Barrel & Grain

We went to this restaurant on July 4th after trying to get into other nearby restaurants and couldn't because of the lengthy wait. When we arrived we were told by the hostess that we could be seated right away and served our meal before the fireworks. I guess because the place was empty we should have figured something was wrong but decided to give it a try.

We sat down and our waiter came over and greeted us. We noticed right away his hygiene needed attention badly. His hair was long and greasy, he was sweating and actually had an odor. We should have at that point got up and left but we didn't.  

We ordered our drinks and waited about 15 minutes before seeing our drinks or the waiter to order. He dropped the drinks off and said he would be right back. I tasted my tea and it was flavored tea , which I don't like. I had to go hunting for our waiter to change it out and he basically ignored me so I asked the hostess to help me. She returned again with flavored tea. When he finally came back over to take our order (30 min now) I told him about the tea, he suggested one of their soft drinks instead. I took it because that was basically all they had other than beer. We ordered our dinner and waited and waited and waited. It was now becoming funny. One hour later we received our meal BUT, someone else brought it to the table as our waiter was now ignoring us completely. The food was NOT good. We order fried jalapenos , hamburger ( that came out without the bun !! ) BBQ sandwich and fries. The ketchup is tomato paste out of the can. The Jalapenos were soggy and greasy. The hamburger was 9 dollar peice of overcooked meat with lettuce and tomato on top of it. The only half way decent thing was the cole slaw. We didn't even eat half of it. The bill was 47.00 dollars.

While we were in this restaurant, we witnessed our waiter constantly palming his nose ( no joke ) , we also witnessed him constantly taking his hand and wiping the sweat off his head. AND never washed his hands. We wanted to leave after we saw this , but figured we would have to pay for food that we didn't get due to ordering already. We were hungry and figured due it being July 4th we wouldn't get to eat if we left.

My husband woke up this morning July 5th with food poisoning. I would never recommend this place to anyone! Matter of fact, it should be shut down due to health issues with that one waiter alone!

If you like gastropubs, this is the place for you. Fresh, unique, high quality appetizers (try the Brie sticks), beautifully prepared entrees, and over 50 beers on tap with even more in bottles (Including the good stuff, like Southern Tier Choklat and Creme Brûlée). This place is great for craft beer lovers and all varieties of beer geeks. To top it all off, they have a couple of the best dessert items I've had in a long time: Bacon & Maple Sweet Waffles and Vanilla Bread Pudding! They're both mouthwatering. I definitely recommend giving this place a try, if even it's just for a beer or cocktail.

This is going to be a quick fast review. My friends brought me there for their Happy Hour, which appears to be everyday 3-7. Great selection of beers, they are definitely keeping up on the latest drinking trends. In regards to the beer, my only criticism is basically on glassware. You have to serve certain beers in certain glasses. You can't serve a stout in a goblet. The proper glass is a pint. There are many little standards like that. You wouldn't serve a glass of Pommard in a plastic cup, would you?  

In terms of food, we ate some deep fried oysters and some truffle fries. The fries were the standard presentation for Truffle fries, and the oysters were excellent. Normally, it is hard to deep fry mollusks, they usually come out really tough. I can't recall how many times I've eaten calamari and deep fried clams that are like eating a bunch of rubber bands.  However, their oysters were so tender, they fall apart in your mouth.

Please come out to Barrel and Grain and enjoy yourselves.