The Noble Fox Restaurant & Brewery — Restaurant in Ashland

A restaurant sadly following in the same footsteps as its location’s predecessor, standing stone:

TL;DR: Insipid bar food poorly embellished with touches of fusion that don’t really change the fact that you’re basically eating $20-30 burgers, tacos and pizza (without drinks). I found myself failing to determine one thing about this place that was unique or interesting and not just a mediocre redux of standing stone that focuses on modern Americana fusion. Sometimes the service has been on point and other times I’ve had to wait 10 minutes to even be acknowledged. The building/location itself is one of the best in town with a great back patio and classic brew house ambiance inside, but that has nothing to do with the business or service side of the equation.

Only meat base I’ve had that was any good was the quesabirria, which was the most expensive birria I’ve ever had, and they removed it from their menu last year, probably cus most of their food seems like easy to make, cheap bar/street food marked up to float their huge overhead (where as birria has to be properly slow cooked for a while but most of their menu is tacos and pizza — set it and serve kinda stuff). Steak bites for example were over-cooked, obviously not fatty cuts and not tender as they should be for something that is basically hyped up steak and potatoes, with a bland gravy and soggy fries for almost $30.

Their original late night menu was decent, but probably too affordable to be profitable, which I suspect is why they ended it so soon. Also the late night burger was pretty bland, I think a bar’s burger says a lot about their culinary intent and overall value.

This is the kinda spot that embodies the classic American marketing strategy of over-promising and under-delivering. So far I’ve been four times and only ever had something come out the way it was advertised in the first month they were open when the late night menu was going and they likely hadn’t realized they couldn’t make enough serving that level of quality at more reasonable price points. Maybe I’m jaded cus I enjoyed somethings early on and then they upped their prices and removed several items that I found to be actually worthy, or maybe I’m just a realist and when quality goes down and prices go up with nothing carrying the food except an ironic disposition towards Mexican street food (because Mexican street food is all about cheap and simple ingredients but they charge Swiss prices on all of it) I call it like it is and move on.

For comparison, go to Nama or osteria La bricolla to see what food should taste like at this price point, and go to Ruby’s or gill’s and you’ll get better quality at just short of half the price.

If you care about the value of your dollar you’ll likely think this is a rip off, but it’s a bar, at a decent location, with a somewhat tired but classic ambiance, so that shouldn’t necessarily stop you from having a good time with friends, but you can have a great time with good friends most places where you can sit down...

The atmosphere was great, the food was decent, the service made us feel like we were being ignored.

After the initial swing by our table for drinks and ordering the roasted brussel sprouts we asked for a couple minutes to finalize our food choices. It was almost 30 minutes later and having to wave our server down before we could ...and then watching our server go take the order at the neighboring table who had waved our mutual server down after us, before we were able to get her attention again and put in our dinner order almost 40 minutes after we arrived.

I later asked about our appetizer after seeing that same neighboring table being served their main dish - it had been left on the heating shelf and came out moments before our main dishes, when they had been ordered. Time from ordering an appetizer to receipt of the same - about 65 minutes.

When we asked for to-go boxes we watched our server pass by 5 different times for other tables over the span of 10 minutes before one of us got up to walk to the station to ask for boxes again.

In the first hour we were there we had one interaction with our server that wasn't us seeking them out after an exeedingly long wait and watching everyone around us being taken care of. We only had water refills thanks to one of the other servers.

It wasn't bad service per se...when we could get service it was quick and professional, but it was definitely poor service that lagged significantly and felt like the server was in a state where every little thing interrupted everything else, including getting food out while it was fresh and hot. The night was busy, but not "I'm running ragged and forgetting everything at every table" busy.

That said, the fries and seasoning on them were wonderful. Our bowls and brussel sprouts (despite being soggy from a long time under the heat lamp) had good flavor, and our friend loved his burger.

Will we return...eh? Maybe? There are so many excellent places in Ashland that unfortunately Noble Fox won't be on the top of our radar for a while... maybe once we've heard of friends having a better experience. It's a real disappointment with loving the atmosphere and what this place could be with a bit more attention. Hopefully it's...

The food was awful! The "steak" bites were made with overcooked stew meat. The meat was very chewy and terribly bland. The "steak" came on top of some soggy fries served with mushrooms and some sort of a tomato based sauce that didn't go well with the steak. We also got brussels sprouts and they were ok, a little overcooked and drenched in sauce. The ingredients seemed cheap and the flavor combos didn't pair very well.

I also got a Spanish Coffee. The spiced were poorly mixed in and floating on the top of the drink in un-appetizing clumps. The rim and half of the glass it came in were doused in a sugar glaze that wouldn't dissolve as you drank out of the glass and looked like a toddler applied it.

The service was decent, the hostess left us sitting up front for longer than expected for how empty the restaurant was though. Our server was nice and checked in an appropriate amount of times. The atmosphere is pretty nice, though they didn't do much to decorate it. But, the architecture of the building itself if nice and has a modern industrial vibe.

You're basically paying for a nice atmosphere with a meal that should cost $10-$15 per plate at best. You would likely get better food by going to a chain restaurant and paying a more appropriate price for what you got.

This is a sad replacement for the restaurant that used to be in this location, Standing Stone...