Merchants Pub & Plate — Restaurant in Lawrence

We arrived at around 5:30 for our Valentine's Day reservation, having been called the day before to confirm our reservation and asked if I was "disabled", a rather odd question. I said no, even though I am an 80% disabled veteran, because it's basically none of their business, and was told "good", we'll put you upstairs then". Rather than make an issue of it, I painfully made my way up the stairs to not the first balcony, but to the very top floor, two stories above the "prime" dining room. I survived, but felt like a second (or is it third because of the floor we were on?) class citizen.

Merchants advertises "Happy Hour", but fails to mention anywhere on their website or menu what time Happy Hour actually is. It turns out, after asking our server, that it is from 5pm to 6pm, so I ordered an IPA ($3.50 vice $7) and a porter ($3.25 vice $6.50) before the clock struck six. Both were quite good and a great value at half of their regular price.

For our appetizer, we decided on the burrata. It was actually quite good, but there was too much of the creamy spread for the six very small slices of baguette. At $10, it was a fair value, but would have been better had it come with a couple more slices of baguette to spread the sweet and savory concoction on. The menu should also mention the fact that burrata is a type of mozzarella cheese because even a Southern Italian had not realized that mozzarella was the main ingredient.

For entrees, my wife had the Housemade Fettucine ($16), a rather skimpy and dry plate of reddish pasta, apparently in a white wine butter garlic sauce with spinach, almond, onion confit, dates, and breadcrumbs. Beside being quite a small portion for the price, it was very dry and tasted mostly of onion. Not a very good dish and my wife, who is not a big eater, was still hungry when she finished it.

I had the Grilled Ribeye ($32), the most expensive thing on the menu, a 12 ounce steak in a peppercorn, red wine-shallot butter and Worcestershire onion jam sauce. I ordered it medium/medium-well, telling our server that I do not like bloody meat and that a "little pink in the middle" would be great. The steak came out more medium rare than medium well, but even though the server offered to have it cooked some more (meaning "thrown in the microwave"), I declined and ate the "bloody" thing. Even though it was much rarer than I prefer, it was actually quite tender and the sauce extraordinary, making up for unappetizing color of the meat. It came with horseradish roasted potatoes, which were decent, and creamed greens (kale perhaps), which were extremely good.

Because my wife was still hungry, and she has a massive sweet tooth, she could not resist the Persian Love Cake ($7), a cardamom sponge cake with "spiced pistachios, rosewater and saffron scented cream, and candied rose petal dust". It sounded quite bizzare on the menu, but was actually quite exotic and tasty, a nice finish to a decent meal.

First of all, our server, Devin, was very good, quite attentive, and the highlight of the meal. The atmosphere is also warm and inviting, even if we were in the nosebleed section. However, I got the impression that the chef in particular or the establishment in general are trying a bit too hard to be trendy and "gourmet", pulling it off on some occasions (the steak sauce and the dessert) and not on others (the pasta and undercooked steak). The prices are not exorbitant, but when you drop a C-note for dinner, it should be closer to flawless than we experienced at Merchants (e.g. my raw steak).

CombatCritic Gives Merchants Pub And Plate 6 Bombs Out Of 10 With Deductions For The Measly Portion Of Pasta (1 Bomb), Bloody Meat (2 Bombs), And "Nosebleed Section" Table (1 Bomb) ... More...

I am a little conflicted about this place. But maybe they had an "off" night as it was quite busy Saturday night, and there was a rather frantic energy about the whole establishment. The building is very beautiful which makes for a nice atmosphere. We sat at a teeny corner table under a television. The table was facing the wall which was odd and awkward which took away from the overall experience because we had our backd to the restaurant. It was crowded and we felt a bit cramped, so my husband and I just made the best of it, and decided to be cozy and enjoy ourselves pretending to be in our own little nook. However, in an establishment where dinner plates cost nearly $40 each and an "elevated" dining experience is expected, these types of seating situations should not even be an option.

Our server was very personable, professional, and nice. But it was clear that he was very busy, and attending to many guests on his own, so the service was rather slow which I cannot blame the gentleman for, but still I needs to be noted.

We ordered the deviled eggs. They came on a bed of some type of bacon relish, which had a rather off-putting gamey flavor. The eggs themselves were delicious though. My husband ordered the braised beef, and it was sublime. I ordered from the restaurant week 3 course meal menu. I had the braised beef empanada, shrimp gnocchi and the coconut tres leches cake. The empanada came with kimchi, and I loved the different flavors and tastes of this little dish. The gnocchi dish was rather uninspired. The shrimp was quite chewy, but the texture of the gnocchi was perfect. The dish was just okay. The tresh leches cake was perfection in every way.

Overall, the experience was not what I expected it would be for a restaurant of this caliber. It has all the makings of a place that can deliver an extraordinary dining experience. But last night, they fell just a bit shor of achieving that. I believe I will go back once more on a less busy night and give it another...

I really, REALLY wanted to love Merchants. The food was great. Drinks were awesome. They pride themselves on local sourcing where possible, and being an allergy-friendly (including celiac) establishment. I must note our server did seem overloaded.

Despite being clear with our server that my wife was celiac, she was served a gluten-contaminated dish. I must commend our server on initially owning up to the mistake and having it remade, but unfortunately my commendation must stop there. It took stopping our waiter three different times to confirm she was, in fact, glutened.

By this point my wife was understandably upset at faced with the idea of being sick for the first leg of our road trip, and we were becoming late for an 8pm show despite arriving at 6:30pm. After a lengthy disagreement with management involving two different managers, we paid a reduced bill and left with the feeling the severity of our situation was not fully appreciated.

Note to management and ownership: I want to know what happened. Who failed here? Why was our server not 100% honest from the beginning? Wife's stomach issues and blood sugar problems (she's T1D) throughout the night confirmed she was glutened and left us nearly calling an ambulance at midnight. While management did put forth some effort, they should have been falling over themselves to make this right. Why is management not...