The Rose Plantation — Restaurant in Fruitland Park

Never write a bad review about restaurants but Friday night's experience at Rose Plantation is worth sharing. Supposed to be classy-elegant but upon arrival, you are presented with white chalky gravel/dirt parking lot. Bushes are dead & grounds not maintained. Only thing upscale were prices. Food not worth it. Lobster bisque had sour taste, disc of flour in it & no lobster. Filet was dry & stringy. Server came out with 2 delmonico steaks to choose – raw meat handled by server in dining room. Staff needs tons of coaching in customer service. Host not welcoming, maitre d' rude w/no personality. Server nervous & jerky all night as if she was on something. Overwhelmed w/small # of people seated in section. Inattentive & could not pronounce names of specials. Long wait time for drinks & each course of meal. Others in room had similar complaints about server. Best part of the night - server dropped my drink a foot away from where I was sitting, splashing all over my legs & shoes. Glass shattered into several pieces. Broken glass sat on floor for at least 5 minutes as she served other tables. Customers walked through spill - husband was kind enough to offer assistance so they didn’t slip. Everyone shocked at how cavalier all were towards incident. Not a single person asked if I was OK – shoes ruined and wet pants. No apology or concern from server who attempted to clean up mess with her foot! When maitre d' finally came over with mop, he half-heartedly apologized. There were shards of glass all over floor & under several other chairs/tables. Still pieces of broken glass on the floor & broken glass was up against my chair for 5+ minutes. Husband stood up so the irritated maitre d' was able to get drink from under his chair. Other restaurant goers were watching so my husband apologized for inconvenience. After broken glass incident, service got worse. No one made eye contact with us after this as host & maitre d' entered area several times, avoiding side of room where we were seated w/3 other tables. All went on as if it was our fault. It was almost as if we were eating in a half-way house - uncomfortable atmosphere. Bad attitude from mgt from beginning to end. When maitre d' came over to table at end to see how food was, he gave a number of excuses for complaints we shared. My husband was honest about our experience - it was our 28th anniversary after all. Was supposed to be a special evening for us but turned out to be nightmare. Maitre d's response was less than adequate & made it w/o eye contact w/cavalier attitude, which infuriated my husband. He insisted my husband was berating him. My husband is a calm, caring, demure person & doesn’t get excited about these kinds of things. He has worked customer service for 40 years & knows how it feels to be on both sides - as a customer & manager. We just wanted to be treated with respect. When I post this review, I fully expect someone from the restaurant to reply with snarky responses & excuses about complaints based on what I have read when others write bad reviews. There was no respect or care/concern for what happened. In the end, maitre d' told us it was servers 1st day on floor. Not our problem - poor decision by mgt to put someone like that on floor on Friday night. Their way to make things right was to comp lobster bisque & offer free dessert. Husband told him not to comp a thing. Was clear there was no love for customers & their comfort. Last thing we wanted to do was spend another minute there, just wanted to pay bill & get out of there ASAP. Not even looking at actual bill before I paid, I should have in hindsight having seen server give another table wrong check. When I did not give server a tip, she looked surprised. Have never left a restaurant without leaving a tip - lucky we didn’t just walk out without paying. Lack of respect they showed was overwhelming. As we were leaving several other patrons agreed with our complaints. Disappointed is an...

I fell in love with Rose Plantation when my husband and I had our anniversary dinner here in April. We brought family and friends back multiple times because we just loved it and thought it was the best food in the area. The crab cakes were heavenly, even the side dishes were stars. The first time I had the prime rib was in October for my husband's birthday dinner. I was over the moon. I have had prime rib at the best places in country including The House of Prime Rib in San Francisco and both Lawry's and the Golden Steer in Las Vegas, but this was heaven on a plate. I could not wait for the next special occasion to have it again. We went on Saturday, December 10th to celebrate my Uncle's birthday and mine. He and I both were crazy for the prime rib here. We did an early dinner reservation. We were seated right away, the restaurant was not crowded at all. We decided to forgo appetizers because we would be doing birthday cake later. We were told about the new menu, which had composed dishes on one side, or you could order everything a la carte on the other side. This concept seemed odd to start with, and if you chose to go the a la carte way, you ended up paying more to get the sides you wanted. We ordered, and waiting quite awhile for our entrees, which was unusual. The restaurant started filling up and it was clear our waiter was juggling too many tables. We didn't see much of him until our food came out. When my prime rib was placed in front of me, the first thing I noticed were the extremely large chunks of fat. I expect a nice prime rib to be marbled with more fat than a usual cut, but this was more than 50% of the piece. The second thing I noticed was the meat appeared dry and when it I touched it, it felt cold, not warm, just cold. My uncle's was the same. My aunt ordered the mushroom soup and salad, and her soup had also come out cold. I ordered it a la carte so I could have the baked potato and roasted vegetables, which were one of my favorites. I sent my steak back aend requested they warm it up. When it came back, it had been dunked in au jus, which is fine. It was still cold in the middle but I was hungry and didn't want to make more of a fuss. When I cut into the meat, it was clear right away it was very tough. I took a bite and was so disappointed. There was no flavor, not even salt. I was heartbroken. I sawed through as much of the steak as I could but not even the tail had flavor and it was mostly fat. I left 75% of it on the plate. It was inedible. I tried to eat the roasted vegetables and got my second disappointment. The brussels sprout was raw. It was as hard as a rock and unseasoned. I tried the parsnips and carrots, and they were awful. It was like eating veggie jerky. They were dry, tough and unseasoned. I was so upset. The only good thing that came out that night was my baked potato. I don't know who the chef was that night, but it was certainly not the magician that had made all the wonderful meals we had in previous visits. It's not inexpensive to eat here and I really don't want to spend that much money to have a meal I could have for 1/3 that cost at any one of The Villages country clubs. It was terrible. I never give restaurants a low score and I never write bad reviews, but since this is one of the best restaurants in the area, the level of disappointment was exponentially higher than I could...

Well, I was looking forward to an elegant dining experience with my wife. I will have to say, the venue is classy, but not elegant. I guess for the Leesburg area, people would consider this place upscale. What I found, other than a very nice waiter, was that the only thing upscale here was the prices. I was prepared somewhat for the pricing as I had looked at the menu online. When we arrived (about 10 mins early) we were greeted by a nice young lady who informed us that our table would be ready in a few mins. She was right, it took less than 10 mins to seat us. But, we sat there for at least another 10 mins before anyone acknowledged us, Finally, a nice gentleman with an American flag bowtie came over, he mentioned that he had noticed I was looking around as if we needed some help. He explained that they were very busy, and that he had mentioned to the manager he was going to and ask if he could help us. He went on to explain he was going to start our order, but was unsure if he would be the one completing it. This was fine with us, getting a drink would suffice at this time. He ended up being our server for the entire meal, and did a great job. I did notice the scowl on the face of the woman I believe was working our section, that never came to help us. My complaint is not with service, server was great, food came out in a timely manner, and tasted very good. I did order the Prime Rib, Rare, and was explained that by Sat. night it was not really possible to get it that rare anymore. No problem, it tasted good. My only issue with this was, it was not red at all, the cook I assume, covered it with au jus, which turned it brown ( explained by our server). He was unsure why they did that. My other issue with the prime rib, was how much market price ended up being for it. $60 which I think may be about the highest I have ever paid for prime rib. If it had been perfect, I may not have ever spent the time to even write a review, My impression of the Rose Plantation is that it is a classy place, but not elegant. When your in the eating area, which is like a glassed in wrap around porch (great A/C BTW) it feels cheap, like they did not use high end equipment or fixtures. If it was more high end, I also might understand the overpricing of the prime rib. I feel as though we had a nice dining experience, at the best restaurant we have found in the area. But, I was left feeling a little let down, as I was expecting more high end and elegant for the prices...