The Common Man Ashland — Restaurant in Ashland

Upon arriving at the Common Man, located in Ashland NH, after calling and making a reservation, I was not greeted at the door and waited several minutes while two young ladies chit-chatted before noticing me and the rest of my party. When they were finished with their conversation, one of them rolled their eyes before greeting me and informing me that they had not taken my reservation and that I would now have to wait for them to clean some dirty tables. My party and I patiently waited for half an hour before finally being seated. The hostess seated us at a rather awkward table in the middle of the living room pressed against a large wooden beam that had very little elbow room so we requested to be seated at another table but the hostess said we would have to continue to wait if we wanted to switch. We agreed to stay at the table and the hostess politely said she would be back to fill our water glasses in just a moment and that someone would be over to take our order shortly. She did not return to fill our glasses and after about ten minutes we flagged down a lady who appeared to be a manger. She filled our water glasses and told us that our server would be right with us. After about ten minutes, a young lady came over to our table and asked us if anyone had helped us, we said "no" and she then introduced herself as our server for the evening. We realized that it would probably be best if we ordered everything at once due to the long waiting periods between service. I ordered a house margarita with a sugar rim instead of salt and the filet mignon medium rare with a baked potato, simple enough. About ten minutes later, our drinks arrived and my margarita had a salted rim instead of sugar, I didn't even bother asking the waitress to fix things. After about half an hour our entrees finally made it to the table. I was surprised by the small size of my rather expensive steak but did not object when the server asked if we needed anything else. I optimistically cut into my steak to find that it had been cooked well done instead of how I asked. No one checked back to ask about our meal so I ate the steak even though it was over cooked and a little chewy. At the end of the meal, I walked up to the front desk to get our bill and paid it there. I would have spoken to the person in charge about our mediocre experience but they were no where to be found. Although my friends and I still had a good time with each other, we will not be back to the Common Man in Ashland. For the expensive price of their average: food, service and atmosphere, we have found that there are much better options in the area for the money. I hope this review will help people avoid the rather nightmarish dinning experience we had at the Common...

I usually love this restaurant. We have had many positive experiences there. Yesterday, we had kind of a strange visit! Everything was fine until we ordered dessert....we wanted to share the white chocolate creme brulee. It took a REALLY long time, but we weren't worried about it, I know everyone is short staffed. The waitress finally came over and explained that it was coming, they had had a problem with the blowtorch tool. She did not ask if we wanted something else instead. When it finally arrived, I noticed right away that it didn't look right. There was no carmelized top or white chocolate drizzle. I poked the custard with my spoon, and it was soft with some charring on top. I told the waitress that it didn't look right, and she got defensive! She said "It's fine, we just had to cook it a different way. But it's fine!" Okaaaaay.....I took a small bite, it most certainly was not fine. It was soft, tasted off and eggy! My husband said it looked like they had just stuck in under the broiler. I tried to call the waitress over, but had the feeling she was avoiding us. The manager (who had checked in with us earlier about our meal) walked by, and I asked her to please take it off the bill (I wasn't going to pay $7 for something that wasn't cooked right, rendering it inedible!). Now, none of this is an issue, I get that things happen. It was the waitress's attitude that was strange....she acted personally insulted! She was very cold when she brought us the adjusted bill, no one (neither her or the manager) apologized or asked us if we wanted another dessert instead. I left feeling perplexed...why would a restaurant serve something that wasn't good quality? Why was the waitress upset with us? We ended up having to go to Dollar General down the road to get some mints to get the horrible taste of the botched creme brulee out of our mouths. I'm hoping this is just an odd, one time issue.....but it was very disappointing from a restaurant that has always...

After watching two girls gossip for several minutes at the front desk, one of the blonde girls appeared to be a manager, I was finally taken to my table by a girl who did not seem to enthusiastic about her job but took the time to introduce herself as "Morgan" and superficially welcomed me to the restaurant. She offered me some dip and crackers on a table located near the entrance but I passed because there were several flies buzzing around the dip and it just did not look clean. She seated us at a table for two but it seemed crammed and Morgan ran off to take a phone call before I had a chance to ask for another table. We sat there for quite some time before our waiter came and introduced himself as "Zach" he was kind of awkward and just didn't seem to confident about what he was doing. Anyway, he was nice and took our order after I repeated it to him several times. I got the lobster mac and cheese which sounded good at the time and my wife got the Nantucket pie. Our drinks took forever and we were not offered any appetizers or bread by our waiter Zach. Finally the food arrived and man could I smell that Nantucket pie coming with an very unpleasant fishy odor, I highly doubt the seafood here is anywhere near fresh! I did not say anything to my wife because I did not want to spoil the experience but I could tell by the look on her face that she noticed too. My mac and cheese was not great and I wonder if real lobster was used or if it was a substitute. I asked for our check mid way through the meal because I had a felling it would take our waiter Zach awhile to add things up. Sure enough about thirty minutes later the checked showed up. We paid cash and left no tip. I seriously wonder how a place like this stays in business. The employees seemed to be concerned with mainly their social lives and who knows what the cooks are up to in that kitchen.

BE WARNED NOT A GOOD PLACE FOR A DATE OR FAMILY DINNER!...