ION Restaurant, It's Only Natural, ION — Restaurant in Middletown

I’d be leaving ‘Zero’ stars if that were an option. We visited ION on Mother’s Day after I (a long-time vegan) had been looking forward to trying it for months. Sadly, what should have been a joyful family celebration turned into a two-hour+ ordeal—with no real effort from the staff to make it better.

Yes, Mother’s Day is a busy day for restaurants. But poor planning—limited kitchen staff, no table seating system to match staff’s capacity, and no meaningful communication about wait times—left us with a deeply frustrating experience. Our pregnant daughter had to sit outside in the sun on a hard bench for over two hours before any food arrived, and we had to go inside 4 times to get any help from the staff. We eventually moved ourselves inside, and still received no attention.

It wasn’t just that food took a long time—it was that we were never seen, never cared for, and never acknowledged. When our food finally did arrive, no apology, no discount, no gesture. Just a bill.

We emailed the manager privately before posting this review, hoping for an honest conversation. Instead, we received a polite but deflecting explanation about staff shortages, with no apology for the breakdown in service—or any offer to make things right.

We love supporting small, plant-based restaurants. But hospitality isn’t just about food—it’s about people. And sadly, that part was missing.

Edited after the business reply here: No one came to us and apologized during the entire time we were there. We needed to go inside 4 times to endeavor to get service and a sense of timing on when our meal might have been served. We also did not request a refund. We specifically waited to see if there would be any acknowledgement from the staff that we had waited so long and if this might be reflected on the bill. It was not. I wrote an email directly to the manager awaiting her answer before writing my review here. Her answer was deflection and simply that they were, like all restaurants, short staffed. There was never any acknowledgement that perhaps clientele could have been told to expect long wait times for food to come out of the kitchen, nor was there any adjustment to how many guests they seated, based upon their known-to-them limitations in the kitchen. I find this the hardest part to comprehend - they are in the hospitality business. When they know what they can and cannot provide to their paying guests on any given day, and choosing to ignore that and allow their guests to suffer the consequences is simply disrespectful and the antithesis of...

Edit:

I originally gave this restaurant 1 star due to the reasons that you can read below (my original review), but the owner made up for it since she offered to have us back with paid drinks due to the bad experience we had the first time around. This time the experience was great. The owner came to chat with us and explained that our original waitress was on her first day ever when she tended to us and was really nervous (understandable). Our waiter was really nice and efficient this time, we got everything on time and the food was REALLY good (try their chocolate cake since is delicious). We will be coming back and not only because the food is good, but because the owner knows how to treat her customers and acknowledge them. It is awesome to have a fully vegan restaurant that we can go to now.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

We were pretty excited to go to this place since it is exclusively vegan, so we went today. I don't have an opinion about the food since we didn't even get to try it. The minute we sat down our waitress approached us and took our beverages order...fast forward to 20 minutes and we still haven't gotten our drinks or our food order taken. Our waitress keeps walking around the restaurant smiling at everyone and seeming seriously lost. Finally we managed to have her come over to our table and when we ask her about our drinks she says "oh, I will put your order right away" and leaves. 10 more minutes go by and another waitress shows up to take the food order of the table right next to us (who are also "drinkless") and when we tried calling her over to our table she leaves in a hurry, not before apologizing to the people right next to us for the delay. 10 more minutes after that we managed to get the attention of our absent minded waitress (who is still walking around smiling to everyone for no reason) and she tells us that our order will be taken by the girl who was tending to the table next to us. REALLY LADY? In conclusion, 40 minutes have gone by and we don't even have our drinks. I really wanted to love this place, but at that point we decided to walk out for good. You would think that for such an overprice place (we know this is one of the most pricey vegan restaurants in CT) they will have great service. What a...

It was a beautiful August day on our visit to ION. The place is all vegan, make everything including desserts on premises and has been in business for 35 years. All of that is highly admirable

I like the style of the restaurant, but if they desire to be all inclusive and welcoming, they may leave those political agenda, LGBTQ flags at home. The couches need reupholstering and the whole place could use renovation, while still maintaining their old world charm

We wish our waitress C would have been friendly and accomodating. She didn't inform us about the portions (the portions here are huge) and that they weren't out of the dishes, I was interested but I only needed to wait 15 min, and they probably would be available again. She also wasn't astute about delivering us the extras we ordered.

The fried tofu was obviously mixed with hot sauce, depositing moisture and a strong vinegary taste, ruining what otherwise would be an excellent crunch and breading. A bloody shame and yuck. A dry seasoning as cajun or garlic with herbs, would work best.

The nachos sour cream, flavor and consistency and the tortilla chips, light but strong were perfect. The cheese was gloppy not smooth, as an old school recipe but tasty. The meat would be better with fresh garlic and seasoning instead of tomato sauce. The salsa is not salsa at all and should be listed properly, as chopped tomatoes and onions

The scallop mushroom dish was a flop. They were tough not tender and the garlic, wine butter sauce was without any discernable garlic and wine flavors. The carrot puree was an excessive amount. I would have enjoyed more chive oil, to provide the dish desperately needed flavor but the waitress refused my request, stating that the kitchen is busy.

I usually wouldn't recommend the caesar salad because everyone does it, but this was the star! The dressing was a super yummy, mix of ingredients and the crunchy, with a slight maple sweetness, cornbread croutons are almost worth the 3 hour travel time...