Mile Marker One Restaurant & Igloo DIning — Restaurant in Gloucester

UPDATE II - After giving it some time, we went back for their 'Tour of Italy' food/wine paring event. It did not disappoint. The person providing the pairings was VERY knowledgeable and offered great choices to complement each course.

This was the Mile Marker we fell in love with. The intimate event was nicely put together and we would definitely try another one. (I saw they had a tequila paring event, I'll keep my eyes on that one to return)...

We're happy we gave them another chance and are glad we probably just had an off night (albeit a special occasion) that we can move on from.

UPDATE - This went from a 5-Star to 1-Star (original 5-star review below this new horrible experience.....

Super sad to write this. After really loving our visits here and honestly becoming regulars our last visit was horrible. I booked for Valentine's Day as early as I could (my husband, son and myself). We arrived and the young lady at the front brought us to the absolute back of the restaurant, there was a half-moon table facing the outside. I asked if we can move because this was a super sad table for Valentine's Day...facing a window (not each other, it's like sitting at a bar with a child...all in a line)...She scoffed and said, "umm no" looked at the other hostess and laughed...this completely caught me off guard. I got defensive and said I couldn't believe this is even a table being offered, there was a table open up front, and we can't be expected to sit here especially with a child, and we had made reservations ahead to make sure this was special.

An adjacent table of 4- actually stepped in and said they were leaving soon and said they should seat us there. The scoffer just said "um no someone has that seat'...the older lady repeated what I said that it was a horrible seat to put anyone never mind a family. I smiled and thanked them for trying to help us. The girls said they will go check if they have another seat. We knew we couldn't accept that seat, so we followed them to the front.

One of the managers (the older gentleman) was surprisingly rude, he said, "a table is a table" and it's first come first served. I mentioned we made a reservation early to make this special and just can't sit there. All this while they have an empty table and the other table that was leaving...I asked why they couldn't sit us at an actual normal table. The other manager stepped in and immediately offered us the table that had been open since we walked in. I thanked him greatly. This WHOLE time this could have been done... The waitress we had was lovely and the meal fantastic (which were all expected)...but that RUDE front-end girl glared each time she walked by!

This ruined the night. We have not gone back since. I am so sad and disappointed. This was handled so poorly. I didn't review sooner but it's still a lasting feeling when we talk about where we should go to dinner, my husband wants to give it another go since we've had so many positive experiences, but I am I guess bitter and not over it yet. In the end if you are planning a special dinner be sure to say you don't want to back table until you understand what it is. Others may like it, but if you don't want bar style seating this is not for you.

OLD Review.... We have eaten at mile marker many times during the summer months and were sad knowing that the season was coming to a close. I saw an ad that they were doing igloos and immediately reserved one for a birthday celebration.

We have a very hard time getting certain family members out of the house, this helped entice them to want to check it out and it was absolutely amazing.

You would have no idea you were eating outside because they kept these nice and warm. We loved having the privacy of our own space celebrating a special occasion.

The food we already expected to be great since they have never let us down before, but the overall addition of sitting in an igloo outside in the winter made everything so much...

Probably one of the worst places I have visited ever. When I initially entered the Restaurant/Hotel Me and my family were quickly sat down by the hostess. The restaurant was packed not with people, but chairs. We were squashed like sardines in between 2 other families when there were multiple seats open. We were then greeted by a man with brown hair who said he would be our server, and asked what we wanted for drinks and appetizers. We ordered water, milk, Bread and Crab Rolls. About 10 minutes later our waiter returns with our drinks, which would be quick expect he didn’t return with our appetizers. Roughly 25 minutes later someone else exits the kitchen with what looks like our food, and then starts wandering aimlessly down the aisle where we are located. I had also observed multiple servers running around like lost puppies, pacing with peoples foods leading me to think that they didn’t know who they were serving. Eventually, we get our appetizers (Which by now were cold) I was going to say something, but decided not to. We then order our meals, their lobster dish and chicken with waffles for the kids. About 40 minutes later our food arrives, again cold. My and my husbands food was lukewarm, whilst my child’s chicken was lukewarm aswell, but the waffle was ice cold. We try to get a waiter to help us, but they are all either ignoring us or running around. Eventually, we get one to finally pay attention to us and they seem very on edge and rushing of us. They say they will heat up the food, and they do in the microwave (Which I can see the waiter do from my seat) after we were situated, me and my husband began eating our lobster, which now tasted rubbery from microwaving. We had noticed that our kid wasn’t eating her food, so we had asked her what was wrong. She told us that the chicken was hard and oily, and when I took a bite for myself and it was both very oily and I think the “Hard” part she was referring to was the extremely large bone. About 40% of the chicken was a very oily breading, another 10% bone, and other 10% chicken fat. At this point I was upset, as the food and service were both nasty. It took another 15 minutes to get our original waiter for the bill so we could finally get out of there. Won’t...

This was one of the first nice days of 2019, in lat May and after visiting and standing and waiting at the bar for someone to make eye contact for a drink was just way to long. And yes I get the fact this is super casual place and has been here for years, but you know what, they need to change. Live jazz music, on a Saturday afternoon - just the wrong time of day and music. And these guys are talented, but due to the crowd, the level of noise, you would not even know they are their. This should be an acoustic duo like you see at Ski lodge for Apre in NH or Vermont - people would come just for this - trust me. Once seated at bar, is was very present they were sell under staff, from people waiting over my shoulder, the couple next to us and other people at the bar waiting. You just can't keep up making specialty drinks at this pace at this volume - they were getting crushed. We ended up getting served and than said we will try an appetizer of calamari. This was just so poor in regards to being very, very small, no sauces and not even peppers etc, we sort of both looked at each other like - really - just fired calamari. Mean while we have an actual reservation at 6:00 for the main restaurant. At this point we finished the app, and said lets go to the main dinner area. Upon reaching the main desk, the woman was very short with us when we said we were 15 minutes early for our reservation. After she took us to our table which 1 chair backed up into what was waiter station of some sort, we said with all the open tables, and I mean over half were open, we said could we possible sit up further. She was puzzled that we would even ask and would have to get this approved. We were done at this point, this was not a first time employee, she knew exactly what she was doing. We said we are all set, thanked her for her time and we left. I'm not just being picky here folks, for these prices, you shouldn't be getting treated like this. Went straight from here to Seaport Grill - lights out a 100 time better restaurant and...