Pied Piper Pub & Inn and The Cat House Lounge — Restaurant in Eureka Springs

This place ruined my birthday.

Hear me out, that sounds harsh. It was our first night in Eureka for the weekend, and it was my birthday. We decided on this restaurant, as it was open later than the others, and it was already closing in on 8pm, with the restaurant closing at 10. Plenty of time for a group of 6 to get our food, have a nice time, and be on our way before they have to close, right?

First, we're ignored for a solid 5 minutes by the staff until someone FINALLY signals we can sit at a table. Mind you, the place isn't busy. At all. We dont receive menus. Or silverware. It's another 20 minutes before someone rolls around to take our DRINK order. It's like around 8:30 at this point, and while waiting on our drinks, we start to wonder if Google had the hours wrong. When we finally get our drinks, we ask the server if they're trying to close? Did we come too late? The server says no and confirms they're open til 10.

Oookay... so we ask for a menu. Oh, well, the kitchen is limited. No biggie, we'll order from the limited menu. Oh, they don't have X, y, or Z. Fine. We order what they do have.

And wait.

And wait.

At this point it is 9:30. No sign of the server, and it looks by all accounts that the kitchen never even GOT our order. Everyone is starving. With normal service, we'd have been GONE by now. So we finally cut our losses and leave. But by now it's after 9. All the restaurants in sleepy lil Eureka have closed by now. And we're still f'ing starving. What place IS open? McDonalds.

We had sh*tty McDonald's for my birthday dinner. Because apparently the Pied Piper didn't want our money or business. If they could have at least told us they didn't want to serve us, I could live with that. But they gave us horrible service, had us wait until everywhere else was closed, and we still didn't get food. I will actively avoid EVER walking into this place again, and will deter any and everyone I know from making the same mistake we did.

Don't go here, they don't want...

We ate at about 3:30 pm on a Tuesday in late May. The Cat House bar had several motorcyclists enjoying a cold drink, and we were in the outdoor seating area of the Pied Piper section at the opposite end of the building-- along with a family of four and a customer with a dog. The outdoor area is well shaded, and was comfortable even though it was a humid 86 degree day. Because we saw that another customer had their dog laying by them, and I had read online that this was allowed, we did the same with our dog.

The server, Nicole, was excellent: outgoing, friendly, and frequently checked back with us to make sure our soda pops were refilled and that we were happy with our meals. She even provided water and a piece of bacon for our dog as a treat. The late afternoon crowd was not large, and we received our food quickly.

The restaurant's fryer was not working for some reason, but that turned out to be a good thing because it forced me to get something different than a sandwich and fries. I had the bangers and mash : two spicey andouille sausages, smashed and seasoned potatoes, fried cabbage, grilled onion, buttered bread, pickle spear, a piece of cooked carrot, and very nice side salad. My meal was excellent. In my picture the side salad does not show the large portion of minced tomato or the cucumber slices it came with-- my wife quickly ate them. It also had cheddar cheese.

My wife had the (also excellent) pulled pork sandwich, with BBQ baked beans as her choice of side dish, and potatoe chips. The pulled pork was seasoned nicely, and served with Swiss cheese, grilled onion, and an au jus for dipping. Her BBQ baked beans were fantastic, with pieces of apple and bacon mixed in.

Both meals were about $11, were plenty to eat, and well worth the cost.

The restaurant's own parking was limited, as seems to be the norm downtown, but a public lot is available across the street ($ 5.00 for...

I worked in restaurants most of my life front and back of the house. I was a fine dining waiter for years at Rogues here in town. I give restaurants the benefit of the doubt probably more than I should but this is absurd.

This used to be a Eureka staple, consistent food and service. Fatima and Latigo knew how to run a place. We have only eaten there a couple of times since it was sold and tonight reenforced why. It was 7:40 when we got there we were told to sit anywhere. I said we will be on the patio with 6. The waitress was obviously not pleased about it but told us it was fine because we had our 11 year old so we could not sit on the bar side patio. She said I trying to shut downy section but it's fine. Once again this is before 8 p.m. I ordered a sweet tea with lemon I received in sweet no lemon....wait wait wait. Finally I went in went to the bar and got it myself. When the waitress finally did come she said did I bring you a lemon.... should not have to ask you have three tables. Nope I also didn't get sweet tea. Asked the food order came back and asked it again.....if you can't remember write it down. No one in our table ever got a drink refill not counting going up and getting them ourselves. Half of the food was mixed up. She brought three silverware for a table of six and no napkins. When we asked for napkins we got served an eye roll.

We have lived here longer than she had been alive. Business survive on local referrals. I will not be recommending it to anyone until they fix the food and service which we may never know because I don't think we will be back.

Sad to see a once great establishment...