Arthur's Tavern — Restaurant in Morris Plains

Usually not one to write reviews unless they’re positive, but I feel my experience at Arthur’s yesterday requires me to speak up. This was our first time to Arthur’s as we were in town for a sporting event and we were unaware the location had two floors. We also happened to be celebrating two birthdays! A family member called hours in advance being that we had 11 people in our party. Last year, the sudden loss of my grandfather put my mom into extreme shock, resulting in a hemorrhagic stroke in her brain. She is able to walk with the assistance of others and/or a walker, but stairs are extremely challenging. I walked into the restaurant first, with my mom clearly clinging to my arms. I told the hostesses (3 people were at the stand) the name of our reservation and they stared at me as if I was an alien. They said “oh, well, we have you upstairs...”. It is CLEAR my mom would have been unable to make it up their 25+ steep stairs and they knew that as they watched us walk from the street through the double doors and into the restaurant! Being in the service industry for 10+ years, I know that there should have NEVER been a question if she was able to make it up or not. They should have immediately said.. hey, we’d had your table all set upstairs, but give us 5 minutes to look around downstairs and we’ll see how quickly we can get you in down here! Instead, the hostess went on and on about how there used to be apartments upstairs and it’s too old to install an elevator. As if I cared at this point! We felt as if we were bothering the staff the entire time. They asked my mom to “move over” because we were standing TO THE SIDE of the aisle and truly made us feel as if we were inconveniencing them. The hostess even came over and said “don’t worry sometimes my knees hurt and I have trouble with the stairs too.” ARE. YOU. KIDDING??

We were finally sat at a table towards the back and my mom immediately broke down in tears. It’s times like these that her stroke symptoms really slap her in the face. Shame on you Arthur’s staff for being the most unaccommodating, non-hospitality driven venue we’ve come across in the year and a half since her stroke. Reconsider your words and actions the next time a handicap individual enters your establishment. Tears from my mom and bad vibes accompanied with unaccommodating service and mediocre food.....

We ordered three steaks. the 48 oz was supposed to be medium & it was over well done, and marked as such. The two sirloins were supposed to be medium and medium well. Both were marked medium, but one was obviously medium rare. We waited 45 minutes for these steaks, and didn't feel like waiting another hour for them to fix their mistakes. We didn't want to wait because we were sat right next to the front door and bar. The bar patrons were rude and would push our table and chairs (with us sitting in them) to get around. One woman shoved past my sister and the buisness men at the next table, spilling her beer on our table while screaming for her friends.

It was so loud I couldn't even understand how people could hear the hostess over the intercom. Instead of taking them back because the markers were even wrong, the waitress gave us attitude. I get that it was busy, but I paid for 120$ of food we didn't order on my dad's birthday.

The waitress asked me 3 times if I needed sweetener for my iced tea.

She was much older than the other waitresses (which is fine as long as she can keep up), but she didn't write down anything (and got nearly everything wrong.) I left a 15$ tip, which was 15% of the bill, but honestly I don't know why. She didn't deserve it just for being there.

Tip is an acronym for : To. Insure. Promptness. She was neither prompt, nor present, nor did she get our orders right. And when we criticized the food, she gave us attitude.

Furthermore, I charged the dinner to my card on 6/4 & it didn't take out the full amount until 4 days later -- over drawing my account.

For a famous steakhouse, they should ALWAYS get the steaks perfectly correct according to each guests orders. And for a place that's been making money at 4 locations for over 25 years, they should have a real credit card machine. That takes the money out the day of, or at least after.

I won't be returning to the Morris Plains location, but hopefully the other 3 have everything...

We did not have such a good experience at Arthur's Tavern. We were having clients in from the Netherlands and called to make a reservation which, although they don't accept reservations for parties under 10 people (we had 7 in our party), the manager said they would put us in the book. When they called later in the day to confirm (which I confirmed), they said we may have to wait a few minutes but we should be good. When we arrived at 7PM they informed us that we may have to wait 1/2 hour. I explained that we had a 7PM reservation and hopefully we wouldn't have to wait long as our clients from Netherlands were very tired and we wanted to get seated as quickly as possible as they are exhausted. We didn't get seated until 1 hour and 20 minutes later. It did not appear that the 'reservation' helped at all as we were put on a list and given no priority over the people that were just walking in. I explained that had we known we didn't have a true 'reservation' we have gone elsewhere. When we expressed frustration, the evening manager said there is nothing he could do and if we wanted to leave we could. At this point, it would have taken longer to go elsewhere so we waited. Once we finally got seated and placed our order, one of the steaks ordered 'medium' was served well done. We sent it back and then they brought it to the table it was rare. We sent it back again and this time they got it right. On a positive note the waitress was great and very attentive. The excessive wait really put a damper on the evening. If you are not prepared to wait over an hour for a table, you may want go elsewhere. We not...