The Farm Bar and Grille — Restaurant in Essex

I go here often, and want to support their business and it's with a heavy heart and even heavier stomach I have to say that their food is alright but I would avoid them completely on sundays, during any busy time or near closing. Every time I order food during one of these times my order is either wrong, undercooked/messed up or i literally get food poisoning (im up at 4 am completely sick from their food as i write this.) One time my "farmer's mac and cheese" advertised with pulled pork and caramelized onions came with raw onion (gross) and a giant piece of gristle pork in the middle. I've gotten multiple pork burritos that have made me sick, and I've had quite a few burgers that were so undercooked i had to spit my bite out and throw the entire thing away at home after paying. I now exclusively order food from here medium well/well done because if you don't they will serve you food that's almost cold inside. Even my "well done" burger was almost too rare to eat. I understand that it's a fad to have rare meat but when someone says MEDIUM they don't want RARE. It's not even safe to consume ground beef or pork that's undercooked and yet it's served to me constantly from this restaruant after paying 20 or so bucks. I've had to almost completely stop ordering chicken or bacon because i've gotten raw bacon numerous times and either undercooked or woody chicken EVERY TIME. I don''t understand how the quality control can be so poor. I've been eating here consistently for years and it's baffling. I can only hope this feedback will get whatever needs to be gotten in line because if I get sick again i am changing this review to say avoid at all costs. As it is, take it from someone who goes here often the food is a GAMBLE. I hate to have to say that but that's my experience. All the wait staff are great though, the service has been good every time i've been there but the kitchen either needs someone new in charge or better safety standards because it's not reasonable to get food poisoning this much from a restaruant. The tables are very grimy and sticky constantly also, i don't think it's from a lack of cleaning because i always see the wait staff scrubbing away at the tables before people sit down. The whole restaruant kind of has a "dirty" feel to it and not in a rustic folksy way, more like a "did the health inspector actually do their job?" kind of way. EDIT i forgot that if you get side portions of certain sides (cole slaw for example) they try to give you a tiny plastic container of cole slaw (maybe 2 bites total) for 3.50. every time i've caught it, i've asked them for an actual appropriate amount of a side, but i HAVEN'T caught it many times because i shouldn't have to check to make sure my food is correct EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

edit 2 the owner responded and said they "moved on from their last kitchen manager" 4 hours ago, but the bad food i ate was 12 hours ago so unless they "moved on" this morning i find this...

My husband and I are always looking for different restaurants to try. My parents were In town for dinner and I was hoping to take them some place nice to eat and enjoy each other’s company. Horrible horrible experience. The only thing that was good about it was our server, Kiah! The atmosphere was cute when we walked in, after being seated and ordering we realized there was a table with loud children seated near us. Okay, so how bad can it be? We have raised four children, we were always able to settle ours down. Nope, not here! Screaming at the top of their lungs to the point when they did, it made us all jump, at one point my husband jumped up because he thought something was wrong. Needless to say, the conversation at our table was limited because we couldn’t hear one another. The food came which was mediocre. Shortly after we were apologized to, which we thought was nice until we were told that it was the cook’s family so they were not going to ask them to leave. I was a little confused because I thought, well if it’s not the cooks family would you ask them to leave? First, we didn’t complain to anyone so why the apology? Second, the unneeded apology would have been enough you didn’t have keep digging the hole! As we were trying to eat the family got louder, one of the kids was jumping over the back of my booth trying to look over my head. During all of this, we were also experiencing no AC, the temperature in the dining room was over 80, which didn’t help the situation. I have raised and been around children of all ages for over 30 years. I actually do PR and Marketing promoting children of all ages and their accomplishments. Never have I witnessed such a blatant disrespect and and disregard of other diners. My suggestion, if they were truly the cooks family, maybe they should be told to respect the people who pay his salary! If you like extremely loud, warm restaurants with mediocre food…this is the place for you, otherwise,...

What a hidden gem this place is!! I was looking for a new place to go for my birthday when I stumbled across The Farm Bar & Grille. My husband and I looked online in advance to check out the menu. There were a lot of choices and the prices were reasonable. We decided to start off with their pulled pork bbq nachos. When the nachos came, we were blown away at how generous of a portion they were. The nachos were loaded with pulled pork as well as tomatoes and onions. Too many times we've had nachos where the toppings were skimpy. Not here! My only criticism is that in addition to charging you extra for guacamole or jalapenos if you want them, they do charge $1.95 if you want sour cream. Sorry, but I think that sour cream should be part of the deal. It is anywhere else that we've gone. They did give us a generous portion of the sour cream, but still.... The nachos were delicious - probably the best we've had. There were so many that we couldn't finish and wrapped the rest to go. We should've stopped there - but we didn't. I was in the mood for a burger and so was my husband. A lot of choices. I finally decided on their New England burger. Burger, cheddar, bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion served on a brioche roll. My husband ordered the double, double. Two all beef patties, caramelized onions, cheese. secret sauce with lettuce and tomato also served on a brioche roll. He decided to swap the fries for the onion rings (for an additional charge) so that we could try them. Everything was perfect! The burgers were both cooked to perfection (medium rare), the onion rings and fries were crisp and tasty. The bluegrass music that they played was pleasant. It could be heard but not so loud that you couldn't hold a conversation with each other. The whole experience was very enjoyable. We look forward to going back and trying out some of their...