Towne House — Restaurant in Media

2 friends, my spouse and I went to Towne House to eat and celebrate New Years Eve 2025 and the experience made me wish we could go back in time, and never set foot inside.

Our friends celebrated New Years 2023 at Towne House, and they had such a good time, it sounded like the stuff of legend. With their stories and experience(s), we looked forward to NYE 2025 for MONTHS leading up to the night.

We were sat at a table of 4 in the back room, about 7:30pm, tables adorned with New Years Eve 2025 hats, noise makers, plastic beaded necklaces and even more celebratory swag. From here, the staff also told us something along the lines of 'Help yourselves to whatever you want!' as far as NYE celebratory gear. Good omen... right?

Between 4 of us, we each ordered appetizers, entrees, and roughly a dozen mixed drinks. We already knew we were racking up a hefty tab, but this was no problem. We were there to have a great time. (I ordered a 12oz NY Strip, medium rare, it came out medium-well to well done, ate it anyway...stupidly)

Throughout the night, a DJ was clearly setting up on the stage for the impending NYE festivities. However, we did not realize until almost 9pm, maybe a little after, that staff was trying to turn over diner's tables as soon as they could, and clear all of the space for the party.

IMPORTANT

We did not see any advertisement for celebrations in the back room that evening and NOT ONE member of the staff uttered a peep about it to any of us. Not when we were carded, put in for a table, were sat OR the server who helped us (our server was new to the job and was very nice to us overall)

Rather than be up front or maybe even drop hints to us throughout, our server was faced with the job of telling us that they wanted to turn tables over starting at 9pm.

The server also came over to us some time after 8:50pm asking if we wanted any more food or drink. We were of the mind that, maybe we did want some more apps or even second entrees. So we wanted to put in an order for some more food. The server then told us that the kitchen would be closed as of 9pm, so we couldn't put any more food in. Could they have just asked if we wanted to put in DRINK orders? Probably.

So we get our bill and as stated before, between 4 people, mixed drinks, apps, entrees and the like, I know to be fact that we racked up a tab of over $500. And again, we were celebrating amongst friends, money was no object, this night.

No one DIRECTLY told us that we had to settle, get up and go... but vibe body language is easy enough to read.

For how accommodating Towne House has been in the past, and even earlier THAT SAME evening, this felt pretty insulting. Our server was not fully prepared to handle the task at hand, the rest of the staff were only focused on the ever growing crowd of 20 somethings filing in to dance at this party and order drinks, and from now on Towne House's reputation has a glaring black mark on their reputation, to me.

*There is also a part 2, to this ordeal, which does not need to be spelled out in this review of the establishment and New Year's Eve itself. * But reader, just know, I have personally found Towne House's lack of couth and integrity abhorrent and actually bewildering.

I live out of the area, but I frequent the town and stay in Media part time. I have several friends and acquaintances now that have businesses on State street, and surrounding spots in town too.

I promise you, Towne House, I will spend the rest of my days in Media, recommending that people AVOID your restaurant.

If this review reaches you and you are trying to make a decision on where to go and eat in Media, DO NOT make it...

The best part of this place is the decor... We tried townhouse mother's day for the first and last time… we were seating immediately after everywhere else had a 4 hour wait, and even though there were only a handful of people the service was super slow! we waited at least 45 min to put our orders in, then over an hour for a couple burgers and chicken and mashed potato meal (that came out with a whole boiled potato and brussell sprouts that were burnt to a crisp) they insisted they were "sauteed" and roasted. Dishes came out not even how the menu described them it says mashed potatoes and they threw a big giant plain boiled potato on the plate and burnt vegetables blacker than the street… I had to keep getting up searching for someone for a straw, silverware, and so on the apps came out and I had to get up and find someone and ask for plates got back to the table to realize they were all dirty and had to hunt someone down again... i had no idea what I was walking into coming here I was expecting way more... the burgers the kids got were good, the wings were fairly good... but the entrees were NOT and the service was bad... the waitress was nice, the manager was nice but they were nice after seeing how frustrated we were with their service... The manager offered to make it up to us with desert then the desert was bad. 2 chocolate lava cakes neither had any chocolate lava anywhere which means it was over cooked... one with ice cream one with out, one with whipped cream and powdered sugar one without so there is a problem in the kitchen with quality control before the food goes out... if there are 2 pieces of chicken in the chicken parm dish why are they 2 different colors and temperatures? why does one have sauce and cheese and the other completely dry and bare? Kitchen quality control is a problem I can continue with the red flags... it was a huge red flag when we ordered then the waitress came back and said they don't even have the first 2 dishes I tried to order... that's a quality control problem in the kitchen it was only 4:00 and they had been out of ingredients for days with an already small menu... it was like diner food at restaurant prices. We left feeling completely ripped off and cheated out of over $100 I had to apologize to my wife and children for even suggesting this dump. If you have no intentions on doing right by people just close the place down, it's a tough time for people everything is expensive I had to save up for us to have a nice dinner on mother's day and nothing went right. It's so wrong to do...

More like FROWN-house.

Went in on a Thursday night. The Townehouse dining room was fairly empty. I cannot speak for the other spaces, but I could tell that the patio was not too busy either.

What was good:

1. Cocktails
2. Most food
3. Ambiance. They did such a nice job for all the concepts there.

So many missed opportunities here:

1. When I left a voicemail to increase my reservation size, I asked for a confirmation of the increase. I never received one.

2. I left it in the notes that we were celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday. Not once did any of the staff wish her a happy birthday.

3. The server we had was subpar for so many reasons: THE BAD -She failed to acknowledge my MIL's birthday -She failed to even great us with a simple hello and her name. -She failed to ask us if we had dined there before. -She failed to highlight any drink or food items. -When my first drink was already empty, she offered me another. I asked for the menu, which she got to me promptly. Then she didn't return for close to ten minutes. By then, I was so frustrated that I didn't even want another drink. -When it was time to collect payment, I didn't hear a thank you from her. THE GOOD -She did check to see if we were enjoying our food shortly after it had been served. -She thanked us for dining at the end of the night. -She offered to refill my daughter's milk for the road. I thought that was a nice touch, but not enough to recover from the subpar service overall

4)NO MANAGER EVER CHECKED IN WITH US TO SEE HOW OUR DINNER WAS.

5)The food took a very long time to arrive (I estimate that it was over twenty minutes). When it did arrive, the food runners just auctioned off our plates. For entrees ranging in the high 20's to low 40's, you'd think they'd be able to know where to serve them. Just embarrassing.

6. My MIL's "miso-glazed" salmon was a paltry sliver of fish that was straight topped with miso paste. Pure miso paste. You ever eat a spoonful of pure miso paste? Salty as hell. How did that ever get approved? We had to scrape the "glaze" (read: paste) off the fish.

That's about it. For those prices, the service needs to rise to the occasion. I won't be coming back. If you don't care about your guests' experience, why should we care about you?

Go to Ariano, ya'll. Different menu, but a superior cocktail program, way...