Silver Springs Vineyards — Restaurant in Athens

Mother’s Day – Disaster Anticipating an amazing Mother’s Day with the family can be a stressful event all within itself. Coordinating calendars, sending out texts and trying to “herd cats” is easier than gathering adults to spend time with their mom. Our only contextual way to reduce the stress is to pick a known restaurant that will help alleviate additional stress of hosting a family event yourself. Enter Silver Springs Vineyards. Having frequented the place prior, knowing the outcome of standing in line to order, yes that’s right. You must stand in line like a taco truck on the corner to order $20 plates of food. Once you find a place to park, you’re welcomed into a barn like atmosphere. Oddly enough, the barn feeling isn’t that bad, and you quickly understand that this place is slightly better than a fast-food restaurant, but not much more then that. The food is average, the building is average, the seating is less then desirable and the service. Well, that brings us to our disaster. The person taking the orders was completely untenable, rude, and unaccommodating. Let’s quote some of her words just for fun, “sorry, but we can’t make changes to our dishes, its Mother’s Day and with the orders coming in, we can’t change the ingredients”. Let’s assume that no one in our party is allergic to mushrooms, tomatoes, or onions. Try ordering an omelet. She basically said, just pick out the ingredients and hope that you don’t get sick. You’ve just paid $20 for an omelet that you can’t eat or have decided to spend a few more minutes of mothers’ days picking out the mushrooms and onions. Not only that, but the chaos of the line and rudeness of the staff being frustrated that its “Mother’s Day” is apparent on everyone’s face. They truly were regretting the day before it began. Read through the YELP reviews calling out the poor service and rude personnel are replete throughout this restaurant’s reputation. Let’s summarize. Rude, expensive, barn like atmosphere, can’t customize a $20 omelet and must be willing to modify your order once you receive it. I’m going to just go to “Burger King” at least they let me “have it my way”. Although I’ve personally have been here twice before and others more than five times, we always come away with a similar experience. However, after Sunday’s disappointment, we’ve decided that there are other restaurants with a better attitude, a focus on customer service is just as important as the food they serve. I’m going to withhold any recommendations for this place going forward and I’m starting here. I hope that Silver Springs will take heed to the one outstanding remark “POOR SERVICE” and “RUDE PERSONNEL” and make some changes to better serve...

Well, the food was very good but the customer service was terrible. It was so bad that it overrides the food quality. The cashier wasn't very helpful at ordering. Then after I went to the stand that said wine tastings.

The owner approached and asked what I was doing. I was obviously there for wine tasting. He said you can sit down to wait for the food. I said I've already eaten. I'm here to taste wine (while looking at the wine menu). I'm not sure if I looked like a poor patron but I was ready to buy 2 or 3 bottles of wine. I probably would've bought the wine without tasting. There was never "how can I help you".

He said well what kind of wine do you like. I said all kinds. He said well you don't like wine. It is definitely possible to like reds, whites, rosé and dry or sweet wine. I do. At first I thought he may be playing a game. He hesitantly poured me some Merlot after I said I prefer dry reds. Then he just kind of sauntered away. He didn't look at me at all or anything. I realized he wasn't joking and was just being a jerk. I just kinda walked away waiting for him to say something like "do you wanna try another?". Nope... He was just a jerk. I just walked out and left. It's sad because the food is good. Any level of good-enough customer service would've been fine with me. So... You earned a bad rating, and it seems like I'm not the only one with this type of experience.

Edit: I noticed the owner only responds to positive reviews. How about you respond to a negative...

Was there yesterday evening for an EJ presentation and dinner. Overall, it's not a bad place but not great either.

If the meeting room we were in (part of the winery) was billed as a multi-purpose meeting room, then it fell short. The presenter was counting on being able to make the room dark enough for a slide show but since there are absolutely no coverings for the large windows and the sun was shining in, that was impossible. The presenter was able to overcome the problem but the presentation might have been much better with visuals. If you're looking for a place to hold a meeting that includes a screen presentation, look somewhere else.

The food was ok. The Greek salad was the best part of the meal. We had salmon and lemon baked potato wedges. The potato wedges were pretty tasty but the salmon was dry. There was pita bread included (a couple of wedges) but no hummus to dip it in so it was only good for pushing food onto the fork. The atmosphere is ok, but a lot of raw wood and the owner (George?) seems to think that more American flags he displays the better (who else do we know does that?...).

While we didn't have to pay for the meal as it was a courtesy of EJ, I don't know what it costs but when we at there a few years ago it was fairly over priced for what you get. I guess for the only Greek restaurant in Athens, its ok but...