Castle 1900 — Restaurant in Plano

I went so you do NoT have to. Where do I begin? Carly (one of the bartenders) who, from what I heard is an experienced bartender, but it does not show. I ordered 3 drinks, 1 premium signature cocktail & 2 vodka sodas. I was charged the same price for the vodka sodas as I was for the signature cocktail ($14), neither time did they ask if I had a preference for vodka. I will be honest & admit I did not order food, I had the intention of it, but from the Atmosphere & looking at what people ordered I decided I did not want to. Carly said that the buttons were not finished for regular standard drinks & that was why I was charged for a signature cocktail on the vodka sodas. After having worked on the back-end with Toast (point of sales system they use), I can honestly tell you it is extremely easy & quick to create a full menu for everything. So there is no excuse for not having a button for regular drinks that should not cost the same as a premium signature cocktail. The atmosphere/aesthetic has just a bunch of phosphorescent drawings on the walls with UV/blacklighting to give it that unique look. There is a fog machine that blows a bit of fog every 35 minutes & besides that there is a scattered mix of Halloween looking decor. If you going to spend money on a themed concept I highly recommend medieval times, melting pot or magic time machine instead. When I asked Carly about the pricing she stood there explaining her reason for it like it was intentional or almost proud that a vodka soda was the same price as a premium cocktail. Being a wine specialist & former restaurant manager I would most likely not have hired several people there. When you work in fine dining, several things just naturally carry with you & I saw none of that at this place. Example being that the food runners did not know table numbers, nor did the bartenders who told them where to take food. When food was delivered to tables it was "auctioned" off rather than delivered to specific seat positions, which is not hard to do at all. The only positives was that Charlie the other bartender seemed to have more intuition than Carly did, because Charlie seemed to notice things a veteran of the food & beverage industry would. She was also approachable & friendly opposed to being standoffish which Carly was. If you do get a regular drink, make sure Maddie makes it, because that person pours heavy (God bless that person's soul). The managers do not look like any of the managers I have had the pleasure of knowing before. Their shirts are unbuttoned lower than a professional level. You can also tell by the demeanor & mannerisms of most of the staff including management, that they lack fine dining experience. You can definitely tell that whoever put this place together does not have much experience in the food & beverage industry much less fine dining. Almost forgot to mention that 1 of the paper towel dispensers in the men's room is broken. 1 interesting thing they spending a lot of money on is the garnish skewers for drinks that have a colored...

Theme restaurants are all about the staff. The food can be crap and a good staff still makes it worth it. So I wasn't expecting much, especially when I read the reviews. I'm pleased to say the reviews have this place severely underrated. Let's start with the food. A bit of range in the variety. Our table of 6 people ordered 5 appetizers so we didn't have to make many decisions. We enjoyed every one of them. Maybe they were a little small - idea for 1 or 2 people each but still very good. Then the drinks, a nice range of options, priced at theme bar prices, mixed well and no complaints of missing alcohol or low quality rot gut. Just fun, yummy drinks. Well done! Now for the main meal, all properly cooked, well seasoned, good temperature and texture, clean plate club all around. including watching other table's reactions. These aren't Texas sized portions with Togo boxes. These are enjoy your appetizer & meal and have a desert to put you over the top. Personally, I'm a carnivore so rather than order a meal, I ordered several skewers for the same total price as a meal. The meat was tender, properly seasoned and prepared...absolutely worth coming back for again. In fact, we all enjoyed our meals. Maybe we weren't having who is the chef and omg I have to come here every day. But this isn't that kind of place. For a theme restaurant, it far exceeded expectations. (Yes the food is definitely better than Medieval Times and my experiences at Magic Time Machine.) We had just enough room for desert. Again these are not Texas sized 3 spoon deserts. They are 1 person, smack your hand away, "get your own! This is mine." Deserts. Again, clean plate club. I had the flourless option. Imagine a slightly dark chocolate (not bitter), soft fudge, crustless piece of pie. Very good. The table also had a lava cake (vanished), leches (yummy noises) with a unique twist, and a couple pecan pies with ice cream also vanished. We all left fat and happy. Atmosphere was great. The staff was helpful, fun, and in costume. Lots of interaction and playing without losing sight of the service we expected and the quality we deserved. (Round of applause for the staff - well done!) The walls are painted up and the rooms decorated for Halloween and the Haunted theme. Plenty to see and tons of great picture opportunities. Then there's the check: drinks, appetizers, meals, desert, venue with character interactions all for roughly $100/person. Worth it! Ignore everyone else's posts. Dress up like you want to go to a Haunted Cafe and have fun. Choose flavors you like or be adventurous and try something new. Enjoy yourselves and expect a check to go with the fun memories and full bellies that result. If you go here trying to be entitled and stuffy, you'll be...

Oh man… where to start.

Before I say anything I want to say that we drove an hour from the west side of Ft Worth after hearing about this place on social media. Being a family of Halloween lovers this place looked so great and showed a lot of promise! Now when you get to the cafe the outside is decorated some but I think it could be a little better however this didnt affect how I felt about the cafe because the inside was fantastic. The place is pretty big with many tables and I will say the ambience, decor, paintings etc were phenomenal! It was on point for what I’d expect from a haunted Cafe! (Btw looooooved the lightning in the bar area, that was awesome!) However once we were seated things went downhill.

Looking at the bar drink menu I wasn’t surprised by the $10-$16 cocktails, that’s kind of average for restaurants I feel like specially given that they’re Halloween themed or whatever but it took about 15 minutes just to get a drink order in. When we tried to order something from the bar we were told the bartender was a no show and they had no one else that could make drinks. Feels like the manager should be behind the bar if your bartender is a no show but it happens thanks for saving us a lot of money.

After getting initial waters and fountain drinks we were visited for refills only twice after that until we left the cafe. They didn’t have sweet tea which might as well be heresy in Texas. Had to ask multiple times for a couple refills. After getting drinks we put in for 4 appetizers, yet only received 3.

When looking at the menu for actual entrees I wasn’t overly impressed by anything but I ended up ordering the lamb chops. For $40+ dollars I expected a lot better but they were quite bland and 4 of the smallest chops I’ve seen with Mac and cheese that tasted more like buttered noodles. Overall a lot of the table felt the food was pretty bland but there wasn’t a lack of price for each item.

Looking at the desert menu they have a lot of variety so if you have a sweet tooth this place will be your friend! We wanted the lava cake but were told they didn’t have any of that which seems weird on the 3rd day open. But we ended up getting two different desserts and they were good so can’t complain on that front.

At the end we got our tab and after splitting between everyone the tab for me and my girlfriend was about $130.

Service, food, taste, and drinks were all lacking but the ambience and theme was great. If you want bland overpriced food in the ambience of a Haunted restaurant then this is the...