Coach House Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Harpers Ferry

I wanted to love this place, super cute patio! Me and four girlfriends just finished with a long day of rafting and were very excited to try a local restaurant. Unfortunately this is one of the worst experiences I have had. I don’t often write reviews unless they are stellar and I want the world to know of the excellent service but I feel compelled to write this review. It is a seat yourself kind of place and I will say the two waitress looked really busy and were busing their own tables. We helped some too as our waitress; Danielle did not thoroughly clear the table we were sitting at. We waited for 15 minutes and then proceeded to go get our own menus. She did finally return with water. We ordered wine and 2 cups of coffee. The coffee was freezing cold (pretty sure the waitress should have noticed this when she poured it) and she didn’t know how to open the wine and asked if we could do it. The wine was way warmer than the coffee and one of the wine glasses was cracked. We notified the waitress. Appetizers arrived but still no silverware, no napkins and some of our app plates were dirty, we proceeded to eat it with our fingers and spread the hummus with our straws. The food was tasty and we had wine so we continued with lunch. Still no hot coffee. And she was not available to fill our water glasses so we got the water pitcher ourselves and filled our own glasses. We finally got lunch and silverware, the fries we had all ordered were extremely cold and some of the sandwiches too. We ordered another bottle of wine, this one came out and the waitress does apologize as it is HOT and off the shelf. Still no hot coffee. When the coffee finally arrives the waitress apologizes that there is no creamer left. We did finally get a new order of hot fries. Check comes – hmmm they didn’t even remove the coffee from the bill. I decided to speak with the manager, I surprisingly got the owner. While he did apologize and say that he was embarrassed he did nothing to improve the situation. He did tell the waitress (before we had left) that we complained about the service so she did approach us and apologize again. I expected more from the owner of the establishment. The waitress should have been more aware and cognizant of the situation and gotten her manager (owner) involved without us having to ask to speak with him. Furthermore the manager should have taken some responsibility in this situation and his waitress’s service. He was working in the kitchen; he should have been aware of food being served cold or the coffee pot not being turned on. He should have attempted to make his patrons happy, come to our table and address the multiple issues. This was a very disappointing experience and I was surprised in this day and age of...

I wasn't thrilled with this place for a few reasons:

When we entered the restaurant and inquired about outdoor seating, I also asked if the outdoor patio was crowded (we are still attempting to social distance). The woman who greeted us suggested we sit in a room by ourselves, if "that's what we were concerned about." Also, none of the employees were wearing masks, either. While mask mandates may have been lifted in West Virginia, in Northern Virginia, it's customary for retail and hospitality workers to wear masks due to the amount of people that they come in contact with every day. Not a huge deal, but my family is still concerned about COVID; I was definitely taken aback by the lack of pandemic protocol.

I ordered a beer with a glass... the glass that came with my beer was dirty. Ok, no prob, I was brought another glass. This one was dirty as well. It looked like the server had tried to quickly wash it, but there were still bits of something stuck to the glass. So I drank from the bottle. Not a huge deal, but I expected more of a shocked response rather than the server picking up the glass and inspecting it to verify that I wasn't making it up. I honestly expected a horrified response but didn't receive it, which is entirely related to my own expectations and I get that. Needless to say we didn't drink from the water glasses provided by the restaurant either.

The food was ok - the artichoke dip was a strange color and didn't really taste like much other than cheese. I also had a chicken wrap, which was ok. I feel like a lot of the menu items are pre-packaged and not made in-house, which is fine.

I guess I just felt like the staff should have been more-customer focused. I understand the restaurant has a certain style, but the dirty class and the recommendation we sit in a room by ourselves just put me off. There aren't many seated dinner places in Harper's Ferry, so there is a captive audience, so to speak. Just a bit disappointed in...

Just had a late lunch there. I ordered a "beef brisket" sandwich. What I got was beef jerky on a bun. The meat was so overcooked it actually had snap to it -- not bend... SNAP. It was plain to see from mere visual inspection that the meat was worse than shoe leather -- you didn't have to bite into it to tell that. So, why would a restaurant bother to serve something that was clearly charred to a crisp? Beef brisket is supposed to be tender and juicy, not dried out and breakable. And, here's something to consider: the restaurant is very small with a very limited number of items on the menu (just a handful) which, in my mind, should mean that the cook would have more time to focus on doing those few dishes really well for the few patrons they had in their establishment. That's what I would have expected but... no... not the case. Personally, I was embarrassed for the restaurant. I only hope that it wasn't the owner doing the cooking because that's the only thing that could have possibly made matters worse. What this cook did was inexcusable because they knew exactly what they were serving me, or should I say trying to pawn off on me hoping that I was either too stupid or too hungry to care. I would have loved to have stood in front of that cook, looking him/her straight in the eye, plate in hand, and asked... Really? You expect me to eat this? Are you kidding me?

Having said all that, if you want to experience really good brisket, go to Hammerdown's in Aldie, VA -- off route 50, just east of Middleburg going towards DC. Great brisket... every time. The best. YUMMO!!! BTW... they, too, have a limited menu (they also do pork and chicken with a handful of sides). They don't do a lot but, what they do, they do really well. It's pure melt-in-your-mouth...