Victorian House Restaurant & Tavern — Restaurant in Cheshire

I met a friend for lunch Labor Day Sunday. A few days before I had made phone reservation to eat outside. It started to rain an hour before so I called to change reservation to inside not knowing how busy they would be. Told no problem by employee. Asked if I could get directions. Her answer, I don't live in Cheshire so I don't know how to get here. (yes, this is what she said.) I asked if it wasn't raining when we arrived would they wipe outside table and chairs so we could eat outside. A pause and she said, We don't normally do that but I suppose we could. I said, We'll eat inside!! Arrived at restaurant, parked in left side front driveway in handicapped space, legitimately. Walked from front walk to steps at entrance. How would a more handicapped person gotten up those steps? No sign near the two parking spaces saying More handicapped parking in back lot. That is if there was more. Up the stairs and there was a dilapidated door with bare wires from opening in upper center section and a cord and some yarn draped over doorknob. Entering, I was in a long hallway, no employees to be seen, no signage to tell me where to find one. To my right , walking down the hall, were several rooms where there were a few diners. I found an employee in the back hallway. Note: no mask was worn. I gave her my name, repeated time of reservation (right then) and it was to be indoors. She said, No, it was to be outdoors. I repeated the one hour before conversation I had. She said OK. The employees seemed to be about 18 years old with little experience. I was shown to a table back down the hallway My friend arrived. We waited quite a while for server and finally we were handed menus. There were only four tables in total occupied in the restaurant .Did we want anything to drink, server asked.. My friend ordered water and a pitcher of water. We were served glasses of water with a wedge of lemon on the rim. We were told that they were washing the water pitcher and that's why she hadn't brought it to the table then. As a bonus we had a fly that stayed to fly around our table and food. We waited quite a while for server to return so we could place our orders. I ordered the appetizer, crab cakes (2) for $12. When finally served, crab cake was soggy, tasteless, mushy and barely warm. Diagnosis: it had been frozen, put in microwave for too short a time and brought to table. Worth $12. Not worth 50 cents. A tiny pile of salad was limp and room temperature rather than crisp and cold. I decided to not complain but this would be my first and last visit. My friend had the same sandwich that she had there one week before. This time it came with french fries which surprised her since they were not served at her prior visit and she hadn't ordered them this time. The server said it came with the sandwich. Long after we finished lunch, the server finally appeared. If we weren't happily engaged in conversation one of us would have had to walk to the back of the building to find server to clear the table. The place had only three tables occupied in the two large dining rooms. Once plates were cleared, no one came back for a long time. Finally, the server returned and asked if we wanted anything else. I said do you mean, dessert? Yes. Only then did she tell us what the desserts were. Did she ask if we want4ed coffee or tea? No. We ordered desserts. They came. The check came. Bill was paid. We walked to the back where the bar and, clearly, the action was. Sort of like Cheers! Who knew that most folks came in back entrance. The handwritten lunch menu hanging on the wall had much more tempting entrees. Why didn't our server tell us about that day's "specials"? The servers are inexperienced and probably being paid minimum wage so they are retained. I would suggest that the Cheshire Building Dept. visit and look for safety violations (check those bare front door wires) and compliance with Handicapped regulations including the bathrooms and Covid...

We were in Cheshire and the restaurant we were planning to eat at was closed. Waze directed us to another restaurant named the Victorian House right around the corner from where we were. This is about 1:30 pm. There were only two cars in the parking lot when we went inside. There were a couple gentlemen sitting at the bar. My friend and I both ordered coffee and onion soup, which we were told was particularly popular and made on the premise. My friend ordered an eggplant Panini and I opted for the bacon burger. The waitress came back a few minutes later to inform us that she couldn’t find the coffee. So, no coffee. We thought that was strange, but we let it go. It was a very cold day outside and the door that we came in wouldn’t stay shut the wind kept blowing it open, so there was a constant draft. Even though we were sitting directly in front of the fire, we had to move because it was too cold. When the soup arrived, my friend only ate a little of hers, I was so hungry , I polished mine off. At that point, I didn’t suspect any issues. After a few minutes the room became filled with smoke that was billing out of the kitchen. I jokingly asked, if that was my hamburger that was burning. She said it was, and it would be out in a minute. I thought she was joking since I ordered my hamburger medium. but no, I got the some blacken mess. I cut my burger in half to find it was completely cooked all the way through. The inside, looking dry and unpleasant , the outside looking like a lump of charcoal. Before I could call the waitress over concerning my meal, my friend held up her sandwich and ask if I thought that was mold all over the backside of the bread. And I said yeah that’s definitely mold. And we’re not talking a little bit of mold we’re talking. It was coated in mold. We then called the waitress over and she apologize and did not charge us. But obviously, we had lost our appetite and was no longer interested in eating there. The only thing we had was the onion soup. After we left I was sick to my stomach for rest of the afternoon. The waitress clearly saw that there was problems with the food before she served it to us and she served it anyway. I don’t know what the story is with this restaurant but clearly something is seriously wrong there. I would avoid eating there...

I'd leave minus stars for service if I could. What was supposed to be an end to an amazing day with my sister trying on dresses was awful. As 2 former servers, we were appalled by the service. The server kept making excuses for her short comings and completely disappearing. Instead of owning up to her mistakes she ignored us. She brought out 2 plates at a time for the 6 guests. But not one after the other, by the time I received my salad my daughter was basically done eating her spagetti. We had to ask for silverware so we could eat. Dressings weren't brought out for 2 of the salads. She brought out 2 orders of sweet potato fries when one was ordered but completely forgot to put in the eggplant fries. I'm guessing thats why my salad took 20 minutes to come out after all the other food.We overheard her tell another table that came in a bit after us, while she sobbed her mother passed the week before. Though I felt sorry, it was very uncomfortable to the point that table waited until she walked away and left without ordering food. After that she asked if we needed boxes, dropped them , never asked if we wanted anything else or the check then disappeared again. Finally after 10 minutes, my mother went to the bar to pay. Looking at the check she not only charged us for the eggplant fries but the 2 sweet potato ones too. When I walked into the bar, there she was laughing and talking to a table in the bar like she had no other tables. I could understand if they were busy for how long we waited for her to grace our presence but we were the only table in there besides a few guests at the bar at that time. She was just beyond unprofessional. Just as we're done paying she walks up to us surprised and was like oh you're done? I would save your money and go elsewhere. My sister and her best friend use to go there years ago and raved about this place. First and last...