McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse — Restaurant in Hillsboro

After moving across the country 10 years ago, we are back in town visiting old friends and dining at our favorite places. Now that our kids are teens, we are showing them the restaurants we frequented when they were much younger. McMenamins was our first (and favorite from days gone by) stop after arriving in the area this evening.

Checking in and waiting for a table was a breeze. The wait for a table was shorter than we expected.

This is where the positive review ends.

We were seated and brought our beverages. We placed our food order.

And then our server ghosted us. 30 minutes pass and she stops by our table to refill drinks. No mention of food.

45 minutes pass and we ask her as she finally walks by the table what the status is on our food. She says she will go check.

60 minutes pass and she is now avoiding our section all together. No update from her, nothing.

65 minutes pass and we spot her at the bar, enjoying a beverage and chatting with the bartender. Very unprofessional. She at one point was seated and spinning in a chair.

At this point I approached her at the bar and again asked what the status was on our food. She said she would go check. Again.

After waiting 1 hour and 10 minutes, we gave up.

I told her we would pay for our beverages and to cancel our food order.

She then said something very quietly and sheepishly and no one understood. We asked her to repeat herself and she stated she would print the bill without the food on it and just the drinks. Great.

After a couple of minutes she comes back and says we can just go without paying for the drinks. No apology issued, just another very quiet sheepish interaction.

Meanwhile we have hangry teenagers (any parent of teens knows what this is like) who are now arguing and carrying on because they are hungry after traveling all day.

What was meant to be a “this is one of mom and dad’s favorite places” turned into our worst dining experience — ever.

Our server lacked communication skills, did not follow up in a timely manner, and sat herself down at the bar while we sat waiting an inexplicably long time for our food.

And the icing on the cake? As we left, every other table in our area had food. Nobody else was having the terrible level of service as we were. Based on this it is clear the server either just didn’t enter our order at all, or didn’t enter it until I complained.

Hopefully we will be able to visit another McMenamins while we are in town, as it was one of the many highlights of living in the area. Bummer our kids and us had such a poor experience at such...

Checked the balance of my gift card on my computer and it said $238.20, so we went to have dinner. When the check came, we gave the waitress the gift card and she scanned it. Then she handed me her little computer and it said $3.08. I asked her what that meant. She said that's the balance on my card. I have old her that didn't make sense because I checked my balance before leaving home and the compute said $238.20 and my bill is less that $100.00, so that does not make sense. She said can I run your card again? I gave it back to her and now it said zero balance. She said she needed to go check something. Another person came over who did not identify herself and asked to see the card. She said it has a zero balance. I replied with yeah, she just ran it twice. She bickered with me and told me I owed $93 and some change. I told her that I wasn't going to pay it because the only reason we came in was because the card said it was $238.20. she said here, I'll pull it up on my phone and show you it's a zero balance so I don't know where you getting your information from but it's a zero balance. I took the card and pointed to the website and said, I went to that website and enter d this card number and this pin number and it said this amount was left as I pointed to a post-it not I had written the balance on in my wallet. Then she asked me if I had a different gift card. I snapped at her replying NO. My husband pulled out his debit card to pay. She snatched it up quickly and ran it then she asked for our phone number and email so she could report it to corporate. I didn't want to give it to her, so he did. Then she laid it on the table wanting us to give a 15% or more tip. I quickly pressed zero. I also told her I would be putting that s on social media. What a scam. Online says over $200 on the card they run it twice and we still have to pay because suddenly, the card was empty. Won't be visiting th m anytime soon that's for sure. Also, I couldn't bite into my spicy chicken sandwich because they put two slices of a HARD Green avocado on it. They should have used a ripe one. Had to pull it off the sandwich. A male waiting walking by saw me trying to bite through just the avocado itself...

When these places are busy their service tanks. Not a good practice to keep accepting guest but not serving them in a reasonable amount of time. What’s reasonable? I’d say 5 minutes if you’re sitting at the bar maybe 7 minutes if you’re at the table where a server needs to walk to you.

When you sit at the bar it’s easy to say hello and let the guest know approximately how long the wait is. I sat patiently waiting for them to first say hello 👋🏾 and today I did not get a hello or a warm welcome. Instead I was made to feel like I was a burden to the bartenders.

Another patron asked me if he wanted me to yell at them and I said no. He then proceeded to ask for a drink and she took his order over me without acknowledging me.. then he bought me a drink.

So, today service was a total miss and if the patron did not buy me a drink I would have left.

I’ve lived in this area for 20 years and visited this bar many times before. This service today was not up to par and lack of a greeting was the nail in coffin.

I spent the entire time talking to the two patrons who bought me a drink. Had great conversation about sales because turned out he was a general sales manager and totally understood where I was coming from.

I ended up leaving to go eat somewhere else and never one got a greeting or asked if I was hungry.

Avoid this place when they are busy and maybe even when they...