Season's At Highland Lake — Restaurant in Flat Rock

Having stayed a few days at Highland Lake Inn & Resort in June 2022, we had the opportunity to sample multiple meals prepared by Season's. Breakfast each day was a buffet with the usual offerings from healthy items such as yogurt, oatmeal, etc. to pancakes or waffles (alternating days), grits, bacon, pork sausage, and so on. It was delicious as expected and the OJ tasted like fresh-squeezed. The dinner menu is a little thin for our tastes. My wife would have preferred lobster or scallops, but chose the salmon and she said it was average. I selected the "NC Rainbow Trout 'Puttanesca'" which included olives, capers, sweet peppers, fresh tomato sauce, garlic confit, hellenic olive oil, and bucatini (pictured). I love seafood; presentation was good but the star of this dish was the bucatini (not the seafood as it should be!) and I'm not really a pasta fan. The pasta and everything except the trout was very good; the trout seemed dry, a little tough, and I'll refrain from saying more, only that it was sub-par. A dessert that is wonderful is the "Flourless Chocolate Torte." We also had multiple carry-out meals. I usually had to walk to the restaurant to order, since the hotel doesn't have room service and Season's often doesn't answer the phone (they need a headset since the phone just rings with no one at the hostess station). All of those meals were good (e.g. the Portabello Mushroom sandwich and the Patty Melt sandwich) with one notable exception in that I had ordered "Vegetable Soup" and was given the "Tomato Bisque" that I didn't discover until back in the room. She was new, but I'm still a little surprised she didn't know the difference (e.g. by color, consistency) as I overheard her instruction to get the soup and the instruction was correct. I called to advise her of the error, but as it had begun to rain I didn't go back to retrieve the correct soup and they didn't offer to...

My wife and I had reservations for Thanksgiving Day and we arrived at the restaurant about 15 minutes ahead of our reservation. The hostess advised us upon checking in, that we could be seated at our table, if the table was ready. We maintained our place in line and waited to be seated. Everyone else in the lobby was taken to be seated at their respective tables, but we were left standing at the front of the line. When I checked the current time on my cell phone, I noticed that it was past our reserved time to be there. We were then told by the host that we could walk to the adjacent building for coffee while we were waiting to be seated at our table. My wife overheard the hostess advise the host that they had given our table away. We declined to go next door to wait for our table to become available. We continued to be subjected to delays until we were finally seated. When you have made reservations for a specific time, this kind of treatment is unacceptable. After suffering through a long winded delay, we were finally escorted to a table and we were anxious to get to the buffet tables for food. Even though my wife and I filled our plates to the rim, there wasn't any particular dish that was better than average in taste, flavor or quality. We have certainly dined where the food was worse and we have dined where the food was better, but the prices are the only element that rise to the top of this chophouse. Giving our table to other patrons was not only rude but it was inappropriate. Management should have refunded our money instead of clinging to their...

From the very first moment we stepped foot into the building, we felt that the staff didn’t think we belonged there. We are a young couple and we were staying AT the resort and thought to try the restaurant’s dinner. We are both under 21, and we knew we did not want to or were able to order alcoholic beverages. Well, as soon as we got to our table one of the waiters came by and snatched out wine glasses without saying a word. For the remainder of the night, the only thing we were given to drink was ice water, not even sodas. We thought this might be some restaurant policy so we didn’t say anything. Then we ordered our food, and while the waiter was talkative and playful with all the other tables around us, he kept conversation and pleasantries at a minimum with us, acting almost annoyed for having to wait on us. We got our food, which was very disappointing compared to the breakfast. I could not finish my plate so when the waiter came back I asked him if he could bag it. He took the plate back to the kitchen and gave us the dessert manu. By the end of the night he brought us the check and I asked for my food, he said I did not ask for it to go, and that he was “deeply sorry if I misunderstood you” with the most insincere look on his face. That was over half the meal still left on the plate. Needless to say, it was a terrible experience and really disappointing. It does not represent the rest of the staff at the resort, who were eager to help and provided outstanding service. Mrs. Emma and the breakfast staff were the sweetest and made our days that...