Jordan Pond House Restaurant — Restaurant in Mount Desert

Update 8/12/2022: Back again for a visit here after Covid and it’s business as usual. The popover’s are delicious as usual. I suggest not to use the jelly’s and jam’s as they do have an issue with bees here. This is a well known fact being a local and we still come again and again. The bee’s don’t really bother you they look for sweet things so don’t leave sweet things on your table. I had popovers and lobster stew which was delicious and in the Maine tradition. It’s a very light cream type type broth and a fair amount of lobster in the cup I got. I love Maine chowders and seafood stews. Very good stew today, loved it. It’s probably best I’ve had In Maine. This restaurant is very well known and visited yearly. It’s open May to October. It’s a busy place and parking is at a premium and very difficult to find a spot. I just keep driving around and finally I get a place and head for the restaurant. It’s just like a postcard sitting outside on the lawn with a view of the pond and surrounding mountains.

A note to the managers: I love this place however it would be better if the restrooms under the gift shop had a complete makeover and ventilation system. The water fountain outside the restrooms needs to be replaced and the green fountain in the courtyard near the restrooms needs to get replaced and update it to provide water bottle fill option. Also the fountain makes a big puddle area and a drain needs to be added to draw the water away from fountain. Some benches could be added in the courtyard outside near the restrooms in shaded area. Add drains in restrooms to make ease of hosing down the floor during the day and good ventilation system drawing in fresh air and aiding in drying the floor after hosing it down.

I have returned to this favorite spot in Acadia National Park that we try to visit at least once a year as a native. This time was very different with COVID-19. This very nice restaurant has been forced to change the business as usual that we were accustomed to. There are no longer the army of servers inside the restaurant and out on the lawn. The tables with umbrellas are gone but they do have some reduced amount of tables out on the patio. The seating inside has been reduced. The atmosphere is definitely different during these hard times, however the restaurant is open with a reduced selection of fare. You now go under the roof near the restaurant entrance and get in a line to place your order from the 2 computer displays mounted on the wall near the window. We took our place in the line waiting to place our order. They still have the excellent popovers available for order and some Maine seafood favorites. The line was pretty long outside and down the stairs and out onto the walkway below. The line actually moved fairly quickly and we made it to the order window which was previously where you gave your name and received a pager to wait to enter the restaurant. You place your order and then enter the restaurant and wait in the lobby area until your name is called. We waited maybe 5 minutes and we had a tray with our food and then could go in and choose a table inside or go to the lawn area to sit on the lawn or to tables on the patio. We opted for inside right near the window wall with views of Jordan Pond. I would say the atmosphere was a bit different of how the restaurant usually operates however that’s where we are right now and the restaurant is operating actually very quickly to serve your food on a takeout type basis right now. The restaurant will eventually return to business as usual at some point and allow you to dine on tables outside under the umbrellas with beautiful views of the pond below. Don’t judge your visit to our state by these difficult operating conditions that are a state mandate and have kept our state very safe for you to visit. We will be back to normal in the future! We really come here for the popovers which they still do on a takeout basis only right now! Do come when we are back to normal here in the state and get the whole atmosphere of the restaurant and...

Only location in the National Park that serves food - so it was a must for our lunch stop while exploring the park. Of course, this restaurant was packed and parking wasn’t easy to come by. We did eventually find the spot of someone leaving in front of us. We put our name in at the hostess for an expected 40min wait at 2:30p on a Sunday. The wait ended up being more like 1 hour, which is when we were sat. I do think they are likely understaffed as we sat at our table for about 10min prior to being greeted by our waitress. The place really is just overwhelmingly busy - so expect to need patience. I do want to preface the remainder of this review with a statement about how absolutely AMAZING our waitress was. She was busy as can be but still had an absolutely outstanding, positive attitude and was kind, respectful, and attentive. She had no problem with us requesting quick service, as we didn’t expect quite such a long wait for a table, and we were running behind to get to our sunset bout tour in Bar Harbor. She also was totally fine running us on 3 separate bills. We adored our waitress. You can see my biggest complaint and what totally disappointed me and grossed me out in the pictures. I ordered the side salad with grilled chicken on top with the lemon vinaigrette and it looked so delicious. I was about 1/4 through the salad (so yummy, was really enjoying it) when I found the most MASSIVE, DISGUSTING, HAIRY bug in my salad!! I was floored and absolutely disgusted. I understand that these things happen, but I was still absolutely shocked at how massively large this bug was and my stomach was doing cartwheels. Had I consumed it’s counterpart? Were there legs in my stomach now? Yuck! We immediately called our waitress over who was also just as shocked and floored as we were. She snatched the plate up and told us she would be back but that we obv wouldn’t be paying for it. Sadly, since we had already paid our checks to be quick, she said she could not help us with anything but that their manager would come by soon. We were already rushed with time (which is why we had already pre paid our bills), so we were very antsy and slightly frustrated that it then took 10-15 minutes of us sitting at our table for a manager to come speak to us. I was starved, in a hurry, and still getting stomach flips from my close encounter with this large creepy crawly. Finally, a young male manager walked over and kneeled down to talk to us. This manager seemed very kind but also very anxious during our conversation. We stated to him that we were running very late and just needed to get out of here but I obviously wanted a refund on the $17 salad that I did not consume due to the large “hitchhiker” that was present. He kindly tried to explain that lettuce comes from the outside and so do bugs so sometimes these things happen and etc etc. He did apologize for the experience we had. Finally, he told us that he had refunded my $17 meal (just mine) and that if we weren’t in a rush he would’ve offered dessert on the house. He stated “this is unfortunately all I can do for you.” Which I didn’t really understand the meaning of (we did not ask for anything else, just to get out of there). I told the manager that I understood these things happen, thanks for the refund, but we gotta go. We hurried away at that point. I realized once I had time later in the afternoon that I probably should’ve requested a full refund for our small group of 3’s entire dining experience -not just the salad- as we were all equally grossed out and honestly it sadly ruined the experience for all 3 of us. We were all grossed out and over it. Again, our waitress was absolutely brilliant, and we were so disappointed that our experience was not better. I doubt I will be back after this one. Food gets 1 star due to the bug. Overall rating gets 2 stars (instead of 1) because our waitress...

We visited on a Monday in mid-June 2025 for lunch.

Parking was packed as we arrived in the area a little more than 30 mins before the restaurant opened. The main parking lot was full and we were already in one of the aux parking lots. There were maybe dozen spots left over there when we arrived. My youngest decided to be the first in line and waited for 30 mins to make sure we were number one since we did not have reservations. Big recommendation is to get reservations in advance. I don't recall how many days out they open up but we just completely forgot.

The store next-door does open up before the restaurant so there is something to do other than just standing there. The main entrance is also shaded so you aren't standing in the sun waiting. They split everyone waiting into 2 lines, one for walk-ins and one for reservations. They had 2 spots at the desk inside when they first opened up. We had a large party of 11. We told them we could split into 5 and 6 to make it easier to seat and they were fine with that. However our greeter had to snake us through the horde of people into the restaurant and then disappeared. We stood around for a couple mins while others behind us in line were being seated and we had to grab another greeter and ask them what happened. They seemed pretty upset with the fact we were just left there in the middle of the dining room not knowing where to go and went to find the greeter who was help us. She came back and just asked us to follow her. We got seats outside on the lawn.

It was a picturesque with the view. There was shade from an umbrella in the table but only half the table got the shade. Our waiter on the other hand was amazing compared to our greeter. He suggested things we should get but even butter suggested things we should NOT get.

We ordered: Blueberry Non-Alcoholic Mojito (delicious and very tart, super refreshing after our hike up beehive that morning) Classic French Dip (honestly the worst thing we had. very little flavor) Adult Grilled Cheese (surprisingly the best thing we had for the price too) Barolo Braised Beef Short Ribs (the rice had absolutely zero flavor) Lobster Mac N Cheese (as you would expect it would taste with large chunks of lobster meat) New England Clam Chowder (just so so, probably wouldn't order again for the price) Two Popovers (honestly very over rated, taste like many Asian pastries I've had. Nice to try once but probably not again) Crab and Artichoke Spinach Dip (this was average as well for the price could order again if in the mood) Ploughman’s Board (this was my wife's splurge and she said it was absolutely amazing and worth every penny. It was not cheap)

Overall the food was very hit or miss. Things we thought would be good were meh and things we thought would be meh were actually very good. I think there were some sides we were suppose to get that never came. Also the side salad is 100% the way to go as recommended by our waiter. He also said NOT to get the popover pot pie. We didn't try it but trust him on his suggestion.

If we were in Acadia again, we would probably visit again. This is just one of those iconic things you have to do when your here. Even if the food could be hit or miss, the view was absolutely stunning and there was a small breeze while we were...