The Delaney House — Restaurant in Holyoke

Good day,

To start this review on a good note, The food and preparation of the dinner was outstanding and that should be 100% abundantly clear.

My wife & I were meeting 6 other friends at the restaurant for 5:30 reservations for a night to celebrate the holiday season because we would not be seeing beach other til after the New Year. My wife & I arrived first and were brought to the table and seated. My wife btw had a stroke last January and is Essentially paralyzed on the left side. OK we were seated and the water was poured and menus set. Our friends texted they were running late. I asked the young man where on the menu was the beer list. He said he was not our server and was the servers helper. 30 min went by while my wife & sat there without anyone greeting us. The rest of our friends arrived at 6 and joined us. They say there for another 15 min and they said to me “Who is our server” I said I don’t know I’m still waiting. Another 10min went by so I got up found a helper and said we didn’t have a server and he replied “For Real?” I said yes. I went back to my table and another 5 min passed then our server entered and introduced herself but offered no apology or empathy for us sitting there close to an hour basically ignored. OK we ordered drinks and apps, I specifically ordered a beer. When the apps arrived the server was pushing the dishes on the table with the apps item like a snowplow. Leaning across us from one side instead of circling the table for better placement. Drinks were given to the wrong person and I didn’t get mine. She said “your beer will be here soon” 20 min went by and I got my beer. I did drink it fast I will admit after I got it. About 30 min passes and then the Chop salad comes out and we enjoyed that. Entre’ orders were taken and I asked for another beer also when ordering. Time passes maybe 30min or so then we get our meals except our friend who did not get her rack of lamb. Of course the waitress is notified and she says nothing and abruptly leaves. We all sat there looking at our food til finally we make the decision to eat and give our young friend some of our food til the lamb arrives. 30 or so minutes goes by and the Father of the young lady asks for the manager. The manager arrives and right off the getgo she is condescending, uncaring, showing no empathy and says “the server forgot to put in the order” Oh and also we are waiting for an order of asparagus and the beer I ordered as well. The manager tells the host of our gathering that she will take 1/2 off for the lamb. The host of our group asks for full price dropped. The manager is bothered by our group and is basically for lack of a better term “blowing off” his/our concern that the food again is now 40min still not there or the asparagus & beer. Finally the lamb comes out the beer still not there. I finish my dinner along with everyone else and the woman guest basically eats her food separately and then after 1 hr I get my beer. The asparagus never made it. A dessert is ordered and when the bill arrived the host asks for the manager again. She comes over rolling her eyes being condescending and straight up rude talking down to the host. It’s a back n forth with elevated voices my wife & I stayed out of it 100% but I was taking mental notes. It’s getting louder and louder the manager is raising her voice and yelling across the table. She never once tried to defuse the situation by asking for a private conversation somewhere else. Now the patrons next to us are getting affected by this mess. Our Host I will call him says this is awful and the only one going to get affected by this is the sever. The folks at the next table say something to the affect that it’s not fair if the server is affected financially in some way. Then swears and foul language is exchanged then the manager says she will call the police and now it’s just a complete mess. I tell the server I will pay my bill & my buddys bill to my left. I get the bill and it was $188.05 I left a $50 tip. It was an awful experience but a great...

We were in a festive mood, celebrating a college graduation. We wanted to like Delaney's and expected to like Delaney's. It would have been all too easy to satisfy us but they happened to have both a front-of-the-house problem and a back-of-the-house problem. Both. On the same night. Isolated or systematic? We'll never know because we never will be back.

At a value restaurant some of this can be expected. You walk into a diner, and your expectations are moderated. But here? Upscale, pretentious Delaney's that would be at home on an exclusive golf club? Delaney's is just not worth it. As another reviewer said well well: "The food wasn't awful but not anywhere near the quality you would expect for the price. Not a great value at all..."

Even more problematic was that our party of 5, with reservations, nevertheless spent two-and-a-half hours from our arrival until departure. Every aspect of our experience took much too long: seating, water, drink orders, drink arrivals, food orders, etc. The longest wait of all was between the soups/salads and the main course. This was so long that the waiter came around with palate-cleansing sorbet as a time-place-holder. Something clearly was wrong behind the scenes.

Delaney's gives off the air of foodie perfection, particularly when it comes to steaks. The food itself was fine - the popovers were the best part. Food was served at varying temperatures - not cold but not warm enough either. My two beers came to be differing in temperature by nearly 10 degrees or so - suggesting the first one sat awhile between being poured and served. Maybe they were just having an off-night; shame for them they got me as an unhappy customer. Meh. Just skip on a number of fronts.

Oh and despite their keen knowledge of their own missteps (the sorbet was served with a murmur of apology), did they send the manager to visit our table? No. Did they adjust the check at all? (I would have if my business). No. Did we leave, miffed? Oh yes.

Northampton has a plethora of fine, well-run restaurants. Do not consider Delaney's to be one one of them. Special shame, because the hotel to which they are attached...

I had my wedding planned for May 2020 but because of COVID, it had to be rescheduled. After some back and forth communication, I had my wedding rescheduled for October 2020. Fast forward to August 2020 and I still had no idea on what my wedding would entail. Also with all the restrictions, they offered no discount. So I would have to pay full price for a wedding with a max of 25 people, no dance floor and no dancing by the tables. Only the first dance was allowed, no cake display, and only sit down service. Needless to say my wedding was going to be watered down with paying full price. I was not happy with the way things were going and decided to cancel at the end of August. What I heard were crickets for about 3 weeks before a response. The response was the managers had to get involved to see how they were going to handle it. Another 2 weeks of silence when finally I get a call from them saying that they consider each payment installment as deposits and after giving them a total of $5500, they would keep $3000 of it and refund me $2500. Given everything that is going on with COVID you would think they would be more lenient about their refund policy and maybe keeping $1000 would have been fair but $3000? For canceling due to COVID? Needless to say since "we signed the contract" we had to accept the fact that we lost $3000. Fast forward to the end of October and receiving and email that they had "processed" my refund check, here we are still waiting. I have reached out to them once again for a status on the check a week ago....... crickets. I will never do anymore business with such a money hungry company that makes a profit on a couples misfortune during a pandemic. I have told my story to many of my colleagues and they have sworn off any business with the delaney house. Its sad that as an RN fighting during this pandemic on a day to day basis, this is the thanks that I have gotten. But I guess this is a lesson learned and I hope I can help another couple steer clear from making the same...