Noah's at 63 Main — Restaurant in Essex

Google says they open at 10am, a brunch menu on their social media says they open at 10, their answering machine says they open at 10am on weekends—arrived with my husband and 2 kids after driving from Madison at 10:45am and they were closed. Another car pulled up right after us and, after we got our kids out of the car, it was about 10 mins to 11am, we all were let in. The person who let the party before us in said snippily “our website says we open at 11” when they inquired about the hours. After searching for that info we found it located in small font on the bottom of their “contact us” page, but all other outlets said 10 and I would bet that most people (perhaps naively) use Google as a default for business hours. When we were seated my chair was dirty (pretty easy to see there are crumbs on white leather, and just as easy to dust off the chairs prior to seating parties; and the music was egregiously loud, but as more people arrived they turned it down. Not very kid friendly but luckily we were the only ones in the dining room and our kids are not disruptive anyway. Kids menu says the kids items come with french fries. We ordered the buttered pasta for our daughter and, while they were nice large (easy for a toddler to eat) shells-the dish did not come with the fries. (No, she doesn’t need fries and pasta for lunch but the menu says it comes with, so, we should have gotten our fries so we could take them home for dinner). I meant to take a pic of the “brunch menu,” which was 3 items (eggs and breakfast meat, biscuit open faced sandwich, crab cake sandwich) and a couple brunch cocktails. So, we kind of only had the choice to order lunch. Wings were good and the perfect size (we prefer them small and not your typical “wings on steroids”) but when we asked for ranch we were told they don’t have ranch. (And, yes, I hear you buffalo wing purists-but my husband does not like cheese). Seems a little silly to not have ranch dressing at all (especially when you have a Cobb salad on the menu), IMO a little pretentious. Hubs and I both got burgers. We weren’t asked how we would like them cooked and they came out well done, which was fine with us (but I’m sure not for some). Gluten free bun was cold and terrible (yeah, I get it-gfree can be hard, but you can at least make an effort to toast or griddle the bun). The romaine on my burger had dry dirt on it, so obviously fresh but obviously not washed thoroughly. For those with gluten sensitivity-the regular fries looked breaded, the sweet potato fries were not breaded. Cocktails were the only really solid thing about this visit aside from the wings. Service was shoddy and apathetic. It seemed from the get-go the server was annoyed that two parties arrived before 11am. Lovely view, nice clean bathrooms, cool looking bar but won’t be returning bc Noah’s missed the mark in too many ways. They could do so much better with the food (especially given the prices) and the service given the locations and atmosphere. Might be the kind of place for adults sans kids to hit the bar and maybe just...

I was so excited when Noah’s first opened given that I am a chef who lives in the area and it’s ideal location of downtown Essex, by the beautiful waterfront. It’s sad to say but I have completely given up on this restaurant. I wanted it to be good so bad, but the truth is, it’s just really not worth the money. The bar does serve pretty good drinks, and the ambiance is nice, but the food is overwhelmingly sub par. This restaurant has such an opportunity to produce up scale or even quality gastro-pub fare, but the truth is the menu is just incredibly boring. Dry fried chicken tacos, a cheeseburger where you are not even given the option of temperature preference (or even pink or no pink) or a south west rice bowl which is worse than chipotle with rice that must be from a box. The last straw was when I walked in to place a takeout order, as I was pushing my children in a stroller through the neighborhood. I waited at Noah’s for over an hour before I received my overcooked burger and rice bowl with little flavor and rice so overcooked that it was caked together. Yikes. When I called to let them know that the food was unsatisfactory, I was offered a gift card. I refused the gift card as I don’t feel like giving them another shot (I’ve tried 4 times). I told the manager that I would prefer to be refunded, to which the manger replied there was no way he could do that, but the owner of the restaurant will give me a call and maybe he could work something out. Well that was three weeks ago and I never received a call. Be better.

Too long didn’t read: Over priced boring menu with poor service and improper management of...

I recently visited Essex Village for lunch with my mother and daughter, which brought us to Noah's on Main.

Upon entry, the restaurant is aesthetically beautiful to look at. However, it is much smaller than it appears from the outside. We ate on the first floor, which is located next to the bar, and holds approximately five or six tables. I am assuming that there is an upstairs dining area that includes a deck and a boastful view, I'd imagine in the summertime. The view from our table is included in this review.

Being a foodie, I was very excited about the prospects of this restaurant. We ordered the BLT with basil pesto and sweet potato fries, the double burger with truffle fries, which was an upcharge, and a Caesar salad. The BLT was good and taste, but the burger was the star of the three. The Caesar salad was very large and plentiful in lettuce, but all three of us agreed that the Caesar dressing was not right. It lacked any sort of flavor and just tasted fishy. It was a shame to have paid $16 for it when no one felt like they could eat it due to the dressing. The salad was a major disappointment.

Our server was friendly, but service was a bit slow, considering there were only two other tables in the entire restaurant. At the end of our lunch, our bill was $55 for the three items without any drinks. While the scenery is beautiful, I won't be rushing back to Noah's due to the pricing being high for...