The Lodge on the Fox

This place has a lot of potential! But I think it struggles to decide what it wants to be.
We used to go when it was the Outpost and enjoyed it, and decided to try it as The Lodge. First of all- it looks like it is closed. No bar signs or decoration in view from the street. The screened in patio looks like is completely empty (or abandoned) and is showing some disrepair.

After seeing people inside, we realized it was open and decided to give it a try. We walked in to a live band  that was so loud we couldn't hear the hostess. We had to point to the screened in patio to let her know we wanted to get away from the music!

The crowd seemed very young (maybe fans of the band?) As we sat on the patio we were exposed to the young crowd swearing and talking loudly as they went outside to smoke-standing 10 yards from where we were sitting. Nobody at the restaurant seemed to care. It's details like that that will kill a business.

The waitress seemed nice enough, but seemed like her hands were tied by the lack of quality the owners are putting out. I felt a bit sorry for her.

The beer list is great, but can't carry a restaurant. The food was so-so. I had the ribs and chicken special- the chicken was dry and the ribs were very fatty. My son had a burger, which he said was "OK", my wife had the wings, which again was "OK" with an overly sweetened ice tea. When she ask for a sprite instead- she was brought  seltzer only without the sprite. Other customers (who had kids) who had to flee to the deck because of the overly loud band we saying much of the same as we were. We left feeling like we had made a bad choice, and couldn't imaging going back. What a shame. As we left, the band had quit playing (they were all standing out side in the parking lot just feet away from the screened in patio), we noticed the place was pretty empty inside. I thought was- was it worth alienating customers to fit a band into such a small space?

I really want to like this place, but they are going to have a hard time getting customers to come back if they make customers feel like they are the outsiders and can't put out a quality experience on a consistent basis. The thought I kept having as  I sat at the restaurant was that this is the perfect restaurant to feature on Goron Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares! Too bad, Batavia deserves better.

Oh wow is this place run bad. Just went with my family for $2 burgers, sounded enticing. We were seated among 3 other tables and a few locals at the bar. My somewhat virgin eared mother quickly criticized the music as Crazy B*tch by Buckcherry came on (it's 6:30 pm). I was surprised the family of young children didn't freak out more as well. After 10 minutes the waiter came out and asked what we would like to drink. Another 10 minutes for our waters and beer to be delivered. 40 minutes for our appetizer to come out, 20 more minutes for our food which came out wrong. We asked if the wings had to be plucked and butchered from the chicken, to which the waiter strangely agreed upon.

Overall the food was pretty good, the beer wasn't skunked, and we made it the best we could entertaining ourselves. Would I go back? Not unless I ordered ahead, although others seem to have had no luck with that approach either.

In short, food was decent, horrendous service ruined anything it had going for it.

I've now been here about three times.  The only time we had good service was during their soft-open week . The other times service was just plain bad. The second time we went our appetizer order was messed up, our entrees took forever. When we asked about why the service was that bad, we were told they were understaffed.  Third time we went, we were one of two tables in the dining room.  Our drinks took almost ten minutes, and we were only drinking iced tea and lemonade. Waitress took our order but did not write it down and came back twice to clarify something we ordered.  My pasta side dish was cold and the chicken Marsala was only so-so.  I know they are focusing on burgers and BBQ but shouldn't mean everything else falls to pieces.  I really want to like them as their prices and selection are great, but the mediocre food and poor service are making it hard if not impossible.