3 Rivers Grill — Restaurant in Hood River

Nice view, but the food served doesn't fit the menu descriptions. I took my mother to Hood River for the day midweek. We wanted to have a late-ish lunch outdoors, but didn't want a 'quick bite'. Many restaurants were closed either permanently, only open during weekends, or had limited hours so pickings were slim. Initially we were going to try one of the breweries, but they only served pizza. Based on the menu, we opted to try 3 Rivers Grill.

I ordered the only substantial vegetarian item on the lunch menu which was listed as "1/2 lb homemade burger with quinoa, mushroom, faro, onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, almonds, egg and Parmesan cheese. Served on a toasted ciabatta bun with an orange aioli sauce" for $13.95. It was served on a toasted bun with what I'm guessing was the orange aioli sauce, but it was not the advertized 1/2 lb homemade burger. It was a commercially made veggie burger patty served with sliced tomato, red onion, and lettuce and the orange aioli. If it weren't for the aioli, it would've been extra dry. The fries were cooked well, but excessively salted.

My mom got the fish and chips described as "Panko breadcrumb & beer-battered Alaskan cod, Served with our signature tartar sauce & coleslaw" for $16.95. What she received was also not as described. She received 3 small, flat pieces of fish that were overcooked and therefore dry. The fish was also unlikely to have once been cod, Alaskan or otherwise. She thinks it was tilapia. The coleslaw was inedible as it was clearly several days old. I also had to get up and find a staff member to get some vinegar as this wasn't brought with the dish as is customary.

We also ordered drinks, a pomegranate martini and a beer. The martini was not worth the $10 price tag. The beer was good.

The service was OK, nothing special with nothing particularly bad or good. I wish we'd taken pictures of both entrees.

I wouldn't recommend eating here as the food served is not reflective of the menu. The view was nice on a...

Edit: since the owner is questioning the validity of my negative review, I will go into more detail about what was probably the worst dining experience I have ever had and it was at the 3 Rivers Grill in Hood River! Confrontational staff and an unorganized and dirty place!

Came here right as they opened and no one was there to greet us, so one of our party had to walk around to find a server to seat us. Our server was a tall white bald guy who seated us at a table. The water glasses were filthy! One even had a lipstick stain on it. The menu was confusing and my party tried to order something only to be told that they had printed out incorrect menus. The server seemed to be irritated as we pointed out the dirty glasses or the incorrect menus.

The experience was just so unprofessional that we just ordered drinks and a side of dip. I'll give them that the Moscow mule was delicious, but that is the only positive I can say about this place. After we said we just wanted to order drinks, the server seemed to ignore us and have a flippant attitude towards my group.

We decided to go somewhere else for dinner and paid for our drinks. My mother even left a few dollars as a tip despite how rude the server was, and we were getting ready to leave.

My elderly mother went to use the bathroom and was ambushed by the server who seemed to be waiting outside of the bathroom for her. He confronted her with "Was my service not satisfactory?". My mother was flustered my this confrontational and incredibly rude approach and left. I have worked in customer service for 10 years, and have never seen behavior so rude and disgusting. The whole experience upset my mother and my friend whose birthday it was.

I Wish I could give...

I’m not trying to complain here, so I’ll start with the good stuff: this restaurant is positioned beautifully and the view of the river valley below is stunning. The server was attentive and timely.

Now, though, we should probably talk about the food. We ordered the spinach dip (which was fine, no complaints), the beet salad and the ceviche. I have actual things to do today so I’m not going to spend a long time outlining how the ingredients to the beet salad were so unchanged from their recently canned status that it was culinary comedy to see the beet chunks themselves were shaped into what looked like the bottom of a can (think… cranberry sauce sloshing out on a hurried thanksgiving) or that the mandarin oranges on the salad were 100% the same canned citrus I’ve personally fed to large groups of preschoolers or that the ceviche was similarly so readily identifiable as it’s packaged ingredients without addition or alteration that it felt like the chef was maybe taking a sick day and the underlings were dumping whatever they could find in the walk-in onto our plate. No, I won’t take much time for any of that. And no, I’m not resentful that the meal cost us $50 with no drinks or desserts, because thems the breaks. You win some you lose some.

I just want to give the rest of you a heads up that if you want to eat here to be surrounded by other well-dressed people and to look upon nature in most all of its glory and to be waited on competently, by all means gear up and head out. But if you’re in it for the food, I’d recommend making yourself a pb&j and finding a nice picnic spot by the river. You’ll be all the better for it and you’ll save a...