Owen's Tavern & Garden — Restaurant in Maryland

We decided to stop by Owen's Ordinary tonight, spur of the moment. My fiancee and I brought our two dogs and sat outside, which wasn't very crowded at all (most likely due to the 50 degree weather, but we expected that). It would have been nice if there were some heaters out there, and as I was thinking that to myself, a couple women came out and started to measure the place specifically for heater installation the next day, so I assume that will be better for the remainder of the fall.

Our service was great! Our waiter Lee brought over a bowl of water for the dogs, stopped by to check on us very often, and was very attentive, personable, and friendly. He might have been the best part of the evening there, aside from the beer selection, which was also great. One of the few places with more/better beers in the area would be Pour House at Downtown Crown, and this is way closer, so a great local option. So far, service, ambiance, and beer selection: all great.

Now for the not-so-greats: The price was surprisingly expensive. Take a look at the pic with the 2 beers; those are the "small" or "taster" sizes, yet one of those was still $6.50, for what? 3 oz? Definitely not worth the price. Delicious, yes, but prohibitively expensive. We also got the pretzel as an appetizer. It was fine. I've had better, including frozen from Costco. Again, not worth the cost. While initially planning on getting dinner, the pretzel quality and pricing threw us off a bit, so we settled on splitting a flatbread pizza ($16) (sorry, didn't get a pic of that). It was on the smaller side and while the toppings were okay (pizza sauce, thin-slice sausage that was essentially pepperoni, and cheese), the bread was like cardboard. I don't condone feeding my dogs people food, but they got the crust on this one.

Lastly, location. Super convenient for Rockville/North Bethesdans with free parking. That part was great. What wasn't great was the fact that it was right next to apartment buildings and parking garages. Note: I'm only speaking to the outdoor seating here. During our hour-long visit, probably 8-10 people decided to have cigarettes outside near the food area. I understand there is nothing the restaurant can do about this as they don't own the area, so I'm not taking any stars off for this, however, be warned if you plan on dining outside and don't care for cigarette smoke. I'm sure it didn't help with my perceived taste of the beer and food. I'll leave the dogs home next time and sit inside.

I do recommend trying the place, albeit cautiously. Expect high prices and don't go for "fine dining". The establishment itself was great and the servers all came across as very friendly people. I'd like to give Owen's another try, but I think I'll wait for some food or drink special...

After months of wanting to go and try this place out, I was really excited and looking forward to going for the first time last night. Shareable appetizers were fine (shrimp sliders, fish tacos, wings, calamari), but nothing to rate high or low. Really great beer selection from around the country, with a heavy emphasis on some of the locals (RAR, True Respite, etc) which is always nice to see local businesses supporting each other. The three stars is because of the service. I worked in restaurants and hospitality, and it would be a stretch to say that these people do. I am sure there is some training that happens, because everyone was able to say "just a minute" anytime that you asked them for anything. Because of my background in the service industry, I get it, and do not mind multiple little things, and I understand that Friday is busy. When we walked in and went up to the host stand, someone was entering in something in the POS system (something you can do in in back of house) and told us just a minute. After about five minutes and three other parties cutting in front of us, another individual asking us to give them a minute, we were able to request a table for three, first available and we were told that they could seat us soon. About five minutes later, after having to remind both hosts that we were waiting, we were seated. It was very unclear whom our server was, and even though multiple people stopped by in the beginning, not sure we ever knew who it was. It took about 10 minutes to get each round of beers, we had to repeatedly ask for plates for our appetizers (each request was met with a just a minute) and usually had to flag someone down. I get that beers look a like, but for each round, we needed to taste each one to confirm our order. At one point, one of our servers answered a cell phone while waiting on us, giving us another just a minute. (Also, please simplify your ordering system, numbers, names, flavor styles, none of it makes sense and was not consistent across servers!) It just seemed odd, especially as it cleared out, that the service got worse. This is such a great concept and in a great location, I wouldn't want its bad service to drive it out when it cannot be supported by amazing food or amazing prices. Note: one of the food runners was amazing and on top of things, I didn't...

Owen’s Ordinary lives up to its name. We were looking for someplace to eat al fresco with the beautiful weather, so we headed to Pike and Rose and we’re attracted by the covered outdoor seating away from traffic on the Pike, as well as the very hip decor. Our server was very friendly but everything took forever, which was puzzling in a restaurant that was only about 1/4 full.

The food was forgettable for the most part. My wife liked her turkey burger very much, but both of our fries were tepid, having clearly been sitting around for awhile. If they had been fresh they would have been outstanding. The lukewarm fries needed salt, but they do not have it on the table, so we asked our server for some. We waited and waited. He served several other tables, brought out some drinks, delivered some checks. After another request we got some. The vegan burger seemed fried and the bun was soaked with butter and then fried. Felt like I was in Ireland. The calamari app was good. The wait for the check was also quite long.

The service was quirky. When we asked for more water, our server grabbed the almost empty water growler from the table next to us that was full of dirty dishes from the previous diners who had left 30 minutes previously. So we got a dribble of warm water and he never brought more. Possibly unhygienic and also a weird thing to do.

We also did not understand how their beer menu worked. We saw two prices and assumed one was a pint for the higher price and the other lower price was for a half pint. We ordered what we thought were half pints, but we got these mini snifters with perhaps 3 oz of beer. Really disappointing. They need to make clearer that you are paying for a tasting sample for half the price of a pint.

We won’t be back given the wealth of options in our area. It was by no means terrible. Just ordinary, and for $61 including tip we feel there is way better value to be had elsewhere in the big wide DMV area. We could have made four visits to Five Guys for the price of burgers and...