The Common Man Merrimack — Restaurant in Merrimack

I really can't say enough good things about this place. We were meeting family here, driving up from Connecticut, got caught in horrendous traffic, and wound up arriving an hour late, 50 minutes before closing, expecting to get the stink eye since there was only one other table that was just finishing up. Instead we got great service, friendly and very efficient, almost like their mission was to--surprise!--make sure we had a great dining experience. We are traveling musicians and often wind up coming to restaurants within their last hour, and believe me this type of customer service is, sadly, not the norm.

On to the food. The food! I started with the blood orange martini, very tasty and refreshing after our long drive. Nice basket of warm chewy bread arrived at the table almost immediately, yum! I had the Aracini (risotto balls) appetizer which was delicious and fairly authentic, done to perfect crispness with an accompanying red pepper cream sauce. The forks came out all around and everyone agreed that this app was first rate.

My partner had the special salmon entree with dijon sauce, highly highly recommended if this item is on the menu. I had the ginger soy tuna dish with noodles, quite good. But for me, the standout dish was the pot roast ordered by my friend, wow!! I'm not normally a fan of pot roast but the meat was super tender and the sauce completely delectable. I was only going to take a taste, but wound up taking three, and had to restrain myself from taking more, it was so good.

My partner can't finish a meal without dessert and coffee, and even though we knew they were probably trying to close up, they brewed some coffee for him and comp'ed us a creme brulee (perfectly done) for the table. Just straight up great service.

We've eaten at the Common Man in Claremont and I think somewhere else, and they're always great. I think the Nantucket pie is a standard on the menus and it is a winner--scallops, shrimp, haddock AND lobster baked in a creamy lobster sauce topped with Ritz cracker crumbs in classic New England fashiom. It looks like they have several restaurants and a couple of diners up and down I-93 and Route 3 in New Hampshire under different names, would like to try them all. But it would be hard to resist coming back to this location for another great meal. My tastes tend to run to funky ethnic joints but I would come back to this place any time. Thanks to the staff at CM for making us feel so very welcomed after...

We happened to be going through the area and stopped here for dinner. What a pleasant surprise! Everything was amazing!!! The inside is charming with a cute New England theme, the service was excellent. Everyone was so friendly and checked up on us often, but not too often so we didn’t feel rushed. They went above and beyond to check if any of our food had mushrooms since my mom has a severe allergy. They brought us a basket of bread which had rolls and a sweet strawberry bread which we were told is the “bread of the day”. This was interesting but very nice. The strawberry bread was sweet but that’s fine with me. They also had cheese dips and crackers for customer to take. Those were also pretty good though I felt a bit awkward walking up to the front for them. We ordered the pork belly corn bread to start and each got soups. I had the french onion and my mom had the soup of the day which was beef and vegetable. The soups were perfect on what was a rainy day. The corn bread was delicious and the pork belly was cooked perfect. It was an interesting combo that we really enjoyed. For dinner I had a burger and my mom had the pot roast. The burger tasted great, it had a nice backyard bbq flavor which i love. It was a good size too. The pot roast was also excellent. The veggies tasted fresh and the meat was so tender. They offered us white chocolate after our meal, which I found odd but was very nice. They brought us broken up pieces with the check. Overall, everything was wonderful and the price was right! I wish we had a place like...

I was laughed/snickered at on the phone by the hostess when I called ahead for a group seating. I had called THREE WEEKS prior to ask about their reservation policy as we were visiting from out of town (3+ hours away) and it was explained to me that traditional reservations aren't done at this restaurant, but I was assured that if I used the call ahead option on the day of, that it wouldn't be an issue for our party of 12 for my husband's birthday dinner. I understood we weren't guaranteed a table the moment we arrived, and was more than happy to wait to be seated, but still wanted to utilize the call ahead option to shorten our wait time. When I did call ahead on the day of, the woman on the phone (not the same person I had spoken with weeks prior) was insanely rude and actually laughed at me when I told her we had 12 in our party. After arriving at the restaurant, the theme did not change and the hostess/management staff continued with their terrible attitude toward us. I understand groups aren't everyone's favorite, but we were a group of adults who were going to make it WELL worth their while to accomodate us. Luckily for the management, our waitress made up for their terrible attitude toward us and made it so my husband's birthday dinner wasn't a complete wash. I had always heard such great things about Common Man restaurants; unfortunately, this experience left us with an awful first experience and we will not...