Blue Heron Restaurant — Restaurant in Pendleton

I made reservations for 9 people celebrating my daughter’s birthday. I’ve made reservations before at The Blue Heron and have always sat in the formal dining area. This past Friday at 6:30pm we got to sit in the bar area at the table next to the restaurant’s entry/exit door. It was 34 degrees outside. Patrons were coming in and out as they should because it was a busy Friday night. We also had to ask for the ceiling fan over our table to be turned off. It wasn’t on when we were seated. Someone turned it on after a drunk at the bar complained about how hot it was in there. The service was horrible. We tried to be gracious to our server because she was busy. Obviously busy! But, when you walk past our table over and over again a see that we have no drinks and never offer to refill them while we wait in the freezing cold for an hour and a half for our food maybe offering a refill would be helpful?? We did however get bread after we had to ask for it and 2 balls of raw dough with a side of frozen butter were brought to our table. A very apologetic waitress brought us cooked bread out and stated that the manager was going to stop by our table to “check on things.” What’s up with this manager??? I’ve seen him multiple times in the past visits and he always looks extremely busy walking around very fast with his head down. Well, he never made it to our table. The food was good. It usually is. But the service!! Come on Blue Heron!!!! Y’all can do better than that! Tip: close the table by the entry door on cold nights. Don’t let your patrons sit there. And, when someone complains about that particular table not being used, explain it to them that in the winter months it is too cold for your customers to sit there! Our experience would have been totally different had we been put in the area we expected to be in - the...

I walked into the front door of this establishment hoping to enjoy a birthday dinner for my fiancé. I had been here in the past in its old location, and it was a quiet, dignified upscale restaurant that I enjoyed greatly. However, upon entering I was greeted by the atmosphere of a rural sports bar. 70s rock was blaring on max volume, the acoustics of the space pushed every conversation right into your ears, and the staff were the only silent part of the restaurant. We were ignored for 5 minutes, standing there, while staff floated around us in the ocean of noise. When we were seated, the same treatment occurred: a restaurant nowhere near full capacity barely being able to take orders. It took them ten minutes to get to that point, and another 45 minutes for the appetizers alone to reach the table. When any food finally did reach us, it was almost good, but food quality is measured as a binary not a gradient. The duck only came in the options of overdone or burnt, and the salmon tasted like it was left on the counter for a few hours to think about what it did in a past life to merit being used in such a terrible dish. Our waitress was rude, the environment hostile, and nothing about the experience could be considered enjoyable in any possible meaningful employment of the term. It took two and a half hours to get underwhelming food and garbage service from a place that felt like a prison cell block, and I will never go back nor will I ever give a favorable recommendation to anybody that I know. This was hands down the worst experience I’ve had at a restaurant and I’ve had much worse food at chain places with better service and a calmer environment. If you enjoy calamity and the knowledge that your server absolutely spit in your food because you had the audacity to exist, this is your new...

We had a party of seven for dinner last night. There was a decent crowd, but it wasn't close to full. We had a 6:30 reservation, and we were seated promptly. We sat on the bar side of the restaurant. Our table was right by the door, but it was still so dark we had to use our phones to see the menu. It is also very loud on that side. Our waitress took drink orders and a server brought water. It took a while to get our drinks, and they were out of two kinds of beer one of us tried to order. He got his third choice. We got bread and butter, and the bread was terribly stale. Like hard stale. Not toasted; just stale. Our waitress took our orders. She came back several times to tell us it would be "just a minute". Those of us who ordered soups and salads were served after about 45 minutes. We felt bad for our waitress because after a while the "just a few minutes" excuse didn't work anymore. She seemed very tense. We didn't complain and tried to be gracious, because it wasn't her fault. We were finally served our entrees at almost 8:00. When we did get our food, it was just OK. My ribeye steak had lots of gristle. One of us had wings, and he said they were OK. My husband had a halibut dish and it was good. Several of us had a braised pork shoulder special and they all said that was good. When we got our bills, there were a couple of mistakes, but we just worked it out among ourselves or decided to let it go, because we didnt want to wait anymore. We waited a long time for OK food. Its not the most expensive place, but for what we paid, we expected better. We are not excited about going back. If we do, we will ask to be seated on the other side of the restaurant and we will leave if it looks like we will be waiting...