Sedona Taphouse — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

ALRIGHT. i dont leave reviews yall but. im so disappointed. I love sedona, im a umw student and a fred native.. my money means something to me and i love trying new foods, visiting regular spots etc. I love their drinks, their service and their food. My boyfriend and i consider sedona a go to. However, the past THREE times i have gone it has gotten progressively worse. the first time, my boyfriend got a burger well done fried egg well done. he doesnt do undercooked food whatsoever. they brought him a medium burger, NO egg. the second time, i got a burger medium well and specified very little pink. that burger was RAW raw . im talking raw ground beef, tendons, blood, COLD, it was disgusting. my fries were cold, stale it was crazy. i sent it back, again soemthing i do not do ever. the fries came out so fresh it jsut made the staleness of the last batch more noticeable. now, this third try is lowkey insane. i ordered a salad. i was chewing and all of a sudden i bit down on a silver-dollar sized chunk of black rubber. black. rubber. in my salad. the size of a silver dollar. this is the most unsanitary, disgusting thing that has ever happened to me in a restuarant. where did it come from? what did it fall off of? what the actual heck. it was in my mouth, i chewed it. I work in food service, i am a waitress and a cook, i understand how a kitchen works. that was a big piece of rubber that had broken off of something and fell into my food. this should not be happening. nothing flaking or falling apart should be around your cook/prepstations. people need to wake up, you are dealing with FOOD, and with rampant recalls and restuarants having terrible, hazard-level health & cleanliness standards going on right now, no restuarant is safe. sedona is no exception. Youre going to get reported. Sedona is wildly popular, and yet i have seen a rapid decline in thier quality control. service is ALWAYS fantastic, speedy ,efficient and polite, and when presented with an issue they are respectful and do their best to resolve the problem. i in no way am implying that they are the issue. Thai and Maddie are the best (apologies for potential misspelling). Please ask for them. i work in a small family owned kitchen. reviews like this are devastating to them, (not that they have EVER had complaints of this scale) whereas im sure to sedona a review like this means nothing but i am telling you, you are losing customers, returning regulars. this was unacceptable. my meal was comped, but i did have to pay for my drinks and desserts (which is fine because they were good and i always enjoy the drinks & i tipped my server to tab (100%) because again, she was incredibly kind and gave excellent service and not her fault). i do however partially think my entire ticket shouldve been comped as literal trash TRASH was in my meal, but i digress. The food is pricey and it comes out fast-a concern within itself because fresh food is worth waiting for to cook, and yall dont make us wait. Im not looking for an apology or anything like that. im just offering some feedback. sedona, i see u have a lot of reviews discussing things similar to what im telling you, and yet 3 times now the problem has remained. i hope you dont disregard my opinion. To everyone else, try some local independent restuarants and stay away from the chains. they just dont attend to...

So honest review about my FIRST experience at Sedona. So the first half of the night was actually quite lovely, me and my friends were having a wonderful time. We were enjoying the atmosphere and the wait staff’s awesome attitudes (my HEROS for the night). Everything was going perfect and the food actually tasted generally amazing.

However about 20-30 minutes after getting full and eating just a little bit of my French Quarter pasta, while sitting in the restaurant, I ended up puking up my food up. I kept puking and the incredibly sweet staff ended up doing everything possible to make sure I could clean myself up and not be embarrassed. I kept on apologizing to them about the situation. When I finally explained that I believe the food is what made me sick (and that I don’t have allergies to shrimp/didn’t have anything before hand that would cause an upset stomach), our waitress immediately apologized and got the manager after I stopped heaving at my request.

The way that the manager dealt with the situation (and the obvious food poisoning) is what is making me post this review. When I spoke to the manager who mostly stood by the sideline while his wait staff did the heavy lifting in helping me, I prefaced the fact that I would still pay for my meal and informed him that I was worried if other people have had the shrimp in the French Quarter Pasta. Even after I said that, the manager on duty was extremely defensive and stated that if it was actually food poisoning that it would’ve happened HOURS after eating the food and not while in the restaurant. And that I should go to the hospital if it was really food poisoning and never ONCE apologized to me unlike his incredible wait staff who kept bringing me wet towels, ginger ale, and water. It’s incredibly astounding and concerning that a manager of restaurant not take this issue more seriously. It felt like I was being accused of puking on purpose. Even after I left the restaurant shortly after the incident, I’m still feeling pretty awful and having some pretty awful GI stuff going on. I am extremely disappointed in my experience here with the manager and the food.

Update: some of my friends who also tried my French Quarter pasta are also experiencing some of the same symptoms as me. I will definitely not be coming back to this restaurant in the future after this. It’s so disappointing that it was my first experience here.

Update 2: I have tried getting in touch with the general manager to no avail. Ive tried calling during the day, at night, middle of the day. Nothing. This experience has genuinely been a GI nightmare for me for about 2 months now even with doctor’s trying to help me. But I’ve never had issues this bad before in my life, I’m going to be reporting this to the health department in...

We left the restaurant at 6:15pm and I tried to use the link received from the restaurant to leave feedback at 7:05pm. The link took me to a page that said "too much time has passed" to leave feedback.

Seems they really don't want feedback on my experience.

So ... I'll leave it here for everyone to see.

We're not "regular" customers but we've been at this particular restaurant nearly a dozen times. Each experience has been good or better.

Today ... a little on the "not so good" side.

The table next to us was pretty loud [unhappy child] ... which is not the restaurant's problem nor can/could they do anything about it. I only bring it up because as that party were preparing to leave, they moved the highchair they were using into the middle of the walkway. Inconsiderate for sure, but ... the wait staff left it there and walked around it. Several patrons had to navigate around it as well, too include an elderly man who tripped on it.

The appetizers were good and pretty quick. After that ... it went down hill.

The server didn't come to take our entree order until after the appetizers were served AND consumed.

The meals were just okay. The beef was very close to being undercooked and the "French Quarter" dish was bland and without the typical mild spice.

The server took WAY too long to check on our table and when we asked for drink refills ... it took so long I almost went to the bar to get them myself. [The restaurant was busy ... but not that busy.]

Now ... I'm not opposed to confronting unacceptable service but it really has to be bad for me to "raise a stink." Add to that, this was a 'celebration' dinner and I didn't want to dampen the mood for the entire party.

So ... time for the check. I typically use the "tip" to drive behavior and express my feelings on an experience.

Sedona uses table side technology to speed up the process. In itself ... it's not a problem; but it's awkward with server standing over your shoulder watching you. Not just "watching" ... but stood there while I reviewed the bill for accuracy. Just poor form.

All in all ... I'm on the fence about going back. This visit was underwhelming and I'm not sure I've got it in me to go back.

Happy to talk to management if they want to reach out.

• UPDATE: 10/2/24 * Had a pleasant and professional conversation with the GM. Plan to give to visit the...