Poplar Restaurant — Restaurant in Andover

I like this place but last three times I visit I ordered my burger medium rare I sent one back to be re cooked the other two times I was pressed for time or I would have sent them back as well, I told server to tell owner come out look at the meat he never came said it was medium rare when he put it in window. I used to be a Kitchen Mgr for a much larger restaurant then this I made all the home made soups and hand cut our own steaks so he's not fooling me they were closing for lunch and re open at 4 pm so that burger came out fast had no time to sit under heat lamp I should have sent it back but they take a two hour break till 4 pm. I find it insulting owner says he's right and customer is wrong, here is, a photo that burger was well done. These guys not used to cooking meats, medium rare and nobody offered a apology so I have to re think going back I'm from out of town love the burger when prepsred the way it was ordered. So if you order burger or steak here and you like it RARE to MED RARE cut into your meat while server is at table incase you need to send it back. I have had at least a dozen burgers and coincidentally the last three were all over cooked. I never once received a Mgr or owner say there sorry basically shut up pay for it don't complain. That's not how you handle these, situations in a full service restaurant. I don't like writing these type of review it's, a good place hope you have a better experience. That's why I gave 3 STAR wanted to give a two but I know things happen but after three times in a row with nobody but server to register complaint and no Mgt concern whatsoever was,...

Hardly any staff working we got seated right away but server took a little bit to get our drink order then to bring drinks to us then took our order while waiting we over heard they brought wrong food out to an older lady. I ordered the spaghetti and it came with a salad well the salad didn't come til 1 or 2 minutes before my spaghetti did which was noodles very bland tasting sauce and 3 big meatballs that you can tell was frozen before no flavor what so ever my wife and kids ordered pizza it looks like one you buy at a grocery store and they just put toppings on tasted very bland as well the sides on my kids dinners where completely wrong and one of them they brought out chicken straps which we didn't even order them so it was either the server or the cook that couldn't read or remember what we ordered I give it 2 out of 5 stars because it was clean I give them that but at the end some older lady that works there was yelling to server that she seated a family down at a table. Very unprofessional along with there clothes just wearing short shorts and t shirts I'm ok with a t shirt but the short shorts isn't very professional in my opinion. I won't go back mainly because of the food being so...

UPDATE: SEPT 2024 Went to go try this place again after several years because I had some not so good pizza here a few times (so I stopped going).

We went in for dinner on a Friday evening around 630p and was seated, but a server never came. The older couple behind us got up to leave and as they were walking out someone called for them that their food was coming out of the kitchen at that moment. They sat back down. I asked them how long they had been waiting and they said an hour and a half. At this point, I had only been there 10 minutes without a server greeting, but we immediately decided to leave after that.

I understand being short staffed but when I see 2 or more hosts(?) or whoever just standing around doing nothing, it tells me that they are failing to work as a team. I hope that they pull that restaurant together as I would like to see them succeed and not go out of business.

You can order about whatever you want at this restaurant. Everything I have tried so far is excellent. So if nobody wants to decide on the same type of food then go here. Something for...