Black Rock Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Maryland

We went because we were really intrigued by the "cooking your own steak" options. Unfortunately, we were on a time crunch during our first visit, so we sat at the bar and ordered sandwiches. We had their Fried Pickles, Mac and Cheese Burger and the French Dip. We were not at all impressed. Final bill was $67 for 3 drinks, 2 mediocre sandwiches and a basket on inedible pickles. Even factoring for the last 2 years of inflation, this meal was extremely overpriced.

The Fried Pickles are probably the worst I've ever had. The pickles were sliced paper thin, and the only flavor profile was salt, more salt, and a hint of the seasoning. There was no pickle flavor even after dissecting one to taste just the pickle without the breading. I used the sauces to overpower the lack of flavor in the chips and we couldn't force ourselves to finish them. 0/10, I would never recommend this appetizer to anyone. Plenty of other restaurants make really good Frickles; don't waste your time and money on these.

The French Dip was lackluster at best with 2 slices of overcooked, dried out roast beef that was presumably something presliced and shipped in a plastic container. It looked like it had been sliced on Monday and served on Friday after air drying in the fridge all week. For the cost and restaurant quality, there should have been a lot more beef of a higher quality. I can get a much better French Dip at Arby's.

The $15 Mac and Cheese Burger wasn't too bad, but could definitely be improved upon. The burger itself was unseasoned and overcooked for medium rare. The Mac itself lacked actual cheese flavors and was pretty generic. Mac should have sharp cheese flavors to separate it from the rest of the meal, as a side or an ingredient. This burger doesn't come with any kind of sauce on it though. Considering this is a menu item lifted from actual BBQ smokehouses, a simple BBQ sauce or even their house "Rock Sauce" should've been included to give it that authentic barbecue flavor profile one reasonably expects from a this type of dish. I had noted the burger lacking sauce when I ordered it and asked for a side of their Rock Sauce for my burger, but it never arrived.

We opted to skip dessert as we didn't think it would come out in time.

The worst for us though, was the bartenders were not as on point as I would expect from any restaurant with bar seating. They weren't really paying any attention to us, and I had to flag them down for everything from getting condiments for our meal and our check. They didn't know how to pour a proper Guinness; filling the glass entirely (without a double pour) and handing it to me as it settled from bottom to top. Both of them at one point noted my empty glass and when I acknowledged I did want another, they disappeared to not only take other customer's orders but to serve their drinks without even starting mine even though we were sitting directly in front of the taps.

When it's all said and done, we recognize these aren't their signature dishes but for the cost, we reasonably expected a lot higher quality. We may be willing to give this place another try in the future to sample their signature dishes and see if this is the standard across the board for them, but we'll have much lower expectations than we...

We went here for the first time 12/18/20 we checked in requested a table for two was told it would be 30 minutes. I then asked if we could have a booth, was told not a problem but it might take a little longer, not a problem, and received a text confirmation at 6:47pm for that. At 7:33pm received a text message stating, “Please check in with the host at Black Rock - Hagerstown - PRIORITY SEATING now. Your table is ready. Text 1 if you're on your way, 9 to cancel, or STOP to end messages.” Replied “1” and got a, “Great! We'll see you shortly.” From the restaurant. The “hostess” who took my information the first time went to seat us. As she showed us to our table it was not a booth. So I inquired as it had been longer than the 30 minutes like she said. She said she was “going to check” then comes back and tells us that we can’t have a booth because we didn’t call ahead and call ahead gets priority. I asked her to explain what me walking in gets less priority than calling from the parking lot and waiting 46 minutes. Her poor attitude grew so we said never mind we’ll just sit here. Our waitress was nice, but our drinks took forever. We ordered two fried apps (fried asparagus & steak cut calamari) they were okay, definitely had potential but tasted like the frier was too cold and soaked up too much or the oil. They were super greasy. My first drink was not good, when we asked the waitress said she’d have it remade. More than 10 minutes to get the replacement which tastes equally bad (this is a drink I drink all the time). My wife’s drink took almost 20 minutes to get her second after she order her second one. We ordered a sandwich to share when we ordered our appetizer when our first drinks came. At One Hour and Forty Minutes we asked our waitress about the sandwich we ordered over 75 minutes ago. We were then told it was given to another table. So we just cancelled our order. Then the check was brought. They tried to charge us for the drink I sent back. I didn’t even drink the replacement but we didn’t expect both to be taken off. At no point did anyone come apologize, didn’t see the manager. Manager came to the table next to us because they had a problem they were seated more than 20 minutes after us and we’re almost done their entrees when we left. We had high hopes and were so let down I don’t think we’ll ever return! Best part was the young kid cleaning on the way out who wished us a Merry Christmas! Management here has to be terrible for this bad of...

We had a reservation and still had to wait over an hour to be seated. It also was for a birthday. I called and asked if they did anything the girl over the phone told me they did a $5 desert and a coupon your next visit. Upon asking for the desert I was told they didn’t do anything at all for birthdays. We were also seated towards the door and it was so cold we wore our jackets the entire time. We did tell the wistfess it was our first time and she didn’t go over the menu at all. We looked over it ourselves and when she asked us for drinks we asked what she had she just stated “Pepsi products” I said so what does that all consist of (I don’t drink soda and nobody wanted a drink from the bar) She caught an attitude and shoved her menu book in her apron and started reading them off her fingers. We told her what we wanted and that was the end of it. She came back with our salads and mine was rotten and wet you could tell it had just been washed. We didn’t see her again until our food came out. She asked how we wanted it cooked but didn’t tell us we were supposed to cut it. We assumed the stone was hot enough to make out steak how we would like. Well after 20 minutes our steaks were raw so I asked and she made it seem like we were dumb. It was our very first time there and she just handed us the steaks it was all a bit rushed and confusing. She cleared off the table at that point besides the steaks and left us with the stone and the steak and took all of our plates and silverware. We assumed maybe she was replacing it but she walked out and left us with NOTHING but our hands. My husband went to the front desk to ask for more silverware . We saw her walk past multiple times and tried to wave her down for plates. She ignored us. He even made eye contact and said she should be come now and she walked straight past us. The entire thing was disappointing and humiliating as a customer. I will never return and never recommend this place to anyone we didn’t even finish our food we paid at the...