Hannah's — Restaurant in Denton

My husband and I visited Hannah's on Friday, December 27, 2019. We did not make a reservation prior to visiting the restaurant (I would suggest you do as the dining room is decorated very nicely and creates a better ambiance than the bar area). We selected our own table in the bar and had a nice view of the restaurant, bar top, and what looks like a stage or performance area.

We were greeted promptly by a female bartender who brought us water and menus. She was pleasant and gave us time to look over the menu. A previous reviewer had mentioned the drinks were expensive and I can't agree more. For the service, speed, alcohol used, and presentation...nothing warranted $13 for a mixed drink.

A different bartender (male) walked up and asked if we had been helped yet and we said yes. He offered to take our order for us since the original bartender was now behind the bar making drinks.

We asked for a recommendation on an appetizer and were given the mozzarella stuffed meatballs. The dish came out in a large salad bowl with three average sized meatballs in a marinara sauce. The sauce is a house creation and is heavy on the wine (it tastes a little boozy still). The taste of the sauce is potent and overwhelming for a dish that's focused on the meatballs. Inside, the "stuffed" meatballs had no mozzarella. None. They were good, but nothing overwhelmingly good. But it was odd that they weren't overflowing (or at least noticeably stuffed) with cheese. At this point in our visit, the restaurant was at 4 stars.

We placed our order for appetizer and dinner at 7:45pm. My husband and I began talking and ate the meatballs pretty slowly. We waited until about 8:20pm and then began looking around for our server who was also behind the bar making drinks with the original female server. He noticed we were looking around, came to our table, and said "your food should be right out."

It wasn't until 8:32pm (47 minutes after we placed our order) that our food came out. I ordered a mixed grill (it was a featured item) and my husband ordered the lamb burger. For 47 minutes, the expectation was that the food would be so amazing that we forgot about how long it took to get it. But unfortunately, like the slow service and boozy meatballs, it wasn't. The Cornish hen tastes like it was doused in artificial smoke flavor. Either that or someone had it in the smoker when it first started smoking. It was inedible. The steak medallions were cooked well and had a good flavor, but only made up about 15% of the plate. The vegetables were typical and the alligator sausage was lacking some flavor. For this dish to be $38, I'd think it would be more thoughtfully prepared. My husband's burger was a typical lamb burger. Nothing to write home about. It was most certainly not as good as the burger that's half the price at two other restaurants on the square.

After waiting 47 minutes for food, we ate pretty quickly and asked for the check. We mentioned to the server that we felt like it was odd that it took so long to get our food and he said "we are surprisingly busy for a Friday." I totally understand, but would think that after waiting that long we would have been offered at the very least an apology for the wait.

We won't be returning. We spent over $100 on mediocre service and par-for-the-course food. It's not worth it. Try...

My wife and I are long-time visitors at Hannah's. We had one of our first dates there over 7 years ago and have been semi-regulars since. We recently started branching out and trying other places, and so the other day we returned to Hannah's after not having dined there for a while. The staff was fantastic (as always), the restaurant ambiance is great (as always), as were the dates (the best) and the drinks (fantastic bartenders). We ran into the disappointment with our meals. My wife has always loved the scallops. She basically doesn't get anything else because she loves them so much. But apparently, the scallops have changed. We saw right away that it's no longer offered with risotto, so we asked for a substitution (risotto was available on a new shrimp dish), which was accommodated. We noticed right away that the scallops were smaller in size. Upon tasting them (we both tried them), we found them saltier and tougher than previously experienced. The scallops formerly on offer were always large, sweet and tender. The risotto was large, firm and salty. Very different than the smooth, creamy and lemony risotto that the scallops were formerly paired with. I ordered the Cobb Salad, thinking that this was the blue cheese wedge salad under a different name. This was my mistake as I should have read further, but the words "blue cheese" appears under the Cobb and so I assumed I was getting my favorite dish at Hannah's, the Blue Cheese Wedge salad, served chopped at my request, with the house-made blue cheese dressing that was simply the best blue cheese dressing I've ever had. The candied bacon was well cooked but clumped up and not in individual pieces as was always the case with the blue cheese wedge. Neither my wife or I finished our meals, and we made an early exit without our usual desserts. We were sad, as we realized that with these menu changes (there were other changes as well that we noticed on the menu), this was not "our" Hannah's. Still a lovely place to visit, and perhaps if we did not have the echoes of our previous favorites in our heads and on our palates we would not have been so disappointed, but with both of our favorite dishes removed from the menu, and with overall reduction of quality in the food (the coarseness and saltiness was ever-present except for the always-amazing dates), we won't be going back...

This Sunday was my first visit to Hannah's after years of spending time in Denton, and I can honestly say it will likely be my last. I will not lie, the high reviews had my expectations equally high, so it is likely a combination of overall disappointment, and disappointment compared to expectations.

First impressions are huge, and our first impression was that we had made a reservation, and despite showing up 5 minutes early for our reservation and the restaurant being basically empty, they still made us wait 10 minutes to get our table ready. We were only a group of five people, so it really should not have been too complicated.

Next up, the waiter was not friendly at all. He seemed like he was trying hard, but his personal skills were below-par, and really did not give a welcoming experience throughout the evening.

When we declined to order appetizers, we were warned that the restaurant had discontinued bread service, so we will likely get hungry before we get our food and should probably reconsider. I felt like it was kind of a weird sales tactic to point out that bread service had been discontinued, especially due to the really high prices of the plates. It seems like serving bread is the least they could do with most plates averaging over $40 each.

Next up, we asked to order a side of grilled chicken for our little one, and the waiter told us he would have to check to see if any of the chicken had been defrosted, as it was normally only served during lunch not dinner. The fact that this restaurant is serving frozen food had me somewhat puzzled. Most restaurants that are as fancy and as expensive as this one serve fresh food, which likely should have been a red flag for the food when it finally came out.

When our plates finally came out, after close to an hour wait, everything was reasonably good. We had to add salt to some of the sides, as they seemed to be under seasoned, and my steak plate, while cooked as ordered, was extremely chewy. Perhaps my steak was frozen like the chicken?

All in all, the entire experience was fine, but spending over $250 for five people should have given us a lot more. We will...