Gardner Ale House — Restaurant in Gardner

I hate having to write a bad review. But I'm writing this review based on my most recent experience at this establishment. I'm familiar with the Ale House and have been coming here for many years, for many different occasions. It's a local favorite, and they have great events. However, my family and i like to attend their Sunday Buffet and was in the area on this most recent Sunday. We stopped in, and learned that the Sunday Buffet was a thing of the past, that they rid of it because of food waste. No problem, we figured we'd try the breakfast anyway. So, after putting our name in with the host, we waited at the door for a table to clear. The host saw a table open up and told us we could go over and sit there (while there was still dirty dishes at the table) I said, we'll wait for a clean table. The table was then cleaned by a young man, and we were told we could walk over and sit. Young Man came over to bring coffee creamers and we misinterpreted him as our server. He told us our server would be with us in a minute, but took our coffee orders anyway. Very polite and very fast, seemed eager to please. Coffee came, and we asked for more creamers (coffee was potent, I loved it, my family found it too strong). We had menus already at the table and we took time to look over and decide what we wanted, and finally a nice waitress come over after a bit of waiting and we placed our order.

We waited 50 minutes to receive our food from the time we put our order in,There were 3 of us, and we ordered pretty simple breakfast dishes.

Each time, the waitress coming over and ensuring us that it would be right out, she was keeping an eye on it.

in the time that i took to receive our food, we witnessed other folks come in, sit at the bar, order food, eat said food and finish up and leave. The table behind us were sending CLEAR body language that they were tired/annoyed of waiting and ready to pay their check and leave. They had been there before we arrived.

When the food did finally arrive, the biscuits and gravy were atrocious. It seriously tasted like the biscuits had been prepared the day before, were burnt black on the bottom, had been stored and then microwaved to get them steaming hot which caused them to dehydrate and get hard. The gravy, tasted really good but they cheaped out on the portion size of gravy. The waitress was nice enough to replace my dish with a new one, however it was the same exact situation. Completely inedible, however I was able to enjoy the eggs. Whoever is serving those biscuits is cooking the heck out of them, and in turn losing the flaky/soft aspect of what a biscuit should be.

Unfortunately this was just not a good Sunday breakfast and with the buffet being gone, we will not...

Just ordered the Fried Mozzarella and the White Smokehouse pizza, delivery through door dash was great. The mozzarella was ok, only got 4 so for 9$, not worth it. The pizza was...revolting. The grease was puddled on the top and soaked through the cardboard circle underneath it to the edges of the box. Consequently the crust was soggy and floppy so the cheese and toppings just fell off, which didn't really change anything flavor wise because there was no taste to this pizza it was strictly the sensation of eating grease soaked crust...more of an "experience" than a flavor based food. Very few things at The Ale House have left a good impression on me. Every time I go it's generally because someone else asks to go, and I am always re-reading the menu trying to remember the things I've ordered before so that I don't order it again because I know it's disappointing. I don't normally write reviews, but this experience was the last straw for me. The only reason it's as popular as it is is because it's conveniently located and people know where the center of town is. Should have saved myself the money.

Now for some pros: Their alcohol is normally pretty good. I like the Candy Mountain Charlie sour beer and normally default to that. They change their menu. Not sure how often, but they're adding and subtracting things so the options do rotate. Nonetheless, not many dishes left and impression. Mac n Cheese did once but I don't remember which one it was or if it's still on the menu. They do A LOT of local shows which is awesome! None of the bands peak me or my families interest though, but that's our personal taste in music and is not a reflection on the bands or events hosted here.

They win a lot of rewards but my experiences leave me asking "why?" It's a shame. Good concepts,...

I love this restaurant... my husband loves the beer selection... we all love the live music...the food has been good, maybe even amazingly good 3 out of the 4 times I've gone. I went this past week and was really disappointed! Not with just the food, but the service too. The spinach and artichoke dip was good, came with a small amount of bread and tortilla chips. My Filet Mignon was nothing special, and considering the price you pay, I expected something better, alsothe portion of potatoes was much smaller than I remember. An icecream size scoop. My husband and son both got a salmon dish, which was pretty good. Kids meals were decent, and cheap! The cocktails are a bit inconsistent. The deserts were your normal deserts, strawberry shortcake and am ice cream sundae. We spent quite allot of money, and our waitress was just awful. Normally our tip would have been around $30, but I didn't even want to tip $21 (standard 15%) honestly. She took our food before we had finished. I still had half of my meal left when she grabbed mine and I had to stop her from walking away with it, my 8 yr old son was still eating and we didn't even realize his plate was gone right away. Then we asked her to come back in a few minutes while I finished my dinner so we could order desert. We waited almost 30 minutes. The kids were getting impatient, but able to be occupied with the coloring contest papers. Also... what happened to restaurants serving salads or bread and butter before a meal? I'm a huge fan of starting dinner with a salad. Just a...