The Harmony Inn — Restaurant in Harmony

Not sure if it was an off night since our experience was not aligned with other reviews. Stopped at the bar to see if we could order food at the bar and the bar tender walked in from another room and right past us as if we were not even standing there. No hello, no be with you in a moment, nothing. I guess we were an unwanted distraction to avoid. Walked into hostess area, empty. Stood there waiting for someone to seat us and realized there was no hostess, just a waitress doing way to many things that others used to do, like cleaning tables, taking out trash, waiting tables, and seating people. While eating I watched our vacant hostess experience playing out over and over again. Wurst Sandwiches were on rock hard buns, fries were fries, beer selection was good. After receiving food no sign of waitress to get another beer as it was obvious they were too busy doing non-waitress things. Can’t ding them, they were just having to do it all. Saw a person at another table get up and have to get his own silverware from the front area. Also obvious nobody really in charge. The seating area felt cluttered with a mess of extra chairs and high chairs jammed into an unappealing and useless empty book shelf. Ditch the old book shelf and put up a period based wall shelf and slide the chairs under the shelf or something. I also don’t think the half vacant other book shelves with sparse scatterings of dusty books are what they used to be. Sure they have not moved in decades. Period based decor is nice, but it is in sore need of a refresh. Last treat was climbing over a large dog as we exited. So over the inclusion of dogs. Who is liable if the dog bit me? Feels like a lot of go to spots are mailing it in these days. Could be other challenges. The old Harmony Inn needs more than North County just slapping their name on it, which that leverages seems to be fading, it needs an interior refresh, bus boy, or bus person or bus person/person sitter, engaging bar tender, get rid of the junk pop machine clutter in the parking lot, and a shift manager who wants...

[Update] We've been back a few times and the experience has been very good so I'm bumping my rating. I like the unique atmosphere and especially the outdoor seating and bar. Often, after we are done eating we sit on the front porch for awhile. It's a one of a kind place. The food is very good as well. And the prices are reasonable.

Poor treatment by the Manager

We were there for dinner. My wife ordered a beer she didn't like. They exchanged it . I ordered a Margarita Sour, which used to be my favorite sour beer. It didn't taste anything like it did in the past. Like it was brewed with dish soap. I asked to exchange it. The waitress said she would have to ask her manager because once it's poured either I have to pay for it or she has to pay for it!! Really!?! The employee pays? Tacky. After a long wait the manager came over and said we would have to taste any beer before he would exchanged it. It's insulting. Like we're trying to pull one over on him. Ruined the dinner. We immediately asked for the check, paid and left. This episode surprised me. We have been going there since their shaky opening a few years ago when the service was terrible. Back then I encouraged some friends that had real bad service to give them another try. I have been up there with parties of more than 10 spending hundreds of dollars, we've been to dinner numerous times, I've invited friends at work to happy hour. I've spent a lot of money there over the past few years he and proceeds to piss me off over a beer. Amazing. I felt bad for the waitress and tipped her 20% in spite of this. There are a lot of restaurants out there that appreciate...

You'd think that a packed restaurant that's received critically acclaimed reviews for over 45 years would know what they are doing. Our party of 20 arrived at the Inn WITH A RESERVATION at 6:30pm. The first round of appetizers arrived at 7:15, while many of our starters were nowhere near on a plate. They only had 2 waitresses for the entire restaurant, and it didn't look like they were in any hurry either. They announced that they were out of spitzle as well, which was a disappointment, although I can understand that since it is a popular dish and the restaurant was packed. Our appetizers gradually filtered in, and up until 8:10 none of us had even seen an entree. The waitresses gave us the wrong beers, appetizers got all mixed up among our group, and one appetizer didn't even arrive until a full 90 minutes after it was ordered. They must've had a major mishap within the kitchen or something. Either way, our table's order got lost completely, according to our waitress, which makes little sense, considering that I got my salad that was part of the "lost" order. Eventually, everyone within our party except us got our food by 8:50, (170 minutes after they were put in) at which point the waitresses approached to apologize about our "lost" ticket. They then asked if they would like another appetizer while we waited. That pushed us over the edge. We left the building hungry after waiting almost two and a half hours for our food. Putting this all aside, the prices were simply atrocious. It was 20 dollars for a burger. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone even if it was the only place to eat within a half...