Ember Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Estes Park

We made a reservation this afternoon for 6:30pm and when on the phone the woman seemed like she was in a hurry and quickly confirmed and then hung up on us.

We assumed we had a reservation ready and when we arrived the hostess asked for our name and when we did it was clear she didn’t see the name. She asked a second time and when we explained we had already called a few hours earlier she said well I have seating for you outside right now.

We asked to sit inside and she said we can only sit you outside.

She then told us to follow her and we walked past several tables that could seat 4 that were ready with new silverware, clean, and ready.

We sat down outside and realized it was cold and windy. We were not prepared for this and let the waiter know right away that it was really cold and we would like to move inside.

He came back and let us know if we ordered then he could move us inside and we would be served inside.

So we ordered and then he came back and let us know there were simply no seats not even at the bar.

I explained that we had a reservation and it seemed like it was not recorded properly and that I could see that there were empty tables that would fit us inside where it was warm.

He apologized and said there was nothing he could do.

He came back out with an appetizer we ordered before entrees and could tell we were uncomfortable and apologized again telling us the food would make up for the cold.

I told him our story again with more detail and told him I knew he was not in charge of reservations so it was not entirely his fault but regardless we were still not prepared to sit in the cold when we made the reservation.

He apologized again and let us know that there was nothing to do but of course he wanted us to sit in his section so he had customers.

This implied he was happy to serve us so he would get a tip.

No one from the staff addressed this issue and no one cared that our experience was totally being ruined.

The food came out and got cold quickly.

People sitting outside were in jackets enjoying a drink and not really eating a meal like we wanted to do.

We thought our reservation would secure our seats inside but this was not the case and we were led to believe changes could be made but then they could not and we ended up cold, eating cold food and paying around $250+ and then leaving shivering in the parking lot.

I would recommend that if you eat here and call for a reservation make sure you know who you speak to. Get their name, ensure you know where you are sitting, and then when you get there you can verify this so you know what kind of experience you will have.

I do not recommend eating their entrees outside when it is cold because your food will quickly get cold and you can easily spoil a $50 dinner plate.

Generally the staff also does not seem to care if you have a bad experience past a slight apology and trying to pretend like nothing is happening.

I highly doubt that they will respond in good faith to this review. Maybe they will prove me wrong but I do not think they will make this right based on how things went down when they had multiple chances to while we were there. A response will probably be a bad faith one.

If you eat inside and everything is prepared properly I’m sure you may have a better experience but honestly I would go somewhere else for the money as this was pretty run of the mill quality with some presentation to look...

We had a rather horrible customer experience at this restaurant while on vacation. We had a reservation for August 25th at 6pm, got outside seating (which the staff even recommended would get us great service). 6:15, we get a waiter who recommended we order everything at once as it had the potential to be crazy for them. Cool, no problem we had our full order ready, appetizers, drinks, main course.

Drinks came 5-10 minutes after ordering, appetizers 15 minutes. They were great! Staff had great recommendations.

My wife and I sipped on our drinks and talked for a while, enjoying and noticed a few things: 1) we hadn't had a waiter come by in 30-40 minutes. Our first thought was,"Oh, well they DID say they were going to be a bit busy". We kept waiting, and the 2nd thing we noticed - people that had been sat well after we had our seats were getting their main entree already (and had their appetizers). 7:15 rolls around, an hour after we had ordered, still no waiters. We inquired and they apologized for the wait, and said our orders were in "progress" and would be "prioritized".

15 more minutes go by, no waiter, or manager says a word to us. It eventually starts to rain and we decide to just leave. They made us pay for the drinks and appetizer, and even were going to try and make us pay for the food saying,"Oh it should eventually be out soon, you could take it to go."

Here's my real issue: It was clearly obvious you flubbed our order - just say it. Say,"Sorry, your order was messed up and it will be out in 20-30 minutes." We could see the staff panicking by the double doors to the kitchen. Why didn't the manager/owner ever come out? He came out when we first got our drinks to say hi to patrons, never came back.

There was no real effort to really salvage the customer experience, if you go here you are not prioritized and they will just try to make what they can off of you. I'll pay for what I had, but I can't believe they didn't just comp it.

If you go here, please be wary that you may wait 1.5-2 hours for your meal, have no waiters see you after the first intro, and have a manager take no responsibility. A manager should have stepped in, it's ridiculous he hid in the back of the kitchen. Whoever owns this place needs to look at this, and sit down with their manager and staff and get their...

Long story short, we should've walked away when I immediately got negative vibes from the hostess. We had reservations that we made made two days in advance for 5:45pm and we arrived at 5:40pm. I told that hostess that we had reservations of which she found. She immediately said with attitude that "I'm sorry that we cannot fulfill your request to sit along the window as we're too busy." I said that was fine as I know a request isn't guaranteed.

The problem was that she said the only seating that she had available was a literal bench with stools near the front or a table in the "back of restaurant". Having never been here before, we said the back of the restaurant as we didn't want to sit on stools and wanted an actual table.

Well, the back of the restaurant is literally the back of the restaurant. It's a small and dark divided section away from the main part of the interior with a handful of tables, I think 4? It's where the servers roll the silverware and people go in/out of the kitchen. It literally feels like you're being punished or in a closet if you sit here. We were stuck in the back and ate our appetizer. The server felt bad for us as I assume that we looked miserable, so he offered us to go outside. It was cold at around 55 degrees but was better than where we were stuck.

The food in general is overpriced like everything in Estes Park and was just OK. The server was good and didn't have any problems with him. I don't know if it was because we look young or because I had a hat on as we've been hiking all day but hate when I feel like people discriminate based on looks. After we were sat in the back of the restaurant, a few more parties were sat in the main portion of the restaurant. Why was their reservation better or more valid than ours?

What's the point of having a reservation if it doesn't guarantee you a seat in the main dining area? The hostess needs a lesson in hospitality and a reservation should allow you to sit in the main dining area, not in the back where no one else...