now!"

⛾ Chef: "Oh! How about I give you a couple of Walls Viennetta's to take home with you?"

⛹ Me: "What? Er? Yeah OK whatever."

I was totally bemused by now and just wanted to get out of the place so we finished up and clutching a single ice cream left the pub.

⚘ Daughter: "I thought we was supposed to have two Viennetta's?"

⛹ Me: "Just get in the car!"

What can I say?

Originally Posted: 29/11/2010

Pete