Murphy's on the River — Restaurant in Corvallis

One of the worst dining experiences I have ever had. I brought my family of five there to have burgers. I ordered a Breakside IPA and my wife ordered a Phriem IPA. The Breakside was so flat and gross that i had to send it back. It's one of my favorite beers and I had it there a year ago pre lockdown and it was good. this tasted like they had poured it 4 days ago and put it in the refrigerator. I asked the waitress if she thought it would be the same if they poured another and she said it was probably the keg so yeah and suggested I get something else. I honestly think it may have been the same keg I had drinken off of a year ago before the lockdowns. I ordered the Phriem and it was fine, had carbonation and everything - still not sure why one beer would have carbonation and another beer poured from the same tap system would not-maybe it really was in the fridge for three days. So we ordered our burgers everyone else ordered pretty normal burgers but I ordered my burger plain and dry. The thing about me is I don't eat mayonnaise. I'm not allergic or anything I just have never eaten it because the thought of that white spooey on my food makes me nauseous. Its like a mental block or something, I will never eat mayo. so I very specifically told the waitress that I wanted the western cheeseburger plain and dry. I don't want any lettuce, tomato pickles mayo or anything just the meat and cheese. Bun bacon cheese patty and bbq sauce on the side. My family was even a bit embarrassed at how specifically I explained it to her but I just didn't want them to mess it up because I wont eat mayo and I do not want to deal with sending another thing back. The waitress was good, she the went all around the table and read our orders back to everyone and she had them all correct. Meat cheese bun, bbq sauce on the side. Ok sounds great! we get our food and it looks good, I am hungry. I open the burger and alas it has mayo on it. Bummer this meal is just a bad night for me. The waitress finally came back around to check on us and I told her they put mayo on my burger. At this point I said lets call it a loss and I'll just get nothing, I'll sip my beer while the family eats. I have seen Supertroopers too many times to risk sending it back for replacement, "I have an order here, its for a cop!" Plus if the cook was so callous about my order the first time when I know the waitress wrote it down correctly I'm not trusting him to make it a second. "I eat mayo so you have to!" I envision him saying. She took the untouched mayoburger back and I sipped beer. My family ate their food and it was all fine they enjoyed it well enough. We debated how much to tip the waitress and thought 20% would be fine and when she presented the bill I noticed the western burger that I didn't get was on there. I flagged the waitress and told her that the burger was still on the ticket and to my surprise she said that I needed to take it up with her manager that he forbid her from removing the mayo burger from our bill! To be honest I was shocked. I said well that sucks for you I ordered no mayo and it had mayo?? and I left her the bill minus the burger I didn't get plus 20% tip. I actually regret leaving her the tip because I'm sure Murphy's will take it from her and after thinking about it her response was terrible. She tells me to go take it up with the manager? If there was a problem the manager should have come talked to me and she better have told them how specifically I ordered the burger with no mayo. I own multiple customer service based businesses in Corvallis and my employees would be terminated immediately if they ever treated a customer like that. It has happened before and they did get fired. Is it really so much to ask, all I wanted is a beer that didn't taste like it was ladled from a toilet and a burger...

My girlfriend and I wanted to try this place as we thought it looked great in photos. While the prices weren’t outrageous, they were higher than average, so we were expecting an above average experience. Unfortunately, not much went right, so I’ll list everything that went wrong.

I ordered an Arnold Palmer. After drinking my first glass, I was brought a Dr. Pepper as a refill. Not a huge deal, but it was very indicative of how the rest of the experience would go. Our server lost the ticket for our order, so we had to order our food twice. From the moment we were seated, nearly a full hour elapsed before our appetizer was served (this did not appear to be a particularly busy night). My girlfriend ordered a medium rare 9 oz prime rib, and it was ridiculously undercooked. Obviously, prime rib is supposed to look red, but the outer edges had little to no browning and the fat was barely rendered. After politely mentioning to our server that the prime rib was undercooked, he responded, “That’s usually what our medium rare steaks look like.” We got him to send the steak back, and when he returned, the steak was better, but the entire plate was drenched in au jus, which brings me to my next point: The plating was atrocious. The plate was crowded with no negative space. My girlfriend’s prime rib was stacked on top of her mashed potatoes and vegetables, so they were drenched in myoglobin and au jus. My chicken katsu was sliced, but the pieces were stacked into a mountain on my plate.

This place was overpriced for what it was, and we had a less than stellar experience. I will say, the pork belly skewers were delicious and the chicken katsu was pretty good, bad...

All in all, this was a good restaurant. It didn’t receive a 5 for a few reasons. I have never been to a restaurant that did not offer water to the table. Overpriced for what you get Paper napkins???

For a place to charge 28$ for a steak I would kind of expect to at least have a nice napkin.. I ordered the NY strip medium rare. The cook on it was slightly over, which I can understand as someone who grills often. No big deal. The char was great. I had about1-1.5 oz of pure fat which was inedible. To be expected with this type of cut. My baked potato was served plain, with green onion, butter and sour cream on the side. It was also undercooked, still hard. Seems like they want to up charge you for cheese? Kind of odd.

My wife ordered the 12 oz prime rib medium rare. The cook on it was great, but I think the meat they used was subpar. It came out looking a bit grey for a prime rib. She enjoyed it regardless. The whipped potatoes looked much better than their baked in case you are on the fence between the two.

One other oddity, was that they charge a 3.84% service charge on cards for payment. As someone who works at a credit union I understand that Visa charges per transaction. However, to pass this off to your customers AND round UP is kind of shady.

Aside from a small wait to be seated, the service was good. Our server was attentive and polite, which always makes for a good experience. I write honest reviews in hopes the business takes constructive criticism well so that the next patron has a slightly better experience. There are other restaurants I would prefer to go to next...