Cabin Creek Brewing — Restaurant in Georgetown

Short review: 2 stars. Good beer. The food has changed and just isn’t as good; we likely won’t eat food there again. My burger was very dry and not worth $16. The views and patio are really nice. We have always had nice servers with good attitudes and good service so far. The parking is abysmal. All of the people at the lake use the restaurant parking for lake parking. We did find a spot. But it makes the restaurant look like it’s packed when it’s not.

Long review: My family and I are locals. We have visited Cabin Creek numerous times since their opening. After this visit, my husband and I agreed we would return for a beer but not the food. The food just isn’t that good anymore.

Our server was really nice. He was super polite and did a great job. I wish I had his name just to give he extra kudos but didn’t notice a name tag.

I got the Cabin burger. It was really dry. The burger itself lacked seasoning. Honestly it felt like the burger was frozen or premade. It was charred too, which I dislike. The burger was too small and thin for the brioche bun. There was not enough sauce nor any natural juices from the burger to compensate. I didn’t eat the bun due to health issues. (I actually ordered ‘no bun’ and still got one.) If I had, I would have much rather had a cheap, store brand bun or maybe would have dipped the whole thing in my glass of beer just to get some moisture on it. (Sad and sorry to say!!) I love brioche. But a brioche bun needs a lot of burger juices and sauces to give it moisture. The burger and bun were really incompatible. The cheese sauce was delicious but sparingly applied—just not enough. The onion jam was great but it was sticky and thick. Nothing could make up for the dryness of the burger and bun. I ended up eating all the toppings with only half the burger, just so I could get some moisture. It was a sad, dry burger for $16.

My husbands bratwurst was great. It’s locally made and comparable to some very fine, locally made sausages we’ve had in German pubs.

The kids menu really needs some improvements. A burger choice would be nice in the future. (I feel like they offered it but don’t anymore?) The prices are a bit outrageous. Everything on the kids menu was $12. For kids food. We nearly ordered off the adult menu for similar prices. Charging $6-8 would be far more appropriate. We ended up ordering the grilled cheese. It came out 3+ inches thick due to the very thick artisanal bread used. My kiddo couldn’t and wouldn’t eat the crust, due to the thickness and hardness of it. As a parent, I’ll just be honest: most kids I know don’t need or want fancy food. It would be better if it was good but less fancy food, and then charge a less expensive price.

The fries were fine. They were nicely crisp and never went soggy or limp. They used to have these unique v-shaped seasoned wedges. Bummer to seem them gone. We really missed them. As a side suggestion— it would be wonderful if they would add sweet potato fries to the menu. I really love those and Cabin has never offered them.

Another issue is the parking. It was a Tuesday afternoon but we nearly didn’t stop because the parking lot was full. (We figured the restaurant was packed.) Decided to try anyway. Found a parking spot. Once we got inside, we discovered the place was nearly empty. As we ate, we noticed a few people in the restaurant parking lot getting out their fishing rods from their cars and leaving to fish. There have been numerous times the parking lot has been packed on a weekday. We assumed the restaurant was packed too, so we went to another restaurant. After this visit, my husband and I both wondered if we had missed out eating there only due to people using it for lake parking versus...

Wildly disappointing experience. We have been visiting cabin creek since they opened. This was the first time we genuinely have considered not coming back. Service was non existent. Logistics. All seating is seat yourself. It feels chaotic as formerly there was staff that would assist in seating both indoors and outdoors. With the self seating, tables don’t empty. People leave their belongings, order a drink or two and then spend 3+ hours at the lake only to come back and order another drink. The tables feel more like a public picnic spot than they do a restaurant with this model. Service. Outdoor seating is all order at the bar, which previously all tables had a server both inside and out. This change is okay except the line to order inside is often out the door creating 20+ minute waits to order with an addition 10-15 minute wait for a drink. We had 3 beers each and easily spent an hour or more in line just waiting to order. Food turn around time is fairly standard at 30-35 minutes when busy. Which is a positive. Cleanliness and food safety. The patio was filthy. Again, like an unmanaged and unkept public picnic space. Trash on the floor, dirty bench tables. Glass on the floor. There are a ton of children and dogs that frequent so I’d expect at least someone to be patrolling and cleaning as parties leave their tables and space. I saw someone bus a few tables but mostly people bussed their own tables and when they didn’t, there seemed to be confusion if a table was occupied or not leaving customers waiting to see if anyone came back to the table. The condiments baskets were left to sit in the sun on an 80+ degree day. Sure, the mayo and ketchup say no refrigeration necessary but that doesn’t mean they can safely be kept sitting in the sun for hours on end. Some left open. It’s quite foul. [ ] Comfort. Only a handful of tables had shading. As someone who lives at 9 thousand feet elevation, the mountain sun can be quite intense especially on warm days. We were lucky to find a table in a little bit of shade so our dogs could stay cool but watched numerous couples and families with children and dogs having to sit in the sun with no reprieve until someone left or they got fed up and left. Many mountain breweries have pergolas or permanent structures to allow outdoor seating with children and pets year round as the weather can be volatile at elevation. As a restaurant and brewery of this size, I am surprised Cabin Creek has not implemented a structure like this. Something like this would also help with the food safety concerns as noted above. I genuinely do not enjoy leaving a review with this feedback but it’s honestly unacceptable. Cabin Creek has every opportunity to be a great pillar of the mountain communities and an enjoyable stop on the I70 corridor but it is currently suffering severely from poor management and...

UPDATE: Cabin Creek lied in their argumentative response to the below. The soup was not almost entirely eaten, and that was certainly not the excuse given at the time (because that could not have been the excuse). Three of us tasted it, and that was it. It remained un-eaten through the time we complained and paid the $100 bill, after giving the restaurant the opportunity to do the right thing. We were told the full bowl was not removed because we already had the drinks removed, which they now admit did have an issue. Apparently, their view is that once an issue is resolved, all other issues are caveat emptor (customer beware). The restaurant's response is thus further evidence of poor customer service, to the extent they now blame the customer with a false fact rather than admit fault and issue an apology. The response should have been -- "you are right, we apologize and will do better. We appreciate the feedback on the drinks, while we investigated and fixed. Please give us the opportunity to prove our rating."

Bad customer service and management can destroy a restaurant faster than bad food. I give 1 star because despite mostly good food, the manager destroyed customer satisfaction.

The good: The place is new, modern, and inviting. The Italian Beef was A+. The chicken fried steak with eggs was another A+. The pizza was a B, and the burger was a B (would be an A if “pink” was actually pink). Everything below is NOT the waitress’s fault, but the manager’s fault.

The VERY bad: we ordered two hot chocolates. They were lukewarm and watery with no flavor. It was obvious these were powdered drink that were over-watered. When we said something, the waitress said she would check the water temperature as if that would bring flavor, but it confirmed a powder was used. They took it off the bill. We also ordered the soup special, Thai Black bean with Creme fresh. Watery and no flavor. Poor soup for creme fresh. It curdled and did not look appetizing. We complained. Manager came over and fought with us. Said she would remove only 1/2 of the soup we did not eat since she already took off the hot chocolate we did not drink and thought the soup was fine. Really? We said it was her place and she could do what she wanted and we were the customer and could take out business where we wanted. She snidely said “thank you”.

UPDATE: I was going to let this one go, but given the further anti-customer response, I now add to my review that when the drinks arrived, the person who put them on the table (not the waitress) spilled the drinks and did nothing to clean it up. Instead, we had to ask for napkins to clean it up ourselves.

Our son just moved a block away in Georgetown and we visit often. I do not care about $4, but that plus rude attitude has cost them thousands in...