Appalachian Brewing Company — Restaurant in Harrisburg

Ovetall takeaway: This place is overhyped and overpriced. If you're looking for good food worth paying for, go elsewhere. We paid $45 for meals we could do better at home.

This review applies only to the Mechanicsburg, PA location. Here's our story in brief. We arrived at 5:30 PM on a Friday (literally yesterday as I'm writing this) to an active but not crowded restaurant. Service was decent, not excellent but adequate. I wasn't impressed but I honestly had no complaints either about the waitstaff. They were prompt, our orders were correct, and we were checked on 2 or 3 times to ensure we were fine. A decent effort.

The food on the other hand? Decidely not. Which is disappointing because their menu makes many of their dishes sound appealing. But the execution is definitely lacking. My wife got their Rockfish Tacos while I got their Bourbon Beef Tips. Neither of us came away impressed or even pleased. The fish in the tacos was dry from being over-fried and none of the cabbage bed was seasoned. No flavor or complexity at all except the sauces served on the side. My beef tips were okay. That seems odd to complain about, but bear in mind this is a $20 plate. I'm not paying $20 to go "eh, it's okay" and think that my wife could do this better. They were tender and cooked to medium as specified, served with onions and peppers, and that's about all I can say about it. It was edible and as advertised on the menu - except for having any taste beyond grilled meat.The rest of the plate was a mess. Next to the tips was a literal single icecream scoop of mashed potatoes, like the way they serve them in school cafeterias, and with about as much quality too. Chalky, barely warm, and with a strange lemony flavor mixed in - noticeable though not overpowering. Next to that was steamed broccoli, also without any seasoning, as if someone microwaved a Birdseye Steamer bag and then dumped a portion of it on my plate. Practically everything we ate I felt I could buy at the store and we could do better at home. It's embarrassing, really.

This is one meal we regret having. A complete waste of our time and money. We won't be returning. I gave it two stars for the service and because our appetizer, the Tater Tots, was fairly good and probably the best thing we ate there. A severe...

BEWARE IF YOU HAVE FOOD ALLERGIES! Went to have a nice dinner with my boyfriend and his parents 11/30 at 4 PM. Food was great, and our waitress was wonderful, but then we ordered dessert. We ordered an elephant ear to share which was supposed to come topped with vanilla ice cream per the menu. A few bites in, we realized that the ice cream, while it looked like vanilla, actually tasted very similar to peanut butter. My boyfriend has a very severe peanut allergy which we made very clear when we sat down and double checked to make sure they didn’t fry their food in peanut oil. We called the waitress over ( I forget her name, but bless her heart) to clarify why exactly it tasted like peanut butter. Turns out some new employee in the back decided it was okay to substitute their “monkey butter” ice cream when they ran out of vanilla. NOT OKAY ESPECIALLY WHEN PEOPLE CAN DIE FROM PEANUTS!! The waitress came back and immediately apologized, went to get the manager, who proceeded to avoid all eye contact with us until I physically stopped him as he walked by. Without talking to us he comped the dessert and my boyfriend’s dinner. How about you comp the EPIPEN AND ER VISIT that resulted?! When I stopped him he apologized and said that he has a cat allergy so he “understands”. Really?!? HE DID NOT grasp the severity of what a food allergy can do besides making you a little sneezy and itchy- ANAPHYLAXIS and DEATH, for starters. PLEASE for the safety of others (and to avoid a lawsuit from potentially killing someone) TRAIN YOUR STAFF HOW TO BE SAFE WITH FOOD AND FOOD ALLERGIES!! You are playing with LIVES when the kitchen staff do not...

So I'm not usually a review person unless service is spectacularly good or bad.

TLDR the service is terrible, the manager doesn't care, and the tater tots aren't as advertised. If you want to wait 2 hours to eat then this place is fine. If you want reasonable service go elsewhere.

I'm currently sitting at the table 2 hours after we got here shaking my head in disbelief. It took awhile to get seated but we got drinks at the bar so it was what it was. Our appetizers took a half hour to come out and then they came out wrong. The manager had no great response besides "well the kitchen is backed up and I wouldn't know if the original apps were wrong unless we made new ones". Not a great response after we've been waiting for a ridiculously long time. They then offered to comp dessert that we never intended to originally order with promises that our food would be right out. 20 minutes later they claimed that they were just waiting on fresh french fries. Another 10 minutes later the food finally came out. While my table mates said their food was fine mine came out completely lukewarm. Definitely not worth waiting for almost an hour. The food is fine. Not great. Not terrible. I do not recommend the tater tots as they have neither the cheese nor bacon that is advertised. We are now waiting for our desserts 15 minutes after the restaurant supposedly closed. Time to see how long we will be waiting this time. One of my table mates is a waiter and she's fairly certain the restaurant forgot to put our order in until we complained. It was not a great experience and we will certainly...