Vern’s — Restaurant in City of Rochester

SUBJECT: CASEY O'MARA (condensed due to character limit)

I recently came across an article written about Vern's that told a story about John Swan and his vision in creating the restaurant. He fondly recalled a moment in his grandparents home and Vern's was his attempt to recreate that warm and hospitable environment he felt that day.

Unfortunately, that is not the final feeling we were left with walking out of Vern's last night. Warm and hospitable would be not even come to mind. I can't imagine that what we experienced was part of John's vision and hopefully the family can make changes to prevent this from happening to others in the future.

The experience started pleasant, but took a drastic turn during the main course. The PapaLee Knows Best is a dish that changes frequently on the menu and last night the restaurant served a lobster dish that was prepared on their wood fired grill. Although the amount of meat that came on the lobster was very small, it was incredibly tasty.

We also ordered the Vern's steak to share and asked for it to be prepared medium rare. When it arrived to the table, we were pleasantly surprised to see it was thoughtfully cut from the bone and sliced into 6 pieces. Sadly, once we placed a piece on our respective plate, it was visibly overcooked to medium well. We each attempted a bite of an end piece and middle piece of the pre sliced steak. The steak was chewy and did not taste like steak at all, rather it tasted incredibly fishy to the point that it was inedible.

When Olivia returned to the table to check on how these dishes tasted, we made her aware of our dissatisfaction with the steak. She gratuitously apologized and offered the thought that the grill wasn't cleaned from the seafood. She offered us two options: to have a new steak prepared or to have it removed from the bill. Our stomachs were completely turned off by the aggressive fishy flavor, so we opted to have it removed and requested the dessert menu. She took our steak dish and returned to the kitchen.

Moments later a gentleman approached our table. He did not introduce himself, but we came to understand from the staff that his name is Casey O'Mara. Casey asked us to explain what we had thought went wrong. Our explanation was met with ego, hostility, and gaslighting. Casey kept stating that he noticed that much of the steak dish was consumed (which it was not), that the steak did not touch anything that could have contributed to the fish flavor in the kitchen, and our taste buds must have been compromised by eating the lobster and that was the fishy taste we were experiencing. He made both of us feel as if our issue with the dish was an attempt to take advantage of the restaurant and get something for free.

I told Casey that he was making both of us feel very uncomfortable and I would like to talk to someone in management. He responded with he was the owner and there was nothing that we could do and walked away to get our bill. When he returned with our guest check, it included the steak which the server stated she would have removed. When I pointed out the error to Casey and reiterated that we did not eat it as it was removed from the table when we complained, Casey pointedly stated that he would not remove the steak because we ate it and walked away.

Horrified and in shock that an "owner" would dismiss patrons so abruptly, we had no other choice than to pay for food we did not eat, we paid the check, tipped the embarrassed server generously and left.

We will never be back to Vern's if Casey is employed. *Additional information provided by the Swan Group staff is that Casey is not an owner, but a partner at Vern's. They have consistent HR issues due to this individual which has caused many staff members to leave. He also has had many complaints from patrons like...

I guess the first step is to try to get a table there. They don’t accept reservations and for the last four fridays in a row, they’ve had a 60-90 minute wait time. You cant call ahead nor do take out when the kitchen is too busy.

Ive been there 4 times now and it’s been a 50/50 with service. The first experience, our server greeted us & when we asked her a question regarding the menu, she responded like it was an obvious answer. She took our order and the next time we saw her was when we asked her for our check. The manager brought us our food & also checked on us a few minutes afterwards, which was great because his hospitality was great, not our server.

The next two times the service was night and day. We were seated at the bar and truly an experience. The bartenders showed their expertise and the flow was really like a well oiled machine. The vibe was right and the food was 10/10.

The last time we went, we were told it was a 60 minute wait time, so we waited. Very accurate estimation because we waited almost an hr. Our server greeted us quite frantically, i guess there was an altercation in the kitchen so she wanted to rush over to greet us before she had to be right back. She came back, took our order and that was the last time we saw her. She walked past us and had a jacket on, covered her face with her bag and walked right out of the restaurant. No one attended us for about 30 minutes. We waited for someone to come over because we wanted to order desert, but everyone was so busy that we didnt want to take away from someone elses needs. We were there for about 2 1/2 hrs from when we arrived at around 745pm to when we were seated and paid for our bill which was around 10:15pm.

After venting about my frustrations with service here, I highly suggest implementing a reservation system. The two tremendous experiences are worth the wait, but you can’t expect your regulars to wait 90 minutes. We want to dine in & interact with your staff and enjoy the food that your team prepares.

Also, 20$ deposit per person for Valentine’s Day is greedy. If youre willing to accept reservations on days where youre expecting high demand, do it for Fridays and Saturdays without a...

TLDR: Go eat At Vern's. Also, grab a few drinks at Vern's. Don't skip desert. You won't regret it.

This place has been on my list for a while. I think it was the only member of the Swan family of restaurants I didn't make it to until today.

Right off the bat, we were greeted by an extremely friendly hostess who offered us a table. We chose to sit at the bar instead. The bartender Jordan immediately took notice and came right over even though most of the seats at the bar were full of patrons. He was extremely friendly and a very knowledgeable about all the drinks and food, which was helpful as it was our first time.

The menu consisted of a few specialty entrees, pizzas, sharing plates and desserts. The selection wasn't overly extensive, but each item was so unique that I could recommend this place to any picky eater and they'd find something to please their palate.

We ordered the Broken Burrata; a creamy cheesy salad of sorts tossed with citrus fruit sections , some kind of delicious vinaigrette, greens, and savory granola. Freaking delicious. Our second dish was the orange pizza. Don't let the name fool you. No citrus on this one. It was some kind of curry cream-based sauce topped with red onion and chilies. Mind blowingly amazing. These are thin Neapolitan style pizzas with a good amount of char on the crust. Tons of flavor.

For dessert, we went for the passion fruit ginger panna cotta, and a white cake topped with a sort of pomegranate preserve. Perfect balance of creamy, sweet and tart with the panna cotta. The sponge of the white cake was perfectly moist and was a great accompaniment to the tart jaminess of the pomegranate.

We also ordered four different cocktails between the two of us. All were perfectly balanced new flavor combinations to both of us, and we have had a wide variety of cocktails at home and around town.

I can't tell you how much we enjoyed our first time at Vern's. We will definitely be coming back for the friendly service, the awesome bartenders, the amazing food and the...