Farmhouse Restaurant at the Barn Resort — Restaurant in Cumberland Township

My mother and I came in for lunch, curious about what the barn looked like since it reopoened. We had visited the location back when it was Boyd's Bear Factory, and we're very happy to see the building is not being left to rot for eternity. As the resort overall is a work in progress, there are some areas that are charming, while others look stark. It's kind of odd to partially open, but I suspect that they are trying to use the money generated by the restaurant, gift shop, and arcade to continue funding the renovations.

I appreciate the decor, and the bits and pieces that they've kept from the Boyd's Factory to pay homage. There are two rooms in the resutaurant, one that has a lot of cute decorations, and the other larger room that is a little sparse at the moment. This was the room where we were seated, by a sweet blonde girl from the hostess stand. Our server was a dark haired girl who was also nice, and there was another blonde girl that cleared our table who was also nice. The water was not from the tap, which I appreciate.

The buffet area is nice, spacious, and very bright. There was music playing in the buffet area but not in the dining room, which I found a little odd, because the dining room wound up being very quiet in comparison. But that's not a major issue.

There was a very wide selection, especially at the salad bar. Sooo many options for both a regular or fruit salad, which was very nice. That was my first plate, along with a piece of what I'm assuming was foccacia (it was near the pizzas). That was a bit dry, but I do believe it was house made.

The hot bar features a few sections, such as the afforementioned pizza, pasta, hot veggies, rice, meats, fish, and some kid-friendly choices. My mom and I tried to get a little of everything between us. I will state outright that everything was fresh, and I saw trays being refilled more than once.

Every food item was a hit or miss. I tried the penne with marinara, alfredo, mac and cheese, and the corn. The marinara was fine, they probably could have added more of it to the pasta. The alfredo I can definitely tell is from a jar. Not the worst quality jar, maybe it was jazzed up a bit, but there's something about jarred alfredo that always has a certain flavor, probably so it can be shelf stable. The garlic bread is also store bought, it's a dead-ringer for the frozen kind you get in the store. The mac and cheese was alright, the sauce was a little gritty, but they did put a lot of sauce and a nice layer of cheese. The corn was good, nice and buttery.

My mom got the lasagna, shrimp scampi, chicken, turkey with gravy, stuffing, meatloaf and green beans. The shrimp was cooked well and they were very big, but they weren't peeled, which kind of defeats having the sauce on them since it all comes off with the skin. I tasted the skin on the chicken, there was nice seasoning on it, the green beans had a meatiness to them. My mom enjoyed the turkey and gravy, and the lasagna, though she said the meatloaf was just alright.

We then moved onto the dessert. The yellow fruit pie with crumb topping looked underdone on top. The crumb topping was wet, which means it probably had too much butter and it melted out. The other pies looked good, but I would suggest that they should be put on individual plates rather than left to self-serve. They were becoming a mess from people having to try and get the slices out. The blueberry crumble also was wet on top. Again too much butter.

I tried the apple pie, and the crust and filling was tasty. I also got the coffee cake, which was moist, and what looked like a cheesecake but tasted like vanilla pudding. The desserts appear to be housemade, and their quality is better than the food, even with some of the issues mentioned.

Overall, I think there are a lot of areas for improvement. I'll have to come back when the full resort opens and see if they use any of their new revenue to...

Make sure you double and triple check your check!!!

Really wanted to like this place. Came on a Saturday at 7:30pm , called around 6:30 to put a reservation in as advised from their website, lady who answered had an attitude and said they don’t take same day reservations, cool we can wait. Got there at 7:22 pm , the plenty or parking but it’s a short walk to the entrance that leaves you second guessing if it IS the entrance.

Checked out the arcade first , games were average of $1 each , which is great!

The Farmhouse was EMPTY for a Saturday night, maybe 10-15 tables total had customers, but there was PLENTY OF SERVERS, we were seated quickly at the farthest part of the restaurant, as beautiful of a place as it was you’d think they would try to sit people closer to the food area for convenience, but that would make too much sense.

The food was mediocre and underwhelming. They had pulled pork at the carving station. (You’d think they’s have some cheap type of beef as their “star” since dinner is $24.99 , which is fairly higher for the town os Gettysburg) they had 3 fish dish , all over cooked, dry and rubbery , a choking hazard literally , it should be illegal to have that skin on your seared fish as rubbery as it was. There was one beef dish , a really dry pot roast. One other pork dish , i think it had apples and peppers , it was dry and old. The sweet potato and marshmallows was good, really hard to mess that up. The over cooked tri color torellini in pesto was decent . The mac n cheese was so dry I think I have cuts in the back of my throat from the bread crumbs, it’s not the same mac n cheese in other pics from other reviewers. Everything was dry and old.

For $24.99 it is NOT worth it. There is barely any entrees, you might as well go to the Chinese Buffet place, atleast theyll keep your drinks refilled.

Dessert, the bread pudding , the little that was left of it was great. I wouldve loved more but thinks were not refilled and the cooks made it a mission to avoid eye contact so you couldn’t talk to them. The chocolate ice cream taste funny. The sad sprinkles were sad, messy and not refilled. You’d think with more servers, cooks, staff than customers every thing would be attended to.

Our server was nice , but not attentive.

When we got our bill , i checked to make sure it was correct. 2 adults, 1 child (8) , 2 drinks, 1 water… great total with tax is $68ish. I had my card and our servers leaves to run it , comes back with the receipt that you sign/put tip on and the total has changed and an expresso martini was added and charged, I tried to look for our servers and she was MIA. I asked the 4 servers/staff standing as the front for a manager (woman with short brown hair) and Kyle was helpful enough to find her , she on the other hand acted like we were wasting her time and avoided us like the plague. Kyle voided our initial bill and our server reappears with the new bill and in the most condescending way possible explains what our bill is , no apologies for her mistake. She said oh the table behind you is the same (they were NOT, it was an older couple withOUT and kids).

No manager ever came to address the issue of charging our card an additional $12.72.

Pathetic.

Please improve on your customer service and your food.

If you are planning on trying this place , I hope you have a better luck...

What a letdown. Food was old. The restaurant was basically empty. $40 for two plates of bad buffet food? Go elsewhere.

Edit:

I wanted to add more to this experience, but I wanted to initially get the review down while I was in the restaurant. Writing on mobile sucks.

So, the parking lot was basically empty, which made me think the place was closed. No signs outside indicating where to go or if this was even the right place.

I rolled the dice, went inside, and entered an empty hotel lobby. Things were closed, chairs stacked - the building looked like it was shut down for the season, honestly. Lights were off in the main great room, there was a side room that was dark, humid, and had a bunch of paper streamers taped to the door frames with a fan blowing warm, humid air into the great room. Again, strange.

We go right then down some escalators after following the interior signage - more closed shops, an arcade that was strangely well developed, and then we were at the restaurant. The hostess seated us, we met our lovely waiter, then walked through the hall of wood and lights to get to the buffet.

The buffet room was vacant of any life besides us. The breakfast buffet essentially took up a few spots - one small corner of the main buffet line to the right, the fruit bar, and a cookie/desert area.

The main buffet is what I was there for, and it looked like it hadn't been refreshed since they opened at 8:00. We had gotten seated around 9:50 or so. What was left of the scrambled eggs was dry - you see from my picture what they looked like. I figured, there's no way they are actually as bad as my eyes are telling me they are. This is the Barn RESORT, for crying out loud. So we took what we could and moved on. Pancakes were ok, but there was only a few of the small things left in the tray. French toast, same, though some were moist and fluffy like you'd expect and some were so dry and overheated they were actually toast, now.

Bacon and sausage was well stocked compared to the rest of the bar. I didn't touch the biscuits and gravy. Fruit bar was well stocked, and the cookie platters looked basically untouched by chef or patron.

We ate half a plate of food. For an all-you-can-eat buffet, we were probably in and out, with all waiting, food gathering, conversation, check, and moving towards the exit in about 15 minutes. More people came in, but not many. I went and checked the food buffet one last time before we exited, just to see if anything had been refreshed for the new folks that came in - nope. It hadn't been touched. It came out to a little more than $40 for two people to have sad scrambled eggs, a couple sausage links, and some fruit.

We left, and as we were driving back, the experience bothered me so much that I actually called the restaurant back to ask for a manager. I got a apologetic young lady who took down my info and said a manager would get back with me and see if there was anything that they could do. It's been over a week, and still no word.

Gettysburg has so many good food options. I can't recommend you spend your time or money...