Dysart's Restaurant Broadway — Restaurant in Bangor

We were completely shafted by Dysarts when we scheduled an 80th birthday party with 38 guests to attend on October 25, 2014. I was told by their "Event Planner" Robin that the "Peapod Room" would be a perfect fit for the number of people and a buffet style dinner. First of all the "Peapod Room" is a poor excuse for a function room. You have to walk through the convenience store to the very back where you will find a room located right next to the public toilets. It looks like an old prep-kitchen that was made into what could best be described as a tiny meeting room better suited for construction workers than for a once in a lifetime special event. The staff jammed 5 round tables with 8 seats each into this tiny room leaving no space for people to get up and visit with each other. I was also promised a table for a cake and gifts. What a joke. It was basically a tall end table about 3 feet long and 16 inches wide. There was also no space in the room to set up the buffet. I'll get to that part shortly. They told us there was WIFI available and a widescreen display for our video program. More bull. No WIFI and the widescreen display was a flatscreen TV which didn't work and had no remote control. Someone from the staff finally found a remote but didn't know how to operate the TV.

Now let me tell you about the food. Terrible is being generous. For appetizers there was a shrimp platter, cheese and crackers and chicken tenders. The cheese and crackers were tolerable but the shrimp platter was small and the chicken " tenders" were so dry they were nearly inedible. For dinner we had chosen a buffet with Chicken Cordon Bleu and Baked Haddock with fresh rolls and a vegetable medley. The Chicken Cordon Bleu was some type of frozen processed thing also incredibly dry. The Baked Haddock was only warm and very watery. We were told that coffee, tea and soft drinks would be served with dinner. What I got were plastic pitchers filled with room temperature brown liquids with no way to tell what each one contained. These pitchers were set up on a shelf (Dysarts calls it a "bar") under the TV with no way to maneuver around the tables to get to them. We had to set up a relay line of passing glasses to someone at the shelf to fill and then pass around. I was totally embarrassed by this and apologized to our guests many times.

If that was not bad enough the appetizers and the dinner buffet were not served in the "Peapod Room" . Because the room was so small and ill equipped the food was served at a table which was located in the convenience store at what looked like a takeout window. Dysarts didn't even make an attempt to separate this area from the store so we had store customers wandering over to our buffet looking it over. Our guests had to leave the" Peapod Room", walk through the store to get their food, walk back to the room and then maneuver around the tight tables to get back to their seats to eat. More apologies to our guests and total disgust with the treatment and misrepresentation by Dysarts "Event Planner" and the staff. The bill came to over $800 for this disaster. We were so upset that we sent a letter to Dysarts owner Mary Hart regarding what had happened and our total disapointment. She hasn't had the decency to even acknowledge the letter. I waited a month before writing this review thinking maybe I would get a response from Dysarts. Obviously they don't give a damn. Stay away...

Hi Dysart. I hope someone from corporate head office reads this review and make changes to your business. I'd give your food a 5/5 for taste and Maine authenticity but I have some negative feedback to share about the competency of your events staff at Broadway Event Room. I enquired about booking your events room for a big function and asked for a variety of food to be included in a quote. All I received from your staff is a number, which had a $1000 range (I was quoted an range of between $4-5k in a one-liner email, from a kitchen manager whose role isn't in customer service or event management!) with no breakdown of the amount of food or type of food that will be provided. I mean what am I getting here for my money.. 5 spaceships and 4 pot plants with my meal for 70 people?? Who knows because I wasn't given a breakdown of the items I was receiving. I had to do my own calculations and show my own math to them, to prove that their numbers were off! I was told that lobster prices were unpredictable, which was fine by me, but a fully itemised quote by a certain lobster bake caterer, for a full lobster bake for 70 people only came to $3800, which was still less with what was initially quoted to us by Dysarts. All I ask is for some competency by staff and a system to break down your event price estimates. Your current one is a mess. Sorry Dysart, you've lost business from a fan. So in a nutshell, great place to spend some $$$ for dinner or brunch, not so great if you need basic event planning assistance and if you're dropping...

Never had any issue here until tonight. We attempted for 2 of us to have dinner after being in Bangor to buy a nee refrigerator. After waiting patiently for a short 5 mins while the hostess cleaned a table, the hostess walked away momentarily. A second couple walked in and literally not even a minute later a waiter (who had passed us standing by the door twice) walked up and grabbed 2 menus and seated the couple behind us. When he walked back I said "we were waiting for a table first." He said Oh, I'm sorry, I saw people waiting so I seated them with a very condescending tone. I said well you walked by us twice and never said a word to us. He then grabbed 2 menus and said "well would you like to eat or not" in the same rude snappy tone. I said yes. Then while I was sitting at the table (we were to the right of the old truck) I looked up and could see the same waiter and a young blonde girl pointing and looking in our direction, very obviously talking about us. I told the person with me what was happening and I walked to the hostess station to ask for a manager. I was then told that he was the manager. We promptly left! If that's how they treat people I will no longer patron this restaurant or truckstop. I have to say this place has gonna way downhill since the last I went a month ago. And while I know they don't care and it won't bother them to lose my business, it's just sad to see the state of such a once Maine...