The Boat House — Restaurant in Greene Township

Boat house? More like Wait house! (Plus the rude service)If you are in the Lake Wallenpaupack area and considering attending this restaurant, I would consider finding another place to dine. If there was one word to describe this restaurant, it would be mid. After a long morning on the boat, me my parents and some of my nieces and nephews decided to search for a place to eat, hoping for a great experience. We decided to come to this place because it was close to the lake where we had previously been. Everybody was hungry and ready to eat. We pulled up to the restaurant, amazed by the aesthetic abilities of the premises. As we walked inside, we noticed a slot machine that my parents were ready to hit. My mother who is a senior citizen, decided to gamble $10 on the machine that is near the bathroom and the entry. As we rolled and rolled, we realize that the machine did not work and it was a scam. We were very disappointed, but determined to not let it ruin the rest of our lunch. As we walked into the bathroom, we noticed that there were bugs and feces on the ground. There was also a stench that was quite agonizing to my well being. We proceeded to the tables where my family was split up kids at one table and adults on the other. While, some of us ordered burgers, others ordered wraps and french fries. We also decided to order calamari as an appetizer. As we waited for the food, the kids were getting extremely impatient and antsy. The only thing that came out at not abnormal pace was the drinks which were actually very enjoyable. But as we drank our drinks, we soon realized that we would be here for a long time as the food had not come out yet after 30 minutes. We kept waiting and the clock soon reached an hour. we ask them why the food had not come out yet and they claim that they were busy although only four tables had been full at the time. As our appetizers finally arrived after an hour and 15 minutes our calamari was crunchy not fresh and chewy. My niece actually choked on a piece of calamari and it frightened us all as. As our main dishes arrived, we had little hope left. Most of us ordered fries our side, and they came out soggy and wet. We were confused because if it took that long to prepare, it should be fresh and straight out of the oven, and it had appeared that it had been sitting out for a while. The meat was not cooked correctly and was unpleasant. My niece ordered pasta with butter and received a dirty knife. The pasta was also drenched in butter and extremely soggy. It appeared that it had been sitting out for a long period of time. My nephew received salmon that assimilated with a texture of rubber. My nieces wrap was falling apart, and the burgers crumbling. We also asked for ketchup and other sauces multiple times I did not receive them before asking many times. Our waitress was kind of closed off. She was not friendly and not willing to make open connections. The waitress did not apologize and did not let us really know what was going on. When we asked why it was taking so long, she said that it was because it was busy, but there were literally four tables full as we were eating. We also watched people come in eat and leave. This should not have taken an obscene amount of time as we were waiting there for almost 2 hours. And the cherry on top of the cake is when we asked for the bill and ended up waiting an extremely long amount of time and once we receive the bill, we were shocked by the price because it was extremely expensive for food that did not obtain great quality. If you were in the lake wallenpaupack area and hungry I would recommend finding somewhere else to eat if you look...

We chose The Boat House based on the good reviews we read. We should have read the most recent reviews first, because they more accurately reflect how awful the food is under the change in ownership over the last few years. This was, in all honesty, one of the worst meals I've ever had in a restaurant. No exaggeration.

Now folks, my partner and I have worked in the restaurant industry for decades. We are usually pretty forgiving when it comes to bad service and/or bad food. Everyone has off days, and I don't make a habit of trashing businesses online. If you look at my prior reviews, you will see that I have never done that. Generally if I have nothing nice to say, I won't say it. It's hard enough for restaurants to survive in this economy these days. But this place was THAT bad. It was such a blatant rip-off. Let this, and all of the other more recent bad reviews, serve as your warning.

From the outside, The Boat House looks so inviting: a lakeside location with an amazing outdoor seating area filled with high-tops. The inside is nice and very expansive as well. The best part about this place was the atmosphere and the very friendly blond woman who greeted us when we entered. She was not our server, unfortunately. It was all downhill from there.

The menu we received was different than what we saw online. We ordered the tuna entrée and the seafood salad sliders. The sliders were described as a light salad of shrimp, crab, and other seafood on King's Hawaiian rolls. Instead, I received an imitation crab salad that rivals the worst grocery store "krab salad." It tasted entirely of imitation crab, I saw no other seafood in it. The sliders were served on two stale rolls, served with old, barely lukewarm fries that tasted like they had sat under a heat lamp for a while. I would be embarrassed to put this on my menu. It was $24. I choked down a few fries and and two bites of the sliders before I gave up. The tuna was equally as bad: a thin piece of barbie-pink, seemingly irradiated tuna that was tough and stringy. It was missing the sesame crust it described on the menu. It was served with cold rice and uninspired sauteed broccoli. The broccoli was actually the only good part of the whole meal. Oh, the dinner salad was good too.

Now, we should have spoken up when the server asked how we were doing with our food. Instead, we just said it was fine. That's where we made a mistake. Had we sent the food back for something else, we may have been able to salvage some of this disaster of a meal. In their defense, we did not give them a chance to redeem themselves. But, being in the industry and having dealt with so many difficult customers, we usually just let things go. Lesson learned. Since the service was so apathetic to begin with, we figured it would have been a waste of time to complain about it anyway. When the server asked if I wanted to box up the leftover sliders, I told them "no". That's when they might have noticed that the entirety of my meal was uneaten, and perhaps inquired if I had enjoyed my meal or not. But no, just apathy. That server clearly did not want to be there. Either did I, at that point. We decided to cut our losses and just go have ice cream for dinner.

So there you have it... uninspired service, and food so terrible that I was compelled to write my only bad review. I actually felt sorry for the customers coming in. It's that bad. Save your money and eat...

UPDATE 5/27/25 Is The Boat House TRYING TO GO OUT OF BUSINESS??? after my accurate and actually quite kind review, I expected the owner of mgr. to thank me and give a number to contact to discuss further my two star review but now I'm looking and I see that many people are giving one stars, having horrible experiences the food is terrible the service is terrible they're hygiene practices are very well below par I saw people handling food with their hands and no gloves… What will it take for you guys to try to save this wall and Paul pack piece of history? I invite you to invite me to call, or maybe you just don't care. I feel bad for the jobs that will soon be lost because you have an unsustainable business model and it seems you have no interest in improving it. For that I'm giving my.true star review of 1⭐️. I really was trying to stay positive for your benefit; but it just seems glaringly obvious you do what you do, all the time - not just for the occasional brunch etc. Fix your business. People are relying on jobs you provide. Ugh.

Mother's Day brunch was VERY much a disappointment. How can you have a brunch with no coffee, tea, mimosas or bloody Mary's? The pastry selections were few and far between, they were way too slow to refill anything that was dwindling or empty . I will say the gentleman who was cooking the omelettes was very pleasant and did the best with what he had to work with, however metal utensils should not be used on Teflon coated cookware – I'm sure he had no choice but to use what was offered . When you first entered you were asked where you wanted to be seated -but then no one showed you how to actually get to the outside portion which was weirdly arranged behind what seems to be a restocking area and cash register . i'm not one to leave negative comments on the regular, but I was encouraged by my guests that it was warranted to at least in part let The BoatHouse Restaurant know they need to do better . oddly also, table tops of four only had wraps napkins and silverware for two on each table I had to retrieve two additional silverware potions from other tables myself . for a sum of over $200 with tip included – they just have to do better if they ever expect someone to return . if I don't see massively improved reviews, sadly I won't be one to do that . if management or owners want to reach out and discuss more details, I'm available and would be willing to change this review (if warranted) as well as the one I'm...