Brown Bridge Pub — Restaurant in Princeton

Pulling through town after a hike of several hours with a 4 hour drive home ahead of us. Initially, we pulled into the parking lot at Billy’s (next door) but we decided to try the Brown Bridge Pub instead. WE MESSED UP.

When we arrived, our party of five was seated quickly. The restaurant was close to capacity, but it’s not large and the tables seemed very far apart (due to COVID, I’d guess).

Anyway, a pleasant server came by and asked about drinks, which didn’t take long to arrive. I guess the server was busy taking other orders, so we didn’t see her for a bit. No big deal.

When she did come back, she explained that if we wanted to order food we had to do so right away because at 7:30pm the menu was switching to appetizers only. No problem, we’d been ready to order for some time.

And then we waited. Our order taking hasn’t been expedient, so we’d probably been in the restaurant 30 min before we ordered. None of us ordered things that seemed difficult or complicated. Our only substitution at the table was to ask for a sandwich on a specific type of bun, and add extra mayo.

A half an hour later (1 hour at restaurant) after seeing other tables get served that we though arrived after us (maybe, in hindsight they had been pacing outside while also waiting), we asked if the food was nearly ready. Our group was tired from a long day in the sun, and hungry from a demanding hike. We also had the prospect of a long drive ahead weighing on us.

The response was that the kitchen had been backed up because of a large previous take-out order. We had witnessed some people carrying out such an order when we first arrived. So the issue was one that was known to the restaurant when we sat down. Yet nobody took a second to explain that there might be a significant delay in getting food.

We were told that our order was one back in the queue for the kitchen. We watched a couple of other tables get served in the meantime.

About an hour after ordering 4 of 5 meals arrived. The one missing was a plate of nachos. Not exactly the most time-consuming dish. Two of us ordered fish and chips. According to the menu, and every place in the world that serves fish and chips, it was to come with tartar sauce. There was a cup of a white sauce on the plate, but immediately I noticed that it looked like ranch. We tried it. Yup, it was ranch.

We asked for tartar sauce. The server went to the back and returned to tell us they were out. No mention of this when the food arrived. Just delivery of a plate and somebody hoping we wouldn’t notice.

That sandwich that was ordered on a bun instead of bread? For some reason it was cut in half (poorly) and was falling apart on the plate. The extra mayo (or any mayo for that matter) was mysteriously absent.

The fourth meal to arrive was a burger. Looked to me like a heated up frozen patty. The orderer was not impressed. That fifth meal of nachos did not appear. We began to voice our concerns. The server was sympathetic to our plight, but couldn’t do much to help. I imagine she was having a tough night. One of our party asked to speak to a manager. Answer: there isn’t anyone to talk to.

As we neared the end of our meals (though we were eating slowly as one of our party still didn’t have food), there was still no sign of the nachos. We’d had it. One of our party asked that we get our bills, and the server indicated that the nachos were finally ready (more than an hour after being ordered). The decision was made that we didn’t want the nachos.

The bills were the quickest thing to arrive all night. Full price. Not even a drink discounted. We paid and left, feeling like we’d shared the worst experience of our three-day trip in that two hours in a Princeton restaurant.

This restaurant won’t ever see us in it again. But they might want to invest in a plan to deal with large take-out orders. And a plan to communicate known delays to incoming guests. And a plan to compensate people for a bad experience. And a plan to have somebody who even partially...

Worst pub experience ever! We were there and there was about 3 tables occupied, Sat outside and it was 31° took forever to get water and put our order in around 12:15..... About 15 min into us getting there yes it got busy but our order was already in. Ordered cauliflower bites to come first....(Water was gone by then) (It was HOT and got the tiny little water glasses ) Pop came around 12:20 after waiting 20 min for my husband's pop...... Asked the server several times for water. .....(Never came) At 1255 (still no water and 50 min since we arrived) our appy came on a cold skillet and it was not even warm. .. we said to the server it took 55 minutes to get a appy and it's cold... She said no, it's not and walked away....... Still no water..... My husband's beef dip came and my sandwich around 1:20 so now we've been there for an hour and 20 minutes.....(Asked for water again to no avail)... My husband's beef dip wasn't even warmed up. The cheese was just slapped on there. Not even melted the juice to dip it in was fridge cold.... And the meat inside wasn't even warm at all.... The fries were hot.... My sandwich came with a Caesar salad. The Caesar salad had no dressing on it. I didn't even want to complain at that point..... My husband waited another 15 minutes after we got our food to complain now it's 135... But the server never came back so he didn't eat it. Still no water after being there for almost 2 hours....... Finally my husband got up. He went into the restaurant and told them that the food was cold and that he was very upset that we were there for almost 2 hours just to get cold food and we were one of the first tables in there so our food should have come out first....... She said did you eat it? He said no it's sitting on the table outside..... Anyways, I have never in my entire life had to be in a pub for over 2 hours in the 30 plus degree weather with no water. No service argumentative staff and cold food that we paid for... She took the beef dip off but because we ate the cold cauliflower bites because we had to look at it forever. We were charged for that even though we did complain that it came out cold. I will never go there again. I think it was probably one of the worst experiences...

We stopped at this pub for lunch while traveling through, hoping for a nice break and a good meal. From the outside, the place looked charming, and we’d seen road signs for it, so it was already on our radar. Unfortunately, we ended up wishing we had just gone to the A&W across the street.

We both ordered burgers and shared the fried cauliflower appetizer. The cauliflower seemed like it came straight from the freezer—some pieces were still cold inside. The only thing we enjoyed were the fries, which were crisp and well-done. The burgers, however, were disappointing. The patties tasted like the cheapest frozen kind you’d find in a grocery store—definitely not what you expect in a pub at this price point.

What left an especially bad impression was the service. When my husband ordered his burger, the waiter oddly asked if he knew how much it cost. My husband laughed and said something like “$21.90,” and the waiter smiled and walked away. It wasn’t until we were leaving that I noticed a sign on the wall: on Thursdays, all burgers are $9.99. And yes—it was Thursday. It really felt like the waiter was testing whether we knew about the promotion, and since we didn’t, he just charged full price without saying a word. That felt unprofessional and a bit dishonest.

There are plenty of other lunch options nearby, and based on our experience, I wouldn’t return or recommend this place. For the price we paid and the quality we received, A&W would have been the better...