The Speakeasy Saloon & Resort — Restaurant in Herrick Township

I hesitated writing this review as I understand that new businesses always need a bit of leeway, but this experience was just too much. We had planned to stay at the "resort" from 12/29-1/3, but only made it to the 2cd. In fairness to the owners, they did refund us for one night, but even that was a challenge. When we arrived on the 29th, our first room was ghastly, it smelled and the bathroom was filthy, plaster dust everywhere and no towels. It was clearly not livable. We asked to be moved, and were, to a room closer to the restaurant. This room had no lights, so, once again, we had to go to the restaurant and ask for lights. One would think that checking such basis items would be a priority for renting out a room. The list of "nos" continues, no smoke alarm, no rates posted on the door, egress was bolted shut and the view out the back window was atrocious. Because they don't open until noon, there is no coffee, not even water glasses. The worst was yet to come. I realized, sadly too late, that there was a band scheduled to play New Year's Even in the bar. When I messaged the owner about noise, here is what I was told, "I believe 1am but typically we never have any complain in room 7 from noise and it’s inside the new dining room so it shouldn’t bother you guys." Of course, this was patently not true. In fact, we could hear every beat of the drum and every note of the singer. The advertised price for the room was $116.60 per night (taxes included), but, the price was actually $120.00 because, and I quote, when I asked for a refund on the additional charges that were NOT posted on the web site, "I can only give you the tax that is included in the one night stay legally. We get charged 6% from normal state tax and 3% from Susquehanna county tax. The price was 116.60 with regular tax, the 3% is what brings it up to the 120.09 per night. I have to update our website, the change on the tax was just recent, we weren’t aware we had to pay county tax for the hotel rooms as well." So, even though the price was incorrect on the web site, we had to pay the extra amount. The web site also says that there is parking within 100 feet of your room, which is not true. Indeed, when, again, I asked that our space be saved on New Year's Eve (which was rainy and the parking lot is actually just a huge mud puddle), we were told, "There’s no way for us to save parking. I don’t have cones or anything. I’ll try to get one of our guys to park near the door so when you get here they can move for you" To their credit, we did have a space, but it was on the other side of the building.

Nothing is right about this "resort," and I cannot recommend the place to anyone. There is a lot of work involved in running a motel properly, including a focus on customer service. This place has none of that.

Message from Owner through Facebook: Thank you for such a nice review. You posted a picture that was in the middle of a beer delivery so yea our back does look like that we are getting everything out of the cooler & then it is immediately cleaned up. We did everything to make your stay easy, you were VERY needy & I personally tried to make you as happy as I thought you could possibly be. I messaged you 2 times to refund you, before you answered me so writing it was a challenge is very untrue. You can bash us on google that is fine, but maybe you could have mentioned that with even how hard you were to deal with, we were friendly and accommodating. Always made what you needed available & tried to move you away from the restaurant when the band was playing. I knew as soon as you got your money you’d bash us, when honestly we didn’t have to refund you at all, but out of the kindness of my heart we did. No good deed goes unpunished. Chat Conversation End Type...

If you’re thinking about staying here, please take a moment to read the negative reviews as they mostly pertain to the lodging. The positive reviews are about dining. I’m certain the owner or a family member will respond to this review blaming the customer as they have in every bad review. We gave the SpeakEasy the benefit of doubt and thought maybe the bad reviews were exaggerated, they’re not. I have no doubt that all of the bad reviews are 100 percent truthful.

I’ll start with the positive, the restaurant’s aesthetics are very nice, the band that was playing during dinner was excellent and our waitress was extremely pleasant. However that’s where the positive part of this review ends.

We booked two rooms for the night, the Speakeasy was hosting my grandfather’s memorial service. We had rooms 12 and 18. They were unable to locate the key to room 18 and used a universal key to open the room for my mother. They told us they’d give us a key later for that room just to leave it unlocked for now. Room 18 was one of the rooms with a refrigerator. We found partially consumed chicken wings in the refrigerator. The only working light in the room was the bedside lamp.

Upon entering room 12 we instantly were hit with the smell of cigarette smoke that they have tried to cover up with the smell of a chemical air freshener. (Most likely the smoke smell comes from the employee’s smoking about 10 feet away, who are easily observed from the window or back door.) The smoke detector was missing the cover allowing the battery connector to freely hang down and draw attention to the missing battery. My wife used the bathroom and told me that the toilet wasn’t flushing properly. A half hour later when I returned to our room to retrieve our phones that had been charging I found the toilet not flushing at all. I removed the lid and reconnected the chain to the flapper. When I left the room 2 minutes later I was greeted by the owner sitting on the bench outside of my room. (The office shares a wall with room 12’s bathroom, I’m certain that’s where the owner heard my wife telling me about the toilet and complaint about the smell. We never discussed any issues with our room outside of our room.) The owner confronted me saying she heard I wasn’t happy with our room, that she’d refund me my money and I could leave and then asked what was wrong with our room. I told her about having to repair their toilet and that unfortunately they were the only place to stay as I was from 4 hours away. I didn’t mention any of the other issues at the time, I also didn’t immediately take her up on the offer in fear of something happening to the food that myself and 11 relatives had just ordered for dinner.

After eating our dinner I went to the bar and patiently waited for everyone ordering drinks to be waited on. I then told them that the owner had offered to refund me our rooms and I’d like to take her up on that offer. (Prior to writing this review I found out that the girl who handled my refund is the owners daughter.) I politely informed her that room 12’s smoke detector battery was missing. She told me she was only refunding me part of the rooms as there’s a $25 cleaning fee for each room. ($25 cleaning fee? We had just found someone’s leftover chicken wings in our room!) I paid the $50 and left.

My family that did stay the night told me about how the TV didn’t work in one room, and that they found someone’s overnight bag in another room along with dirty clothes under the bed. And to top off all the issues they woke up Sunday to...

We came here for what should have been a great event that was planned out way in advance. I am not the one who planned this event but from what I know they were very difficult to work with and non communicative. They were not set up at the correct time or properly prepared for the number of guests we were which they did know in advance. They ran out of food, utensils, plates, and forgot to serve part of our contracted meal. We were a large group and everyone was paying per person for their families. Unfortunately one person was tasked with dealing with this facility which was not an easy feat. When we arrived they tried to charge an astronomical 25% gratuity for a buffet dinner that they again forgot to bring our part of our food, and didn’t have enough of. This also was never mentioned prior to the party. They were not nice about it and some of their guests were causing a ruckus and instigating with us, and we were a huge party of over 100 people. They did nothing to stop it nor did they care. Instead of thanking us for the business. I would highly recommend to NEVER come here! Oh and to top if off they lost their liquor license the day before our event and wouldn’t be getting it back for 2 weeks… shady much? Eat at your own risk…

I am adding to my review in response because you are first and foremost blaming customers which should be a red flag!!! So you are claiming you didn’t lose your liquor license while our party was at your facility? We know you were getting it back afterwards. But unfortunately you did not have it for the day of our party, which is a strange thing to occur as you have a large bar in the middle of your facility. Why did you lose it!?!? And no one called anyone anything vulgar to my knowledge. Your guests all 5 of them at the round table in the corner kept mocking the situation and instigating to our entire party and all the children. How do you allow that. As you can you can gain more business from us instead of losing. And let’s not forget your indoors was completely empty besides your 1 table. And yes you did bring the salad out after our host reminded you that you forgot it. Which she shouldn’t have had to do. But at that point most people were gone already. As far as going up to the buffet table more than 1x to get food that’s what happens when you attend a buffet!! But in this case the first wave of people didn’t even get to have everything on the menu because there was not enough food. You ran out of chicken (which happened to be good). And your waiters and waitresses were doing a great job of constantly cleaning up and taking plates away and throwing them out so yes, when people needed to go back up they needed new plastic (which then was replaced with paper) plates and plastic utensils that you ran out of. And people sometimes drop utensils, is that allowed?? But instead you are accusing us. This is actually insulting yet hilarious. Trust me no one will be coming back. No worries and we’re spreading the word to make sure no one else does either. I can’t speak to what went on with the bill, the gratuity or any of the planning but just as how we as a large party were treated so unprofessionally and rudely. There are so many camps and groups in the area that it’s sad that you would respond and behave like this and not care about losing all...