Monty's Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Harrisonburg

We were traveling through to NC and booked a room for the first time at the James Madison Hotel. It's a Beautiful hotel, everyone was friendly the rooms are very nice. We were tired from traveling and decided to eat in the hotel for dinner. Our server was very courteous. It was not busy at all. Our food arrived warm, not hot and it was just ok. My husband and I are huge foodies and we live in Portland Maine and Charlotte NC so we've eaten at some Amazing restaurants. With this being such a beautiful hotel and the clientele that visits this restaurant the kitchen should be doing better than this.

We decided to go to breakfast the next morning before we checked out. The host was very friendly and told us about the buffet and told us to sit wherever. We did. I noticed there was a guest with a dog in the restaurant, that was not a service dog. I love dogs, but I don't think its sanitary for them to be in a public restaurant. We had been sitting for at least 5 minutes and no one came over to greet us or offer coffee or water. I witnessed one of the servers go over to the table where the dog was and proceeded to squat and pet and play with the dog. That really turned my stomach because I didn't think that was sanitary and I didn't want her handling my food. So due to the bad service, the unsanitary behavior and the experience previously with the food we got up and left.

If I travel back through Harrisonburg VA again, I would stay at the hotel, but will not eat at Montpelier Restaurant. I do not think animals should be allowed in the dining room. If it's a service dog then that's up to me to make that call of...

The food was good, but the service could use some fine tuning. When we arrived we were quoted 15-20 minute wait. We waited 25 minutes then went back to the hostess stand. The hostess said they had to seat members of a party so it would likely be another 20-30 minutes. She then offered for us to sit in a bar area table (high top). At this point we said sure and were seated promptly, but not given menus. I thought it was just a bad-timing fluke, but a little while later the same exact thing happened to a family with small kids. Everything seating wise moved really slow. Our average dinner (drinks, appetizer, meal, and dessert) took 1 hour and 45 minutes from the time we walked in to the time we walked out. During that time we saw only 2 tables get up and leave the restaurant. The wait time on our food did not seem excessive. It seemed like the servers were not actively turning tables and the hostess did not know how to properly quote wait times. Our server, also the bartender, seemed knowledgeable and friendly. We had the lavender martini, brussel sprouts, French dip sandwich, chicken piccata, and cheesecake with peach compote. The food exceeded my expectations (brussel sprouts and cheesecake were A+), but my chicken was undercooked and had to be sent back. I did not request a new dish as I was already feeling full. The manager removed the piccata from our check and gave us a free dessert to go. If you park in the deck, the restaurant will validate your parking. Overall impressions—good food, especially for a hotel restaurant, but the staff could use a little extra training to make this...

My wife and I had dinner at the Montpelier Restaurant April 11 prior to a performance at the Forbes Center. Our overall rating is the food was okay but the service was very poor.

We were seated at a nice table with all the menus but no water. Our server was slow to arrive so we had already selected our food choice when he arrived with water. We placed our food order immediately with no drinks and requested lemon for the water.

While waiting for our food, we emptied our water glasses (the glasses don’t hold much water) but we didn’t see our server to request more water.

Before our food arrived, another server brought our lemon and we asked her for more water, which she brought immediately.

Before we finished our food, we were out of water again. We never saw our server and were unable to catch the eye of the server for nearby tables. My wife finally had to go ask the hostess for more water, which our server then brought.

When we had finished eating, we looked for our server for our check so we could get to the performance but didn’t see him anywhere. Finally I was able to interrupt our server to request our check when he came to the next table.

Conclusion: It shouldn’t take 70 minutes to eat sandwiches with no drinks or dessert. We don’t expect to return and we certainly won’t recommend the Montpelier Restaurant to anyone else.

I reached out to the Hotel Madison but have not heard back...