Meriwether's Bistro — Restaurant in Lewiston

I really don't know what to make of this place. Three times I've had cheeseburgers from here (once in the bar, twice as room service) and they've been of three very different quality levels. First, let's get the fries out of the way. The fries are what some folks would consider "good" or "very good", but to a "fry purist" like myself who prefers his fries "au natural", these overly seasoned, coated abominations are to be avoided. They were consistently overcooked and overly crisp.

The cheeseburgers though well... the bacon and bun were always pretty good, and I have no complaints on the cheese, but can you guys find more than one chef who knows how to cook a "medium" cheeseburger?

The first one I had, in the bar, was okay. Nothing to write home about (and my enjoyment of the food may have been affected by the extremely uncomfortable seating - the reason I only ordered from room service after this and never returned to the actual restaurant) but nothing that really stood out about it. The second one that I had, via room service a day or two later (I stayed there two weeks) was gloriously perfect. Again, we're not counting the fries, which are horrible, just the cheeseburger. This one was on a fresh roll, cooked to the absolute peak of "medium" perfection, juicy and succulent, the epitome of cheeseburger goodness. My third, a week after that, was as bad as the second one was good. No, I take that back. It was even worse than that. It was... a hockey puck. Seriously, the NHL probably would have approved it for regulation play. It was on a stale roll (or maybe some inept chef tried to toast it and failed), and it was a shriveled, black, crunchy mass that looked like it came from a West Virginia coal mine, and I'm from that area so I know of what I speak! Cheeseburgers should not crunch. Ever. Sure, a toasted bun, that can crunch. Some toppings can crunch. The burger itself, before it even hits the bun? Nyet, No, Nee, Non, Nie. Meat should not crunch. This cheeseburger crunched... hard. I took two bites and laid it down and picked up some of the fries. They were a vast improvement over the cheeseburger. Eventually I just put the tray in the hallway, evicting the mostly uneaten food from my room and my life, except for...

I was hugely disappointed with Merriwether's when last we visited. As one of the nicer restaurants in Lewiston, you'd think that they would consider them self fine dining. The service, however, rather revealed they consider them self more in the casual to diner-style dining range. Don't get me wrong, the servers were all very nice, lovely people - truly. But, there is a notable distinction between service at a fine dining restaurant and Sue's diner. Fine dining servers don't come around and ask if "you're still working on that", like you're a dog chewing on a bone - especially when you have silverware in your hands. The food was pretty good but moderately cold. The interior is also semi-stylish but starting to show its age. The prices, however were still in the fine dining range. Which is a shame because its not a bad casual restaurant. There is a large deck outside that looks like it might make up for some of the gaps in the experience, but I didn't get to enjoy it this time around. I'm not sure there's going to be another time around, now that I...

I had to get a water pitcher off the front hostess station after sitting at our table for at least 20 minutes with no water being brought to us. When someone came to take our order, she put both our drink and food orders in together. After sitting for a long time with no bar drinks in sight, we had to ask another server about our missing drinks and got them after our food was served. Our food was cold when it finally got to us. We even got the check before our server brought us dessert 30 minutes after we gad ordered it. It was the worst experience I have ever had at a restaraunt. We were there for two hours and left feeling frustrated. The servers did apologize saying they were short staffed but there were only 3 other tables with people in the restaurant. It was disappointing, because we were forgotten about multiple times throughout the night while it seemed other tables had more consistent service. It did sound like there were a couple of holiday parties going on in other parts of the hotel so maybe that was where some of the...