Farmhouse Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Ponderay

I hope this message finds you well. My party of four visited your restaurant recently with high expectations, as we had heard many positive reviews regarding the quality of your food. However, our experience fell short of our anticipation, and I’d like to share the details in hopes that it may help improve future service.

Upon arrival, we were informed there would be a wait time of approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Given the reputation of your establishment and the pleasant aromas coming from the kitchen, we were happy to wait. We provided our contact information to the hostess and enjoyed the outdoor view while anticipating a delightful meal.

After approximately 30 minutes, several parties—two groups of two and one group of five—left the restaurant, which appeared to free up multiple tables. Additionally, through the restaurant’s clear glass exterior, we observed the tables were vacant and that several waitstaff were moving about without being visibly occupied. At that point, we felt it was a reasonable time to enter.

We then waited for an additional 20 minutes in the lounge area, still hopeful that we would soon be seated. After a total of 50 minutes, we inquired with the hostess about the availability of the recently vacated tables. She assured us that she would check, but we were left waiting for another 15 minutes. A fourth party of five subsequently left the restaurant, which further contributed to our growing frustration.

Ultimately, the hostess informed us that an additional 40-minute wait was required to accommodate our group. Unfortunately, this extended wait exceeded your restaurant’s closing time, and we were ultimately turned away. While we understand that delays can happen, we were disappointed by the lack of communication and the fact that we were not able to be seated, despite the restaurant remaining open for another hour at the bar.

We sincerely hope that this experience is not reflective of the service provided to other guests and that steps are taken to improve the dining experience in the future. While we appreciated the atmosphere and the potential of your offerings, regrettably, we will not be returning to your establishment due to the challenges we faced during this visit.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We hope you will consider addressing these issues to ensure a better experience for future diners.

Best...

Came to visit on Sunday afternoon , we choose to.set at the outside tables on the bar side since it was such a.pretty day in Sandpoint, we initially were greeted with oh food service will be 20 30 min wait is that ok., Not a very good way to.start our first visit on a. Non busy afternoon. So.we got seated started looking at th menu and decided on some apitizers, we decided on fried donuts , oops we are out of those, ok.so decided on. Biscuits and gravy, oops outbox those,. Well geez ,, the waitress was short not overly friendly at not at all and in aplogtec, the fly's were terrible the bees were terrible and we had a great view of the trash dumpster. Let me say,.the amount of time.and money that went I to this place you would think the y would have had some thought about this, ?????? Now 20 min into our wait still. I apitizers delived to our table or food. Bad to ask waitress where our apitizers were, here response, oh yeah,. Now to make things more.exciting the waitress comes.out with electric.fly zapper yeap that bad,. Impressive, now 30 min into our visit the food arrives apitizers too. I guess it's just me, but aren't apitizers supposed to come before main coarse, anyhow jerked the food order simple burger and fries. For me, well the meat was ordered med it came well done. No taste to the meat other than the flame grill taste, fries were just normal everyday fries you get from Jack n the box,. The apitizers was banana bread toasted,. Well yeap the screwed that up to and burnt the bread so I wanted to love this restaurant and it's concept but the execution of service and food quality was disappointing, maybe if I had a few beers in me, will I give this new restaurant one more chance , yes I will but just one more,. Management take note, work these links out if you want community and word of mouth to help you survive there no excuse for this is service, with this type of investment,. The truth hurts, going out of business and failure...

Was really excited about trying this place with my Dad, as he had driven by multiple times and was interested in trying something new. I hate to leave a bad review, but this was some of the worst service at a restaurant I have ever experienced. The wait for everything was the biggest issue. First there was the wait for our drinks. Right after the waitress took our order, she went on break and the bartender told us she would take care of our table until she got back, which is usually not a big problem, but in this case it was the start of our issues. Our food didn’t come until our waitress was back from her lunch break. When we got it, the fries were cold and the burgers tasted like they had been sitting under the heat lamp for a while. That was the last time that we saw our waitress. After that, it was another long wait for someone to notice that we were ready for the check, as the waitress disappeared and the bartender wasn’t paying any attention to anything other than the one customer at the bar. I was ready to pay as soon as the check was dropped off, but ended up having to walk the check up to the bar in order to pay, otherwise I feel like we would have been waiting at least another 20 minutes before someone came around again. I’ve read through the other reviews before writing this, and this seems to be a continuous problem. If your staff is still having these same issues, whatever you’re doing to retrain them is not working, and suggest figuring something out asap, as we weren’t the only people in the restaurant that had horrible service today with a long wait time. Especially when you’re charging that much for your food and drinks. This place has a ton of potential to be amazing, I’d hate to see it close...