Fowler House Cafe

We walked into this place and it smelt like bad fish. We chalked this up to a recently cooked piece of fish and made a mental note to steer clear of the seafood options...but who goes to a restaurant with a sports bar attached for quality seafood? Also, at 8:30pm on a Friday night the restaurant was a ghost town and the bar was half full with mostly regulars.

The menu is huge with almost too many options...from burgers, to wings, to pasta options, to steak tips, to pizzas, to seafood entrees, ect. Variety is nice, however when a menu is this expansive it is impossible that everything on the menu is ordered frequently.  Then, because the inventory isn't turned over quickly enough, food sits in the freezer or pantry and becomes stale. I would rather see a menu with 15 - 20 items that are freshly prepared than several pages of frozen mediocrity. Most of the appetizers (French fries, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, ect.) are all frozen, nothing fresh.

I ordered a Caesar salad and my wife ordered a cheeseburger club. My salad was clearly pre-made and must have been sitting in a refrigerator for hours. The dish was ice cold and the lettuce was wilted and the croutons were a soggy mush. Furthermore, the salad was dowsed with so much dressing it was dripping off the fork. The frozen hamburger patty in my wife's cheeseburger club was clearly freezer burnt (or worse) and had to be sent back as it was uneatable. My wife then substituted her order with a Caesar salad that was clearly freshly made as her lettuce was crisp, her croutons were crunchy and it was appropriately dressed. Both of us ordered the same item and had drastically different dishes.

The one bright spot was our server who was polite, responsive and apologetic. She didn't make us feel bad for sending the cheeseburger back. Also, to be fair she did ask if my salad was OK and I didn't say anything...but at that point we were just looking to get on our way.

I believe the Fowler House would be well served by trimming down their menu and focusing on the items they do well...which seemed to be their pizzas which looked quite tasty.

Odd thing to notice, but our Guinness got poured way too fast! Appreciate the quick service but...it's a Guinness. Maybe we're too picky!

My sister and I have been going here every few weeks for a few months now. We sit in the restaurant area so we can talk, and we appreciate that it is separate from the sports bar section. I don't mind the tvs and fun, but  we get together to chat with each other.
 Once seated, we have had consistently wonderful service from the staff.
The food has also been great! Steak tips have a lot of flavor, and I love the way they roast the vegetables. We make room for dessert whether we have room or not, so we may bring that home, but it is good! The bread pudding and lemon cake have been my faves so far, while my sister's is the chocolate cake.
  I am not an adventurous food type. I like my food cooked, and I like to see what it is. Fowler House does both of those things. It also has good flavoring, which I read in some previous reviews was not the case. Maybe things have changed for the better, but it's a good place to go to watch the games, socialize, and relax.
 In case some people are not into having children around, this is a family place and there are kids eating, too. Enjoy them. Life is short:)