Harvest View Family Restaurant - REVISITED

THIS RESTAURANT HAS BEEN RE-REVIEWED ON JULY 11, 2008 AND HAS RECEIVED A POSITIVE REVIEW. PLEASE READ THAT CURRENT REVIEW FOR A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF THIS RESTAURANT.

PLEASE FOLLOW THIS LINK TO THE CURRENT REVIEW -

CURRENT REVIEW.


A year ago in July 2006 I reviewed a restaurant in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania called the Harvest View Family Restaurant. The restaurant opened in the location of a former buffet restaurant that had the same name. At the time my review of this new restaurant was not great. Following the posting of my article, a comment was left by one of out readers stating that the restaurant had improved. I always meant to go back and find out and this night we decided to do so.

Man, did we make the wrong decision! The restaurant did not improve - it got worse. As we drove to the restaurant we passed two other buffets that we know and the parking lots were packed. We got to the restaurant parking lot and there were just a few cars. This is the day after the Fourth of July and this tourist area is buzzing. We walked into the restaurant and the reception area was deserted. There is a paper sign that says to enter the upper dining room and seat yourself. I look ahead toward the dining room and it looks empty. I asked my wife if we should even bother to go in. We were there so we went on. In the dining room a waitress approached us and told us to sit anywhere. There were four other tables occupied in the large room. We picked a table and realized that there was a large table fan behind us blowing. We moved to another table and saw one more similar fan blowing in the room. There was no air conditioning running - just these fans - on July 5th!

Once seated we were told by the same waitress to go and help ourselves and what did we want to drink. No menus - this has been and is advertised as having both buffet and menu dining. What is more - no prices visible anywhere for the buffet. Ok. We ordered our soft drinks and then went up to the serving bar for soup. There was one soup - beef vegetable and there was little of it in the serving tureen. I place soup in a cup and felt no heat coming through to my hand holding the cup. I knew right away that this soup was not hot. I also glanced over to the entrees and see a very washed out looking single piece of fried chicken and two pieces of pale barbecued chicken. All very unappetizing. Back at the table I tasted the soup and I was right - it was just room temperature - not a very healthy thing for soup that will grow bacteria if it is not kept hot (as any health inspector will tell you). Beyond the temperature, the soup was thin, weak, and watery with little, if any flavor of vegetable soup.

I now overhear a conversation between a woman at another table and the waitress. The woman ordered hot tea. She was brought a tea bag for decaffeinated tea. She told the waitress that she wanted regular tea and the waitress told her that they only have decaf tea. Odd. Usually you can only get regular tea and not decaf tea. This was presented as though all that is served here is decaf tea. The woman was not happy.

We followed the soup with the salad bar which had basic lettuce and toppings with a poor variety of dressings. Beyond its lack of variety the salad bar was ok - salads are supposed to be cold so they had no problem here.

We went up for our main course. There were seven vegetables - corn, wax beans, carrots, lima beans, and peas PLUS a mixture of the corn and limas to make succotash and all of the vegetables together to make mixed vegetables. Why mix what is already there? There were two types of potatoes - lumpy, pasty mashed potatoes (that were probably fresh and not from a mix, but not very well made) and small roasted potatoes. Meats came next and while what they were supposed to be, would be good - they were not. There was meatloaf that had to have been commercially made and they covered it in tomato sauce. It was much too dense and formed for a homemade or even restaurant made meatloaf and resembled what I have seen sold pre-cooked at local meat counters. There was a local dish called pork and kraut. This is supposed to be pieces of pork loin cooked and served with sauerkraut. This was not pork loin but chunks of sausage meat - not sausage, but the chopped meat inside, mixed with the sauerkraut. I have eaten this local favorite many times in many local restaurants and have never had one like this. Then there was turkey and roast beef. The turkey was a deli turkey breast - the formed, composite turkey ball found at some deli counters. It had been heated and put out in thick slices in a broth. The roast beef was paper thin slices of tasteless delicatessen roast beef - right from the deli counter and thrown in a beef broth. There were also barbecue meatballs - little meatballs in barbecue sauce. By now two new trays of chicken had been brought out - fried chicken and chicken covered in barbecue sauce. (I will get to these later.) Also in the meats was pieces of grilled steak sitting in a broth. I must say, that of everything these little pieces of steak were actually tasty.

Despite steam coming from the serving tables, NOTHING was hot. Everything was just warm or near cold. Now, about the chicken. At the table next to us the gentleman called the waitress over. He told her that the barbecue chicken was raw - bloody inside. She offered to get him another piece from the same serving tray and he told her that this was the second piece that he took and both were equally RAW. She offered to get the cook, who came out. He listened to the man's comment about the chicken and politely thanked him for telling him that the chicken was raw. The man was very well mannered and not angry. Yet, all he got was a thank you from the chef. No offer to cook it more. (No offer to make it right with dinner on the house or even a discount.) These people at the table next to us barely ate anything. The waitresses comment to them was that she doesn't do the cooking. Hearing all of this I was about to cut into my fried chicken drumstick. I did so cautiously and, yes, it was undercooked as well. Undercooked and bloody chicken can make you very, very sick! The cook did not take the tray of raw barbecue chicken away right off. He came back a short while later and whisked the tray back to the kitchen, perhaps finally realizing that he was about to poison everyone.

The vegetables were watery and there was an odd taste to the wax beans. I want to say it was some type of a cleanser taste - bleach??? I am not sure, but it was not good.

Taste and temperature aside, the variety was poor. Restaurants in this area often have noodles - none here - and some type of fish dish - again, none here. Yet, does that really matter with everything else so poor.

There is a dessert table that had three of the same chocolate cake, a few other cakes that were partially left, some fruit, puddings, and jello. There is a cold server with slices of pie and there is an ice cream freezer with Turkey Hill (name brand) ice cream. Other than the variety the dessert was ok.

Service was marginal. With practically no one in the room, this single waitress for the whole restaurant took a long time to clear the dirty plates off the table. She never offered refills of drinks and we never got any.

It seemed that there were four or five people working in the entire restaurant. They did come out and refill trays, but it never was hot. Most buffets have someone come around the serving trays with a thermometer and make sure the temperatures are properly hot. Someone needs to let this restaurant know about the practice. (Perhaps, I just did.) My wife kept saying to me that it is as if amateurs decided to try to run a restaurant - and not do it too well.

This restaurant location was always known for its farmland view and it still has that - that is all that it has. I am not sure how they are remaining in business. The couple at the table next to us left in disgust. When the waitress asked us how everything was I told her- and I, too, got an apology with a shrug.

I must say that the restaurant seemed clean. There were candle type electric chandeliers lighting the room and at least two were missing bulbs - not that there were burned out light bulbs - there were missing light bulbs. And there were the large fans blowing around the room.

DO NOT GO TO THE HARVEST VIEW FAMILY RESTAURANT. There are many other great buffets in this area. This was the second worst buffet meal that I have ever had. I am going to be specific about where this is so you will know what to avoid. The Harvest View Family Restaurant is located on Harvest Road in Intercourse, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is off Route 340 where you will see signs at the road to turn down. There are many ads in local tourist publications that would lead you to believe that this restaurant is many nice things that IT IS NOT!

I wanted to like this restaurant - I like the view. Too bad!