The Passenger — Restaurant in Longmont

I'm going to start by addressing the odd amount of 5 stars so far. I think there's some cognitive bias here called post-purchase rationalization.

The vibe in the building is still all Dickens. Dining room has been updated slightly and is otherwise still as fine as it ever was.

I respect and appreciate what they're trying to do in paying their employees more and thus charging more to make that happen, as well as sustainability and all of the rest of the socially responsible policies.

OK, on to the dining experience. The menu. Menus should be easily readable and I have to say the font, while not horrible, is also not great. If I have to look at a single word for more than a split second because the font makes it ambiguous, that's a fail.

Drinks. Well, we didn't have them because I can't justify buying a pint of local beer for the price of a six pack. There's a point where raising the prices too much is detrimental to sales volume and you end up less profitable because of it.

Apps. Tried the samosas. First, the website food pictures depict 4 of them and a bowl of chutney, what arrived was 2 pieces and a smear of chutney on the bottom, which was not nearly enough for the under-seasoned potato. Any other Indian restaurant in town makes a better samosa. My dining companion said The ones at Whole Foods are better. I don't doubt it.

Mains. I had the buttered chicken, which is a leg quarter with curried cauliflower and rice. I appreciated the temp of the meat. It was still juicy. I didn't appreciate the skin, the fat was not rendered making it limp and rubbery as it happens when not cooked properly. Surprisingly, the makhani was the real disappointment here, it tasted of tomato and butter and not much else when it comes to traditional spices. Again, any Indian restaurant in town beats it handily. The curried cauliflower was undercooked and very crunchy. The rice was fine.

My dining companion had the beef chimichurri. I assumed this would be a roasted or braised dish considering this is beef shoulder. I assumed incorrectly. Serving shoulder as a steak and asking $27. Chewy is the word here. Sadly the chimichurri was uninspired. Oddly dry and tasted like parsley with pepper flake and nothing else. Definitely no or not enough salt. The margin on this plate must be amazing.

Service. Sub par. My water glass was empty and stayed empty through 2 service touches, which were main delivery and the first checkin. The water girl finally came around after I was almost finished with the main.

It's clear the menu has 'roots' in catering because this is exactly what I'd expect in a catered dinner at some job's holiday party. Unfortunately $30 a plate for catered food is not what I'm looking for.

I had some hopes for this one, but I look forward to the next one that takes over the location.

RE: response

If the description of the beef said it was the shoulder tender, my bad. I’ll refer to my note on the menu readability. It still doesn’t change the fundamental problems with the dish.

Not sure why you’re saying calling out a probable cognitive bias to explain a very human process is insulting. Perhaps you need to look up what post-purchase rationalization means, and maybe you should check your own bias at the same time.

Commenting on catering is a direct comparison between the food experience at your restaurant and catered events. This was completely in context. The point, which I thought was obvious is that catered food is at best “fine” and at worst inedible. Is that clear?

I’ve been here for 14 years, been to The Dickens dozens of times. Yes, I did actually come in to your place. Maybe all the people complementing you on how much better it looks missed the janky electrical hanging out of a broken fixture on the ceiling of the dining room. Should I come in and take a picture and post it? Slapping on a new coat of paint and some new upholstery on the booths does not a remodel make.

Simosas, if YOUR gallery on YOUR website misrepresents your menu, and your menu is LESS specific, what do YOU think my...

We had such high hopes for this place after being purchased. We saw a “fun mystery” dining experience advertised and after just having a wonderful time down the street at a different restaurant we wasted no time making reservations, thinking it would also be wonderful, or at least good. We invited my parents to join us as it was my mom’s birthday and we had talked up our last dining experience in Longmont so much that they wanted to see for themselves. It was supposed to be a mystery dinner, so dining blindfolded. Reservations were required for 6:30 (all starting at the same time), I think we received our first course at 7:00-7:15. There was nearly a 30-45 minute wait for the next bite of food. After another 30+ minute wait we had the main course followed by a short 15*ish minutes for the dessert. To say the food was underwhelming would be a compliment. The first course was decent, tasty black bean and corn empanadas of sorts. The second course was irritating, a 1x1 cube of lamb served on an unseasoned fried pork lion about 5xs larger than it should have been, if you like gamey lamb, then sure it was alright. The main was a disgrace, cold, tough, Salisbury chicken with cold bacon wrapped green beans. If we weren’t starving by this point I don’t think any of us would have eaten it. Finally, the most tragic dish of the evening was dessert. I unfortunately made the comment that you can’t screw up dessert. They did. They served a horribly gelatinous panna cotta that tasted like juniper berries with a hint of apple. I would have been embarrassed to serve this dish to my dog. The “experience” of the evening was completely lost. The first course was placed in front of us without even being told it was there. There was no mentioning of the food or any eating suggestions made (extremely helpful when blindfolded) until the main course which we were told to use a fork and knife. After finding cool potatoes and grossly cold bacon wrapped green beans all of us took our blindfold off for the first time during the meal to see what was actually in front of us. Considering it was well after 8:15, to find a Salisbury chicken being served as the main for a 50 dollar meal, all of us were hangry and frustrated. We had asked about wait times between courses and were told it was due to other guests getting up and going for smoke breaks or using the restroom. It seemed enough people complained about the timing because they served dessert “quickly” within about 15 minutes. After enough time had passed to have the experience with the dessert they raised the lights and had the chef explain the meal. At this point we just wanted out, we wanted to pay the check and leave, so we could go relieve our babysitter who was not expecting our dinner to take 2.5+ hours. I found our server in the bar area, as my father found the manager. Our server was very new, to the point that she didn’t know what bar offerings there were, whether or not the margarita was made from scratch or mix, what bourbon was used in their house old fashion, etc. this was not her fault and she was very patient and professional with our complaints. She accidentally presented me with the wrong bill, luckily I asked for a printed copy before paying, but then quickly fixed that issue. The discussion with the manager did not seem to be well received as the manager was just trying to justify the service times and say it was all apart of the experience. To add to the evening it was very apparent that the new owners are trying to cut costs. I understand operating a business is expensive, I also have heard that restaurant menus are extremely costly, but there is no excuse for a “higher end” restaurant to take the old restaurant’s menus and place white tap and printed labels over the old logos and happy hour times. Just print new menus even if it’s on paper, it would look far less tacky. The fact that the new ownership has taken the signature cocktails and drinks of the old restaurant says a lot about this establishment. I highly recommend you stay away rather than...

Our first time here. We sat in the back room in the old part of the building, and it had a great old timey vibe with dark walls, eclectic art, and old decorative tin ceiling.

The service was very slow. We were sat with water, and the waitress never came back. After some time, I flagged down another server, and she got our waitress. The place was not very crowded, and I have read reviews of slow service for months here. So just want you to know, this will take time.

The waitress was lovely with a great smile, so it was hard to be too annoyed with such a lovely person who perhaps had too many tables that night in the other room. But given this was a Saturday night, they should have planned for more people and not spread one waitress across two rooms which are far apart from each other.

One of the owners I believe came to chat with us which was nice.

The small plates were delicious. The little arepas were amazing. The pierogi were so yummy. We had the Syra which has nice flavor but is very salty and dry, so you don't want to eat the whole serving by yourself. The chicharron with the haberno sauce was delicious, and they gave us some sauce to take home.

As others have written, the beet arugula salad is nothing to write home about. The salmon served on it was flavorful but a bit overcooked. And we had to ask for the salad to actually be brought to us as we were left waiting for a long time for that.

We had pisco sours which had enough alcohol to be utterly satisfying. So they don't skimp on the alcohol like so many other restaurants do.

The donuts are AMAZING!!! They are cake donuts with an orange glaze and a "secret" ingredient. I won't give it a way, but I was delighted.

Overall, I was not overly disappointed in the tapas offerings. Everything was very tasty and unique. The atmosphere of the green room made it a nice place to hang with friends. The service is not great, so I'd temper your expectations knowing you may sit for awhile, but you will be treated to some delicious tidbits which may be worth the wait if you have good company.

Given the food desert that is Longmont, I'm glad to see this option available and hope they work out their service issues. Their portion sizes could be slightly larger for sharing. For tapas, DaGabi in Boulder does a better job at the same price point.

This could be a popular local hang out spot if they upped their game a bit and had faster, more attentive service.

You do need to plan to spend about $30-40 per person with cocktails.

We have one friend with a dairy allergy, so we appreciated the DF labeling on...