Vintage Tavern — Restaurant in Long Hill Township

My group of friends and I go here once or twice a month. The last two times were bad experiences.

November 22nd we went to watch the band of that night, we arrived at around 7 pm, we specifically asked for a table and not a booth. I have rheumatoid arthritis, the month prior when they had a band for Oktoberfest we were seated in a booth and I ended up in a lot of pain afterwards from being on a flat surface for so long. We stated to our server that we were looking forward to the band and planned to be there quite a while.

Just after the band set up, I see two people pointing at our table (one of which is our server) and the table in front of us, our server walks over and asks us if we plan on being there much longer… we remind her that yes we wanted to see the band and she responds saying they need to remove our table so we have 5 minutes to move to a booth or leave. Then the manager (possibly the owner) goes to the table in front of us and apologizes to people that arrived maybe 10 minutes before but does not even acknowledge us. So we left.

Last night, December 5th we decided to give them another shot because we had a friend visiting from out of town. We walked in and I had a box with Buntinis for our friend’s birthday.

For context- We had previously celebrated my birthday there and my friends called ahead to ask if there was a charge to bring in a cake from outside, they were told no, even dropped off the cake before we planned on being there, the staff brought the cake out with the candles lit after dinner and it was in fact no charge.

So our server was super nice and we ordered. While we were eating he comes out to tell us that his manager says there is a charge for us to eat the cake in there. I question that because just 2 months prior that was not the case. He says he can get me the manager and she says that they’ve always charged. I explained that this is not how it went for my birthday celebration. She wanted us to pay $1 per person to eat it in there, it’s not even about the price though, it was the attitude for $4. Then after that our server was very cold and stopped being attentive to our table.

We work in a corporation and work with people (clients) ourselves, so the approach was disappointing. Also, we always spend close to $200 there and believe in tipping well.

We won’t be back, their food is consistently good but we go there to enjoy ourselves, not to be treated rudely. I usually post positive reviews, it is incredibly rare for me to do this but I don’t want anyone else to feel...

I've been here many times, mostly when my daughter was younger. Caters mostly to families, softball teams, birthday parties, etc. It's gone downhill over the years. The decor is stuck in the 80's with carpeted floors, video games in the lobby, and outdated furniture. We came here on a Tues night. The hostess never smiled or spoke. Our waitress basically gave us the same treatment. We sat in the bar area because the larger dining room was empty. The booths had no cushioning and because the edge practically came flush with the table you had to almost climb in to sit. We ordered the mozzarella sticks. Too salty and garnished with a big lettuce leaf. We all ordered the burgers. Cooked medium, they got that right, but no seasoning at all. The buns were huge, soft, and doughy. So much that we ended up tearing off pieces just to get to the burger. Service was terrible. When our burgers were served, our ketchup bottle was empty. We asked our server for more and without a word, walked away. Several minutes later, she came back and started clearing a table next to us. Our food was getting cold so we asked her about the ketchup. Without a word, she took an almost empty bottle from the table she was clearing and coldly put it on our table and went back to clearing. Looking around, most of the tables had barely any ketchup left. Isn't it normal for restaurants to fill the condiments before services? Again, we asked her for more ketchup and she walked off without a word. A few minutes later she came back with a full bottle. Our food was pretty cold by this time. Not once did our server ask us if we needed anything or how our meals were. The room was HOT and the fireplace started to emit smoke. I could hear people coughing. My friend was really bothered by the smoke so we had to get out of there....

Vintage Tavern truly has some of the best food in the area so I don’t want my 3 stars to overshadow this. We order delivery from here very often but we’ve seen a significant increase in wrong orders being sent recently so I feel like it’s time to flag it to the restaurant. We tried to address it the last time but I think they were busy and the person on the phone didn’t quite understand our issue. In her defense, she went straight to refund-mode but we weren’t asking for anything back, just to notify of the issues especially in case someone more demanding than us received our order.

The Chipotle Pasta is my favorite thing on the menu and tonight it arrived as what I believe is the worst offering here: plain angel hair with garlic, spinach, and tomatoes. I don’t think it has an oil sauce as it is just so bland and is usually served as a side for the cedar plank salmon (love the salmon, will always neglect the side for this reason). Genuinely, anything else arriving I probably could have tolerated no problem.

The chipotle pasta (and whatever magic they perform with the extra $ chicken) is so good and I was so excited to get it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sad to get the wrong order so please forgive my emotional review but I really really hope they fix whatever communication breakdown has been happening. This will not stop us from continuing to try again - my husband is already headed out to pickup the right order.

I’d also like to give a special shout out for the tacos, Oktoberfest schnitzel, and French onion soup. I don’t know how they manage to do ALL...