Roam — Restaurant in Bend

Food was amazing. Server was very attentive and gave plenty of space/not overbearing, and was friendly. Atmosphere was fine… nothing amazing, but did good. With the exception of how the noise travels in the restaurant… they probably need more noise dampeners because the echo effect amplified a lot of noise. More details on why I rated what I did below.

Update 1: as promised didn’t have a repeat performance of utensils cleaning twice since and therefore I am upping the star rating to 5 again.

Food 5/5: was fantastic. Zero complaints… with MAYBE a miner feedback. The artichoke bread (totally but hung the name), the bread was pretty thick and hearty and therefore stole a lot of the flavor. Not enough to even lower my start rating.

We also love that the food is seasonal, local, and they try to organic and sustainable. It really makes us rest easier. My wife has to be very careful with what she eats due to illness, and this makes us relax on that front.

Service 4/5: Not because our server was bad or the interaction was less ideal, but because of what some of the staff was doing (unrelated to us). In the booth next to us, someone was organizing utensils and every time they would place something down it sounded like someone throwing it down into a pile of other utensils. It was EXTREMELY disruptive to the environment of having a calm date night with my wife. She literally had to get up and walk outside till they were done because it was giving her a headache. I probably should have said something to them, but they kept getting up and walking away and I would think, “oh, they are probably done” and I didn’t want to make a scene.

Atmosphere 4/5: as mentioned above. The noise factor could use some improvement, but it was pretty...

Holly saved our first experience of Roam. I made a 10:00 AM brunch reservation for my wife and I for inside seating. When we arrived at 10:03 AM, the hostess told us the restaurant was full (which it clearly wasn’t), and only outside seats were available. (At this point, there was no reason to make a reservation, as I could have been a walk in.) Else, it would be at least a 20 plus minute wait for an inside seat. She made some poor excuses as to why she couldn’t seat us – it was clear she was new, and needed more training. She never even offered us bar seating – which had plenty of room.

We were lucky we looked at the bar, and grabbed a seat, to have one of the best bartenders and servers in Bend take care of us – thank you Holly! It was clear she had seen what transpired just minutes prior, and she single handedly rescued Roam’s reputation. He amazing attitude, empathy, and customer service were top notch – she deserves an A+ rating and a raise. She made us some wonderful drinks to start, explained the menu to us in detail, and really made the experience very intimate and wonderful.

Half an hour later, we were offered a table, but we didn’t want to be separated from Holly, so we ate at the bar as we chatted more about how wonderful Bend is – she really made our day. Complete 180 from our experience when we walked in.

The food – excellent. The Elk Morning Hash was cooked perfectly – sausage tasted great, the egg was perfect. She had the omelet – light, and fluffy, like out of the Test Kitchen. High marks all around.

We hope to come back and see Holly soon!

(This had me thinking about Jerry Seinfeld and his experience at the rental car counter - "You know how to TAKE a reservation - you don't know how to KEEP a...

My two lady friends and I, all locals since 2005, and always looking to try new restaurants in town, finally made it to Roam for breakfast this morning. We were greeted by a very pleasant young man, Kevin, who also turned out to be our server. Kevin was very personable, efficient, accommodating; a real pleasure.

Roam's atmosphere is bright, cozy, clean, comfortable. We all loved 10 Below and were sad to see it close, so we were curious to check out its replacement.

Roam's breakfast menu is basically a traditional breakfast menu, nothing very creative, but I was told when I called to make a reservation that they do use organic eggs and misc organic ingredients, which is important to me.

Our omelettes (spinach, mushroom, sun dried tomato, kalamata olive, feta) were very tasty and substantial, and the lovely potatoes had good potential, but were dry and seemed a bit old, when they should have been crisp on the outside and creamy inside. The Big Ed's rye toast (we each chose) was overcooked, hard, dry; disappointing for such a nice fresh local bread, but good potential there too. A gluten free bread choice would be welcomed.

We perused the lunch and dinner menus which offer many creative & delicious sounding choices .... so hopefully they are in fact, as the prices command attention to detail, quality, and flavor. As I like to say- "like a party in your mouth".

Bend's downtown has several proven restaurants for lunch, and particularly for dinner, but not much for breakfast these days. So I (we) sincerely wish Roam the best and hope that the owners and management do not let us down, but have great success for the...