MacMillan Spirit House — Restaurant in Alexandria

Edit: Just for context right up front. Selling a dram of Balvenie 16 French Oak for $48. Which is 17% higher than the local median and 39% higher than the national median.

By biggest complaint is the price of drinks. Especially single pours. They were selling a dram, from a bottle that wholesales at $135, for $48 bucks. Absolutely not. Food was fine.

Someone responded and is clearly defensive and so I am lowering my rating. Also assumed I don’t have a clue and the attitude was transparent. Nothing else is transparent as they claim. I am heavily into the Single Malt Scotch scene and have bartended at several high profile whisky locations. The bottle I referenced was Balvenie 16 French Oak. I bought this bottle 3 months ago from a distributor at $135. It RETAILS for $200… MAX.

Lol. Dude. Take the L. Who said what I acquired was as a private citizen. You continue to make blind assumptions who I am. You clearly don’t know the law or VAABC, as clearly demonstrated by listing online prices that are single bottle purchase prices (that’s called retail). Such an incredibly absurd response and comical that you’re an owner of a whiskey bar. It’s fine to respond. It’s not fine to respond with such wanton disregard for contextual inclusion and it’s not fine to utterly ignore the reviewer.

I’m going to say good luck. You’re absolutely going to need it to stay in business with this approach to criticism and...

Edit: 3/5… waited 15 mins after piling all dishes to get check. Had to find manager to help staff close the check… manager didn’t know how.

Sanitation issues and operational inefficiencies cloud the experience at this otherwise charming restaurant nestled in upper Old Town.

My wife noted that there was no soap in the bathroom area (one shared sink area in a gender-neutral bathroom). She checked the stock closet that was left open, and no soap was there either. My wife is a health inspector and the lack of back up soap is alarming. She hoped there was some elsewhere, but when she asked them 15 mins later if they located any, they said they “hadn’t found any and are still working it.”

The food is okay and falls a bit short of the price point, but it’s nothing they can’t resolve with some more time in this relatively new restaurant.

The servers are still getting situated and operations are clunky, but that’s normal for a new place. Having dedicated drink runners for soft drinks and water was a bit odd and caused refills to take 10-15 mins.

The ambiance is great however, and the outdoor area is fantastic. With some improvements to operations and sanitation, this place will be a strong cornerstone restaurant for the glowing north...

I wouldn't recommend this place and we wouldn't go back. A friend joined me for dinner on a Saturday and everything was mediocre. It was a suggested restaurant but we were disappointed. The menu has a decent variety of options but in this day and age we were concerned about risking the high prices for not so good food and we were right. So we chose what we thought was "safe food choices". We had a burger, soup and salad, three beers for $60+ and all were blah. My burger was over cooked and nothing special (Five guys would've been better), the sweet potato fries were cold and stuck together. The soup and salad were the same... bad and not worth the price. The service was pretty good but definitely focusing on suggesting more drinks, "spend more!" and less on "we care". The restaurant is on the corner and there is inside and outside seating. We were astonished that the seating inside the restaurant was completely empty on a Saturday night. Probably not a good sign. We were there during the last of happy hour which was a positive but overall the whole experience was not impressive and there's very little reason go back especially when there are so many other restaurant options in the area. Good luck and...