The chain, set up by Courage Brewery to compete with Whitbread's Beefeater restaurants and Grand Metropolitan's Berni Inns,[1] is currently run by Mitchells & Butlers.

In 2008, it bought 44 more standalone Beefeater and Brewers Fayre sites, in exchange for 21 Express by Holiday Inn hotels.

[5] On 31 July 2008, Harvester was featured on an episode of the BBC One show Rogue Restaurants and was shown to be operating without regard to certain food hygiene regulations.

[6] For the first time in ten years, Harvester Restaurants spent nearly £20,000 on advertising on both television in the United Kingdom, and radio stations in July 2010.

The advertising campaign was part of a general shift within Mitchells & Butlers, to focus on businesses that were food led.