The American — Restaurant in Bainbridge

We choose The American for a birthday celebration. This was the second time we've been since the pandemic. The menu items have changed, website says they want to change items out more frequently and the menu will be posted on Facebook. I don't do Facebook so I guess the menu will always be a surprise to me. My wife was disappointed to see crab cakes not on the current menu. There was not very many appetizers for a group of people, only thing seemed to be cornbread with honey. I choose a salad for my entree and substituted shrimp for the chicken. My wife ordered Duroc grits with something. There was a steak salad ordered, Mac and cheese for a toddler and chicken fingers and fries for older children. The birthday person ordered a filet and fries. The steak was too rare in the middle so some was swapped for cuts in the steak salad. I'm always disappointed that you can't order regular tea, what's up with putting raspberry flavoring in it. Birthday person got a free slice of pie with fireworks stuck in. Wait staff was knowledgeable and helpful, pointed out that due to size of our party that 20% was added. I had no problem with this, left to my own math I would have rounded up and left a few dollars more. This started as 5 stars and has been reduced to 3. Sorry American, let's have some plain tea and crab cakes.

Back at The American in 2023 for the same birthday a year later. This year sounds a lot like last year, still no crab cakes, impossible to order regular tea. Still a free slice of pie for the birthday person. I was a little disappointed in the menu. I ordered penne pasta that included shrimp and steak. Why in a sauce dish like this are the tails still on the shrimp? I can't say penne pasta is my favorite pasta either, I should have ordered the trout. My wife ordered veal and said there was a layer of gristle on it. Chicken fingers and fries were ordered for a child in our party, they looked delicious and she ate them all. I'm going to rethink what I will order next time, I wanted shrimp and grits but it wasn't on the menu. Next time I'm thinking maybe a salad with...

Based on fabulous reviews, we took the time to drive up there from Tallahassee for lunch today. It was totally disappointing. First of all the hostesses and wait staff were unfriendly and inattentive. Then the food was poor quality. I ordered the Heirloom Tomato & Avocado Caprese. The "heirloom" tomatoes were not ripe. Same with the Avocado, it was crunchy and tasteless and of course the mandarin oranges were canned. Then came the American Burger. I had ordered it with mayonnaise, When I lifted the patty with my fork to see if there was mayonnaise under it, it was apparent that the patty had been burned on the broiler and the cook turned the burnt side down and served it. I sent it back. When my companions had finished their lunch my burger had still not come back out of the kitchen. The Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread had so much sugar in it that you could not taste the cheese and roasted Hatch green chilies. My wife ordered the Pulled Pork Sandwich. Now we know that pulled pork is cooked in advance and has to be heated up to serve. No problem with that except it had been heated unevenly so that parts of it were still refrigerator cold and other parts just tepid. It came without barbecue sauce. When she asked for some the waitress said that they hadn't made the sauce yet and it would be out shortly. Shortly was about ten minutes. I guess this was good because it gave time for the temperature of the meat to even out. When the sauce did come out, she found it too spicy to eat. I like hot spiced food but when I tasted the sauce I have to agree, it was too spicy to be served in a restaurant without warning. To their credit, everything that we complained about was taken off the bill. But, I was amazed that at a table with such a disastrous meal nobody from management ever came by the table to apologize. It's like nobody cared. In the question below of how much did we spend, I checked $50-$100 per person because we intended to have the whole shown, appetizer, entrée, and dessert. With everything removed from the bill we actually paid about $10...

This was our second time eating at this lovely restaurant. This time we came for dinner. So just a couple of negative things. The website said they opened at 4 but when we got there they informed us that the hours had changed to 4:30. Okay no worries, we meandered around until opening, so call before coming to verify opening time. Secondly, although we and other guests were seated at 4:30, they weren’t quite ready for opening. We had no menus, they were being printed we were told. We received drinks but then saw no one for 30 minutes as folks seated after us received menus and had orders taken. I have to say though that once we said something, manager Haley made it right. She took our orders and assigned Dustin to us who did a fabulous job. We were very satisfied with Haley’s handling of our issues.

Now the food. We had cornbread for an appetizer and it was amazing!! A touch of sweetness mixed with a little jalapeño and a honey drizzle. To die for! I had the ribeye with a lime chipotle butter that they smoked with a flame torch at the table side prior to serving and a side of the pecan truffle fries. My friends/family had the tenderloin steak with the same sides. All meals came a wedge salad that was the perfect size. The steaks were cooked perfectly and were delicious. The fries are something everyone should try. We ordered dessert to go and have not had them yet but I can say that the banana cream and key lime pie we ordered were generously sliced. Dinner was such a satisfying, delicious experience.

Anytime we are anywhere near Bainbridge we’ll definitely stop...