The Swanson — Restaurant in Perry

A friend of mine is in town visiting. Her, my husband, four year old daughter and I went in about 5pm to have dinner. The server was one of the rudest servers I have ever met. We sat down and said our usual please and thank yous. When I tried ordering my daughter's food, I asked for slices tomatoes (which is not on the children's menu as a side.) She snatched the menu from in front of my daughter, who was coloring, and shoved it in my direction. In a snappy voice she gruffly stated, "that is not on the kid's menu. You have to get one from there " I stared at her because at this point I was tired of her attitude. She saw the look on my face and she said, "It will be a charge. Do you still want it?" (Mind you she still had an attitude and was being snappy.) I froze, looked at her and said, "yes." I had to stop and take a deep breath at that point. I had my husband order at that point and proceeded to tell myself to breath. I looked back up after he was done and I looked at her and in all honesty I returned her attitude. She slightly shifted her tone of voice in order to give us drinks and give us our food. By the end when she realized I was not going to change my tone of voice and refused to soften my demeanor she decided to be super nice. I guarantee it is only because she realized I was the one who was staying behind to pay the bill. She made an assumption that we were in town for the fair. Little did she know that we live in town. I used to frequent the restaurant when I was pregnant because I worked across the street. In five years the service has become awful and their sweet potato casserole now has a funky texture and after taste. The fries okra was over salted. The cabbage was good. The blackened Mahi was good. My husband did not finish his country fried steak, which normally is not a problem. He did not care for the sweet potatoes either. I will not be back and I do not recommend them to anyone with children. Let me add, except for the fact that my daughter struggled with maintaining an inside voice. She sat there coloring while holding conversation. Then she played on her tablet. She was overall well behaved. She even said thank you on her own which was ignored every time by...

First we were frequent visitors to Swanson. Over the years it has been a favorite of our out of town guests and a "go to" for my family .But today's visit was terrible. The new menu items were a great surprise and the price increase weren't too bad. But here is where things went off the rails. The wait staff..what happened to the warm and friendly charm? We were greeted very cold and the staff seemed disinterested is taking our order...we had to call her back to table to get a questions answered as well to place our orders. We were served our drinks as if it was our job to serve them. The restaurant was not crowded, so you think taking care of the customers would be a breeze. When we got our food it was cold especially the Mac and Cheese.The mashed potatoes were ice box cold. We asked for gravy on the side a we were served burnt goo. We asked for new hot mashed potatoes and butter. We got the potatoes but no butter. About 10 minutes later the manager brought us butter. Since we had management there I told her about gravy. I was in disbelief we she told me and I quote "No one EVER has ever complained before and the head chef is here. As if I was lying to her. To be clear 5 people were our party. We all tasted the gravy and the conclusion is that it was burnt. Our waitresses came back told that Manger said the gravy was fine. First if you to disinterested in customers maybe you need to rethink you business options We never eat at the Swanson again ..and I plan tell everyone I know how terrible we...

After my visit today I will never go back. The server was absolutely amazing as always. However one of our meals was completely cold and the baked potato was still hard and not cooked hardly at all and the grilled chicken was so salty it was inedible (it was also the last meal to come out!) We have order this meal before and it has never been like this. When we asked to have the chicken removed from our ticket since it couldn't even be eaten we were told that not only could it not be removed but that the servers would have have pay for it! We asked to speak with the manager and was told he would not come speak with us. We asked again and when he did come he was completely unprofessional and kept trying to walk off as we were taking. He just kept saying this is how the chicken is always cooked and we should have said something sooner but that it's the servers job to make sure the customers are happy so they will pay for the removed meal. ....why should they be responsible to pay for the meal? Maybe management needs to be responsible for that. It's appalling that the employees are treated this way. I think management either needs to have some updated training or needs to be replaced completely. In the end the meal was removed from our ticket and the server ended up paying for it which we said repeatedly that we will pay for it after we were told she would have to pay for it. We are absolutely appalled at the treatment of the staff and horrified at management's attitude towards the situation...