Alley House Grille — Restaurant in Pagosa Springs

The worst dining experience of our entire trip! My family and I were in Pagosa Springs between Christmas and New Years. I know that is one of the busiest weeks of the year for that poorly run little town, so when it took me 3 days to get a reservation it was understandable to me. Everyone I had spoken with in town had said it was worth the wait so you can imagine my disappointment when we finally got there. I would like to make it clear that my review DOES NOT pertain to our server!! She was very nice, and did everything she could to resolve the complete destruction of our meals. NONE of the orders that I saw her write down were served as ordered. Again....she did not serve the plates.....other individuals did that. 3 out of the five orders where so under cooked that they had to be sent back and that took forever. All of the orders had cold side dishes. The risotto was cold, bland and just tasted nasty. Our orders took over an hour to be prepared. Two other tables near us were seated after us, had orders taken after ours, but received their orders, ate their dinners and had left by the time we received ours. They tried to cook the meats after being sent back to the kitchen, but NOTHING came back cooked correctly. In the end they tried to make up to us with free dessert. I and my daughter never got to eat our steaks because the kitchen could not do their job. AGAIN.....our server was constantly trying to get things done for us but it was as if she was being ignored. NOW....here's the really insulting part. I have no issue with paying for food that my or may not be overpriced IF it is good food! THIS WAS NOT REMOTELY GOOD FOOD. I spent over $450.00 on the most overpriced meals of my life. This place portrays itself as worth the price, but I could have had a better meal for my family at McDonalds. IT WAS THAT BAD!!! Alley House........if you want to know was a true upscale dining experience is I suggest you take a trip to Santa Fe, and have dinner at THE MARKET STEER! You will not only get more than what you pay for, but you will get what you order, as you order it.......hot, and a treat for you taste buds. (disclaimer - I am in no way associated with The Market Steer. They are just the standard for what I expect for 400+ dollar meal)

We will never ever try this...

This place seems confused about what type of restaurant it is. The menu says VERY fine dining as the prices are exorbitant. The atmosphere says sports bar. There is no effort to dress nicely by the staff--they wore old black T shirts and many had gross dirty tennis shoes. We were there for our anniversary and they sat us in the middle of a very loud room, next to the bar, with boxing on the tv (not the nicest thing to have on during dinner). The young man that brought our appetizer set it down and walked away. No plates, no silverware, just bam, here ya go. Our server was friendly and brought app plates after a few minutes. Btw chef-if you have a table for two-don't serve 3 pieces of bread; either two or four. Their idea of bruschetta is to put tomatoes, a few pieces of tiny mozzarella and store bought balsamic vinegar in a large bowl with 3 slivers of day old french bread and make the customer build it themselves for $20. It was awkward and messy. The lobster was tough as a shoe, and with a small steak is $92. The chicken comes as a "breast and thigh". It's actually a very thin breast filet and the thigh was a square, tough, leathery weird thing I didn't recognize as chicken. Asparagus was tiny, over salted and in this case a child's portion. My mocktail was $10 (for basically lemonade?) and an actual (again tiny) cocktail was $18. WHY??? It seems they're charging outrageous prices to appear like fine dining but really it's just WAY overpriced for what you get, and the environment doesn't match the menu. Based on the prices we expected quiet, good lighting, excellent service, and at the very least people to dress a little nice. It's a special occasion for nearly everyone there, so make it feel special! Nope...just wear whatever (the employees do) and be ready to pay over $200 for a basic dinner in a LOUD brightly lit room with boxing on in the background. This place needs to make a decision--elegant dining that matches the prices, or rowdy sports bar with very casually dressed staff. I am not a snob whining about how everything wasn't perfect, but you can't have it both ways and expect to survive. It seems they count on tourists who will never be there again to pay a fortune one time instead of developing a good reputation. I wouldn't recommend this place-it's too expensive for...

The service and atmosphere here are both quite good. The wine list was great albeit quite expensive for some of the bottles and vintages. The bottle we requested was good, however, the vintage was the wrong year from what was listed. Not a huge deal for me or this particular bottle, but it also was not brought to our attention before being served, as it should have been. We ordered the appetizer special of oysters rockefeller based on the servers glowing recommendation. We unfortunately never got to try them as we were informed later that the kitchen had run out of oysters. Again not a huge deal, but if your staff is going to push a dish you might want to make sure you still have it. The server brought us instead a complimentary plate of focaccia bread that was delicious. The main course was ok, I had the bison ribeye and my wife had the lamb chops. My bison was cooked perfectly and looked beautiful on the plate. The issue came in the quality of the meat and the sheer amount of salt used to either try and tenderize it or season it. The steak was full of grizzle and extremely chewy. It was also so salty that it was unpleasant to eat. The potatoes were dry and the asparagus was hard and woody. My wife's lamb chops on the other hand were prepared excellently and quite tasty. The only flaw found in her meal was the mint jelly that was served alongside the Lamb. It was unpleasant to the eye and the palate. It tastes fine but the texture leaves a lot to be desired and it looks like a science experiment gone bad. I guess our disappointment in the food was obvious either on our faces or in the amount of uneaten food on our plates because the server brought out a piece of lava cake on the house. I would definitely give this place a second chance. I feel like although they missed in several areas that at least some of it was out of their control and they made the effort to correct these issues without being asked. It was just one of those meals that had so much potential and fell just a little short on a few things. Sorry, we were both quite hungry and I forgot to take pictures...