Main Street Brewery & Restaurant — Restaurant in Cortez

We live locally and eat at MSB maybe once every month or two. It’s usually “OK”; not great but good enough. Last night was the worst dining experience I’ve had in a long time!

First, they were burning a smelly scented candle (shouldn’t a restaurant smell like FOOD?!) They extinguished it when requested but I think it was relit later.

They were out of three different sodas and beer we tried to order, and brought a substitute drink without asking. When asked to replace it, the server sighed a bit and said “I’m the only one on tonight but I’ll try.” We were the ONLY table seated in the dining area (although there were a few tables seated in the bar) How busy is busy?!

When our food arrived, my husband’s burger and mom’s pasta were OK (the pasta is always a bit oily and overcooked) but my 1/2 order SW Chicken salad had over a half cup of water pooled under the salad. It was really, really gross. Trying to not be the difficult diner, I began pouring the water out from under the greens. The server returned right at that moment and I showed her all the water pouring out. She said, “yeah, we store our lettuce in water to keep it fresh. Is there anything else I can do for you right now?” I handed her the bowl full of water and said “Yes. You can take this back to the kitchen and tell them to drain their lettuce!” She took the bowl with a slight eye roll and left without a word.

Surely Main Street Brewery has a salad spinner, or a colander, or even a clean towel on which to dry their greens?! The salad itself was OK, but floating on a pool of water is not acceptable in any restaurant anywhere! To her credit, the server took the salad off the bill. I do think she was trying.

Even the brown and serve bread which came with the salad was “served” but not “browned.” It looked and tasted almost raw.

So, maybe they were having a bad night. Maybe they were short staffed, or had a brand new cook, or whatever. But aside from not charging for the salad, there was never an apology or hint of regret that we had such a crappy dinner.

I don’t think we’ll be back for another meal there. It wasn’t great in the first place, and they really bottomed out last night. This place probably catches tourists unaware, but if they have any local clientele, they must be taking a night off...

I've been meaning to write a review for some time, but have been searching for the words that will do justice to the establishment that is Cortez's Main Street Brewery. My mother knew the reasons for my trip to Cortez this last weekend, from my hometown of Big Water Utah four hours away. Hike around Mesa Verde Say hello to my ex & friends Feast my taste buds on the Quinoa Black Bean Burger I'd been salivating about since my first trip, back in July (another story, for another day.) She did not know, however, the percentages motivating those reasons. (Mesa Verde- 15%. Ex- 10%. Main Street Brewery- 75%.) The disappointment of my ex bailing on seeing me paled in comparison to my arriving at Mesa Verde only to discover the Spruce Tree House trail closed. Good thing I keep my heart's priorities where they ought to be. You heard me. It was Main Street Brewery who fulfilled the promises so vivid in the mind that others just couldn't keep. (OK, a bit of credit where it's due. I did discover the Far View ruin sites at the Park today despite Spruce Tree's closure.) A black bean burger so balanced that I can only reason it must have been the brainchild of Nicholas Sparks and Jim Harrison. The ecstacy of consuming it served with a cold side of tragedy as the mind inevitably wanders to the startling numbers of vegans and vegetarians who may have likely come through Cortez and not discovered what I have discovered. Worse yet, the amount of omnivores who've entered this establishment and glanced over this option because "weird vegan food", instead choosing to clog their arteries with one of the Brewery's (surely very delicious) animal product options. I like to think my vegan energy when I entered the Brewery last night was what compelled some brilliant chef in the kitchen to take the world's best black bean burger recipe, and make it even better after I left. Came back this morning to discover I'd likely died and gone to Veg Heaven because it tasted more scrumptious than before. Impossible! Perfect love may not exist. But Main Street Brewery's black bean quinoa burger (newly revamped...

I'm going to leave the bottom section which was my original review but after getting the kids settled in for the night at the hotel I did go back to the restaurant and show the manager the salad that wasn't eaten because my daughter didn't have salad dressing for it and pictures of the prime rib that I took showing it was well done. He offered me a partial refund which I greatly appreciated, we're not locals so he doesn't have to worry about losing my repeat business and could have just told me to get lost but he didn't. The food that we did eat was delicious, my son loved the flavor of the wings, and I would say they had about the best stuffed mushrooms I've ever had.

*I called in an order to pick up since we're in town staying at a hotel down the street. When I got the food back to the hotel I realized they had forgotten the sauce for my son's wings, the dressing for my daughter's salad and the horseradish for my wifes prime rib. The prime rib was also medium well done with almost zero pink in it at all when we had ordered it rare. When I called them to let them know they're only response was sorry we will let the kitchen know, at this point we had just got done driving for 5 and a half hours and paid $100 for a meal so we...