The Port Tavern — Restaurant in Newburyport

Jan. 2nd 2015, took my family here for Sat lunch. 5 adults and 3 small kids. Service was good and the young lady serving us was attentive and very polite. However, the food was VERY poor, quality and quantity. We had been here many times over the past year or so and it was usually good. Something has changed, for the worst. We ordered starters and they arrived promptly but the fries have now changed to the small, skinny type and they were burned to a crisp. Scotch eggs were good but chicken fingers were tough and kids just picked at them.

Adult meals arrived, My fish & onion rings arrived ( I wouldnt order the chips/fries ) and I received 2 very small piece of tough fish, no batter and tasted totally bland. No amount of sauce or lemon helped to bring out the taste. My wife,s shepards pie, usually a trusted item on their menu, was not hot and the potatoes seemed to be of the " instant " watery,variety. Two simple burger were the subject of a family discussion. Were they meant to be red raw in the center when they were requested them cooked ": medium " ?

My wife ordered a Hennessy brandy. Waitress left and came back : Response - No Hennessy ! She then asked for Courvoseur ( ? ) Waitress left and came back : Response - No Courvoseur. Waitress said they did have 7 Brothers Brandy, the cheapest, bar Brandy you can get. Wife accepted this and the tiny measure was brought to her in a very small soda glass which offered no room to add a mixer. A snifter glass should be used for Brandy and Cognacs.

This was NOT a pleasant experience. I know it sounds like Im bitchin over trivial things here but something has changed at this establishment. New owners ? New Management ? I dont know but until something changes here, we are done. Too many other good choices in Newburyport. It used to be good. Great food, and plenty of it. Should have left it the way it was.

To end on a good note, the Guinness was, and has always been very good here. Congrats on that !! Owners, dont be mad at me please but use this as an opportunity to review the quality and quantity of your menu. !! And, NO, we didnt complain or return any of the food out of respect for the young Waitress. She did a...

My BF and I have been to Port Tavern together multiple times before and never had a problem, but we had a pretty bad experience when we went for dinner tonight. The restaurant was about half full inside and outside, but the service was slow. We got there at 5:30pm and put in our appetizer and food order at the same time. We didn’t get our appetizer until 6:00pm and we still didn’t have our burgers by 6:50. We asked for the check with the intention of only paying for our appetizer and drinks, but the check they brought us still had the burgers (that we hadn’t gotten) on it so we asked for them to be taken off and one of the servers went to check with the kitchen. Another server came over and said they would be right out if we wanted to take them to go. We said yes but ended up waiting another 10 minutes for them to come out and the server made sure to tell us that we weren’t the only people waiting for food. They were clearly having a problem with the kitchen, but it would have been nice if the servers acknowledged that we were waiting awhile instead of just leaving everyone sitting for an hour without any update...

If I could Give negative stars I would. We drove a little over an hour to go to Newburyport with the intent on going to the The Port Tavern based on reviews and being dog friendly with their outdoor patio. We got to The Port Tavern around 4pm, I waited at the host/hostess stand for almost 10min while 3 different waitresses made eye contact and kept walking by multiple times. Finally a waiter came over and I asked for a table for 2 w/ a dog and he said anywhere outside. We waited outside for a little over 20min sitting at a table, again having waitress after waitress come out to clear off other tables look at ours but never come over. Finally someone that sat down after us, got water and menus and then when the waitress walked by us again ignoring us we got up and left. We were sitting at a table right in front of the front door not hidden or out of the way. Disappointed in this...