Ye Olde Trail Tavern — Restaurant in Miami Township

Full disclosure- this review really only applies to tourists from out of town who may for one reason, or another find yourself one day in Yellow Springs.

I'm writing this in case the owners ever feel the need to make a change.

First off- There is only (1) place where public restrooms can be found and it's under the label "Yellow Springs Station" for those using Google Maps.

Visitors to Yellow Springs will quickly discover that the inherent charm that may exist here, potentially only shines when there aren't hundreds of people looking around as though they were at Disneyland, or a Zoo. I bring this up because as a result - some (not all, but some) of the locals may not be as friendly as others, usually the ones trying to sell you something.

Yes- this means that Ye Olde Tavern, along with all other businesses do NOT allow the use of their restrooms and some of their staff is friendly and some are - not so much.

Inside the Ye Olde Train Tavern the decor is quite original (meaning untouched in many years) which meant: sticky, oily tables, menus and condiment bottles. This was hard to ignore, since there is no place to "wash your hands" and eventually you have to touch...things. Sadly, neither my guest, nor I brought any hand sanitizer, or Lysol with us, but we decided to stay nevertheless as there were many good reviews about this establishment.

Although we were sat fairly quickly (Saturday 2:30pm is hardly rush-hour) we unfortunately waited a good 10 minutes for someone to come by and get our drink order. Worse yet, another 15 minutes passed before those drinks found their way over and then afterwards another 20 minutes before we could place an order.

I made the mistake of ordering the Donar Kebap and my guest ordered the Ostern salad.

35 minutes later the salad (with no cooked ingredients mind you) arrived alongside my Donar Kebap that included a side of fries and a pickle.

Fortunately the Kebap was wrapped in foil (hand-washing crisis averted), however good hygiene was the least of my concerns as I took a bite and immediately spat back out what appeared to be large chunks of cabbage stem, that tasted as if they weren't washed properly.

Had I not lived in over 21 different cities and spend over 2 years living in Europe, I may not have tried hundreds of Donar Kebaps and I may not have noticed that: A) The flatbread tasted exactly like the mass-produced, overly-thick, pre-packaged nonsense that comes from Walmart, or Costco, but it was no where near the type of flatbread you would normally get with a Kebap.

B) The cabbage and cucumber were 1/2" dice- making the texture so crunchy and unpleasant that it was difficult to distinguish between the ingredients and the overwhelming flavor of poorly washed dirty cabbage did not help the situation.

C) The Donar meet- "beef and lamb" was so flavorless and dehydrated, which was amazing considering it was at room-temperature, that it tasted like someone purchased a ton of frozen, processed beef-lamb gyro meat (made from meat paste- see texture in photos) cooked it on an oven tray until one side burns, drained all of the fat/oil until it was dry, placed the meat in a container and then later (hours/days) pulled out a few slices, cut them into cubes and tossed them under the cabbage mixture.

D) The Fries were delicious- couldn't tell if they were from a frozen bag, but based on the seasoning I would guess they were. Didn't change the fact that they were cooked properly and decently warm. I regret having to touch the ketchup bottle and am fairly certain condiments are still married when no one is looking.

Suffice to say I did NOT eat most of my meal.

I asked my guest how her salad was: to which she replied- Disgusting- mainly because of the flavor of the cabbage, but the dressing (while thick) was not the worst. She did not eat most of her meal either.

Despite the unnecessarily long wait times and abysmal/horrid food, we paid in full, tipped well and left, never to return.

If you find yourself here- maybe stick with a...

I had high hopes for this place. While it wasn't awful.... I don't think we will be back unfortunately.

I ate here with my family. Kids had the typical chicken tenders and fries. One adult has a regular cheeseburger with fries. Unfortunately the bun had sat on top of the pickle and was soaked in pickle juice. While that's okay for some. This person specifically does not like anything but a plain cheeseburger. But... Not the worst thing...

Another person had a BLT with mashed potatoes. The BLT was mediocre... And apparently the mashed potatoes were not made and they decided to make them while we were there so they brought us out fries instead.

Another one of my guests had "the hun" I believe is what it was called. Basically just a grilled chicken sandwich. I was told that it was marinated in a balsamic house dressing? Which I figured would have tasted great. Unfortunately when it came out it was quite dry. Again, this person ordered the mashed potatoes and they brought out fries.

I ordered some sort of burger that had files an island and grilled onions on it. The bread was very bland and extremely toasty... And while that sounds ok, the toast was a little harder than needed. It made the crust much harder. The grilled onions were extremely thin.... It felt more like they had grilled the skin of the onion rather than the onion itself. Possibly overcooked? The thousand island dressing was amazing. It was even better because it was hot. The cheese was great and the burger was as well. I also ordered mashed potatoes and was substituted twirly fries? I do not remember the proper name for the fries. Sorry

I didn't feel like the fries were seasoned well enough. But they weren't bad. When our food was brought out with the french fries we were told that they were there to eat while we were waiting for the mashed potatoes to be done. We all ended up eating our food before the mashed potatoes got done. If we would have known ahead of time I think it would have been a lot better. We wouldn't have been expecting mashed potatoes at some point..

We did voice our concerns with the waitress and she did comp the chicken sandwich and discounted the other three adult meals. So she did try to make up for any mistakes that were made. And we do appreciate that.

However, we do believe that the worst part of our experience was the other customers that were sitting behind us. Both of us were big groups, we were set in a small room, and the other group felt the need to continuously talk about political points of view and issues LOUDLY. And while I understand that's a hot topic at the moment..... They did right on their receipt "vote for Trump".

While that really has nothing to do with the establishment themselves. They did not cause that issue. We do feel it's important to let people know some people will go in there there and feel like they need to push their views on the other people.

We did love the area. And we loved the idea of the restaurant. But it's just not something we will be back to enjoy unfortunately. I do believe they were short-staffed as well. This was our first...

We stopped in to eat after seeing some intriguing reviews online. I will say the food we had WAS on point and good. They have some good unique options and are going for a German theme on the menu. The fried Sauerkraut balls are very good. Nothing really unique about the pretzel bites though. The Reuben I had was very good, my wife tried the Late Night Johnny and it was okay. The chili has a unique flavor almost like a marinara base but I liked it. They have a good beer selection. Our waitress, Whitney was friendly and very helpful but the young lady who sat us as our "hostess" made us feel like we were just a bother. We were seated and pretty much had menus thrown down in front of us. I would have understood if they were busy but they weren't. The bartender while we were there threw coasters at the "hostess" with a full bar and customers, I felt this was extremely unprofessional. The historical building was kind of cool to experience but the decor could have been better thought out. The interior of the building needs some quality repairs done to it but should be mindful of the history. Overall the front of the house where we were seated had a regular small town local bar feel to it, that combined with a jukebox hanging on the wall blaring modern rap and teens music took away from the historical feel that the building could offer. Despite my criticisms, I would probably return again to try some of their other menu items but would ask to be seated in the back of the house or weather permitting outside around the fire pit. This place is under new ownership for the past three years and I think with a few changes could really improve the experience. I really would love to see this place become one of those "must stop" locations as it has the...