Arooga's — Restaurant in Derry Township

As a former server and bartender I tend to overlook a lot when I am out to eat, but there was just too much to overlook at Aroogas in Hummelstown tonight. We arrived at the restaurant at 7:00 tonight and waited at least 5 minutes for the hostess to show up to the hostess stand and seat our party of six, including 2 toddlers. We mentioned that we checked in on Yelp, and her reply was, “my system is down, and it doesn’t really matter”. The restaurant was less than 25% occupied and there were a number of dirty tables waiting to be cleaned. Our server, Meghan arrived 5 minutes after we were seated to get our drink orders. Although it seemed to take a while to get our drinks, we patiently waited only to learn that the beer that one member of our party ordered was out. No problem, let’s try this. . . Oops that’s out too. We get this wasn’t the server’s fault, but it certainly set the tone for the remainder of the meal. Appetizer and dinner orders were placed. We patiently waited. The toddlers were hanging in. Finally, one set of boneless wings arrived. Five minutes later the other order of boneless wings arrived with the small house salad. The kids were starting to get ansy as they were getting hungry. All the while our server was no where to be seen. We actually started to wonder if she had gone home. Finally after 45 minutes the meals arrived. The tomato basil soup was cold, so my boyfriend asked to have it reheated. When it finally came back, the grilled cheese was cold and the soup had been reheated for so long that it was boiling hot and looked like a volcano was ready to erupt. The only person that didn’t complain about their food not being hot was me, and that’s because I had the Apple Walnut Salad. It’s kind of hard to mess that up. When all was said and done we were in the the restaurant for almost two hours. The experience was not worth the amount of time we were there. I’m summary, I doubt I would ever go back to Aroogas in...

We rolled into Arooga’s like a small, hungry circus troupe—kids in tow, already dangerously close to the “hangry” zone. The server? Genuinely kind and sweet to the kids, which honestly buys a lot of goodwill in my book. I mean, anyone who can handle a table full of snack-demanding chaos goblins with a smile deserves a standing ovation.

But then…the wait began.

We waited. And waited. And waited some more.

It took nearly an hour for our lunch to arrive—even though the place was mostly empty. I’m not sure if the kitchen was aging the meat to perfection or perhaps planting the potatoes from scratch, but time was moving like molasses in January. My children aged several emotional years during that wait. I did too.

When my food finally arrived, it wasn’t even what I ordered. But the server never came back to check, and honestly, by that point I had emotionally committed to eating whatever food arrived in front of me. I just whispered “this is fine” like that cartoon dog in the burning room and dug in.

Still—credit where it’s due—the food was tasty! But here’s the final blow: we ordered dessert. We dreamed of dessert. We hoped for dessert.

But dessert… never came.

After 20 more minutes of waiting, with kids starting to dissolve into puddles of wiggly exhaustion and me mentally Googling “how long can a cookie take to exist,” we finally gave up. We had to leave without it. A true Shakespearean tragedy.

Final rating? Three stars: +1 for the sweet server, +1 for the solid food, +1 for my personal growth in patience, -1 for glacial service, -1 for the heartbreaking dessert abandonment.

Would I try again? Maybe. But next time, I’m packing snacks, emotional support juice boxes, and a contingency plan for dessert. Just in case.

Editing to add: we got our deserts!! They came out right after I submitted the review so we...

I'm not one to usually complain, but I'm not even sure where to start with this place. They were extremely understaffed, And moving as slow as possible. We waited for 25 minutes till someone came to the host stand and asked if we were being served. We said no and she states "we are on a wait and I dont know what going on" and proceeds to return to behind the bar. Meanwhile there are atleast 6 tables that have been empty since we walked in. But werent cleared of glasses and dishes. Finally after being sat. We wait another 20 minutes to order drinks and apps. After waiting a reasonable time for apps the one appetizer was made incorrectly and we were assured it would be remade and back in 5 minutes. 25 minutes later we recieved said appetizer. We waited roughly 30 minutes to then order our meal. Which took roughly an hour to recieve as we sat there pondering if we would recieve our food before our stomach acid ate through the lining of our stomachs. We were delightfully entertained by an hour long commercial about helping cleft pallet babies get surgeries to fix their faces in third world countries. We were lucky to see all the faces and even watch some surgeries on the 45 different televisions it was currently being played on. After losing interest and appetite we finally recieved the food at the hour and 20 minute mark. Food was hardly warm and inadequate. We asked for checks and boxes which luckly only took about 30 minutes to recieve after asking. And I was lucky enough to pay 100 dollars for food that took longer then it takes to get a root canal. I would also like to add the bathrooms were extremely neglected. No papertowels, no soap and it looks like it wasnt cleaned since...