Dutch House Tavern — Restaurant in Fair Lawn

I went to the Dutch House in Fair Lawn, 6/12/2016, with the family. The place comes highly regarded so I was looking forward to it. I got it in my head to go when we passed it during a street fair. We get there and it was mostly empty on the inside, but the outside seating was full. We wanted to sit inside anyway, so it was no big deal. We sit down and there are two other tables seated inside. One was seated in the same area as us, and one table was seated by the bar. It is a small bar without many people there either. I actually say to my wife that at least it's not crowded. We're told to sit anywhere so we grab a table in the middle of the place. We're waiting, and we wait, and wait, at the 15-minute mark my wife is asking if we should leave. I was like, we've been here this long, let's give it a little bit longer. At the 20-minute mark, we get our drink and food order in. We ordered 4 soft drinks. Then we wait again. After we caught the waitresses attention, 15-minutes later, our drinks arrive and my drink is wrong. Nothing major, but 35-minutes to just get our drinks seems ridiculous. I see an older gentleman working there doing things and I ask if he's the manager or owner. He says no, he just helps out there. I ask to speak to the owner or manager, he tells me no, owner is too busy. That's right, he said "no." Not, let me go tell him you want to speak to him, come back, say he's swamped and will talk to you when he can, that would have been annoying, but acceptable, he said no. That was the last straw for us, I ask for the check so I could pay for the soft drinks and while paying I tell the guy we're never coming back. He said, "Good, don't come back." I was livid at that point. I was going to do something about this, I would write a review.

So, I post my experience in the towns local web site and folks are coming back that it is a great place and they're so surprised, which figures, as I said, this place is highly regarded. The owner starts posting, says he's sorry then offers a bunch of excuses about how busy it was. I replied that I understood, that places get busy, I'm mad because I was told that I couldn't speak to a manager, and was told no, when I was mad and said I wasn't coming back, I was told good, don't come back. Those were my only issues. So he says he's sorry again, this time getting my name completely wrong, must be spell check, whatever there. The third post, he says, "Sorry that you expected me to come out and tell you the obvious, that we were busy." In case you were wondering where the employee got the attitude, it took almost no time for the owner to share the attitude. Then his wife gets on the thread and starts attacking me. She's yelling that she's not a faceless corporation, she's a family business and I shouldn't write bad things about them. She's going crazy. I pull down the post. Way too much drama. They start a new post attacking me.

I would avoid this place like the plague if you want good service...

If there was a -1 star then I would put that. On September 25th, 2020, I called in the Dutch House Tavern, to order two deluxe burgers with onion rings to be cooked well done. When I arrived they made a mistake with my order that increased the wait time. When I finally received my order, to my surprise the meat was rare, instead of well-done like I requested. Which lead me to voice my concerns with the manager of the establishment. When I called, I was transferred to a manager and it seems as though she already knew who I was because when she picked up the phone she said: "Oh yes I was here when they made a mistake on your order. While speaking to the manager in this place, she seemed to not care at all about how I felt and was pushing a refund in my face, which was not the purpose of my call. I've never felt this way before about any establishment. Horrible service, horrible manager, if this is family-owned, she needs to be taken off the front end. No one should ever feel that their feelings...

Went in and asked to look at the menu. Teller standIng at register the whole time I'm reading over the menu. No one else in the place. I finally decide what I want so I walk back towards the counter and say "I'm ready". Teller asks how he could help me. I asked a question about one of the sides, he answered and then asked me to wait. He then walked in the back for 2 minutes. He comes back out and tells me he was checking to see if they had something in stock that they didn't have the day before. Mind you, it's after 6 pm. I said, "it's ok, so I'd like" he then interrupted me and said he'll be back in a minute. I just walked out at that point. I honestly felt like his leaving was deliberate. The vibe between him and I felt very uncomfortable from the start and it stayed that way the whole time. Very very non...