A DINER said his family celebration meal was ruined when a waitress stuck her fingers into his jacket potato.

Ben Smith, 31, went out for dinner with 14 relatives on Sunday night so his heavily pregnant sister-in-law could reveal the gender of her baby to the family.

But their celebration at the Robins Farm restaurant in Swindon was ruined after numerous blunders led to them demanding a refund along with six other tables.

The family arrived at about 6pm and ended up waiting two-and-a-half hours for any of their dishes to arrive, while Ben's two-year-old nephew and five-year-old niece grew hungry and restless.

When the waitress finally served Ben and his wife their meals – steak with a jacket potato and salad – they weren't up to scratch.

Ben's wife was given steak and chips and his jacket potato was frozen in the middle.

"The waitress said 'Oh no worries I'll go and change it'," said Ben.

She changed the dishes but returned with a steak and salad and no jacket potato – and Ben's steak was stone cold.

"I cut into the jacket potato and it was like ice," said Ben.

"It was frozen and hard inside."

Meanwhile, Ben's father-in-law had sent his dish back because it wasn't hot enough.

The couple were then approached by a pair eating at a table next to the kitchen, who dropped a bombshell.

"A bloke from across the room came over with his wife and said 'You do know what's happened to your food, don't you?'," said Ben.

The customer told him the waitress had been chewing her nails in the kitchen waiting to take the food to his table and a staff member had asked her to check if it was hot enough.

She then stuck her fingers into the jacket potato, the man told him.

"I was obviously shocked," said Ben, who lives in Hannington.

A horde of customers then descended upon staff asking for refunds in the fully-booked restaurant.

Ben and his family had planned to eat a cake they had brought for after the meal, but they ended up quickly slicing it up on the table littered with uneaten food.

A mass exodus from the restaurant happened at 9pm as disgruntled customers reached the end of their tether.

Half of Ben's group ended up eating at the local Harvester and those who had children were forced to buy them food at McDonald's and get them home to bed in time for school the next day.

Ben, who had been served cold food at Robins Farm before, hadn't been keen on going to the restaurant again, but it was his sister-in-law's special celebration so he agreed to give it another try.

She is six months pregnant and expecting a baby boy.

After his shocking experience, Ben says he will never go back again.

"We always go for a meal on Sunday for a family get together but it was just sloppy service," he said.

"It was supposed to be something special but it was ruined."

The restaurant came under fire in April last year when customer Charlotte Wyatt reported that her roast dinner was so rotten it smelt like vomit.

She had been at the pub in Blunsdon with ten others when she and two others were served the putrid-smelling dish.

Robins Farm is part of the Farmhouse Inns chain owned by brewery Greene King and received a five star environmental health rating in 2016.

A spokesperson for Robins Farm said: “We take customer feedback extremely seriously and are sorry to hear of Mr Smith’s complaint. When he raised concerns about the meals on the night we apologised and issued his table a full refund. We had a lot of customers in that night and informed all diners there was a slight delay.”