Barn Board Grill & Saloon — Restaurant in Roberts

I was an out of towner in an area that I don't know at all, meeting a friend for supper. I picked a place to go, but was told that it was not a good place, and the Barn Board was highly recommended as a much better place. So we went there instead.

Atmosphere: there really was none. There were really only 2 things I'll remember. First, we both prefer a booth over a table. But the booths had hard wooden benches, so we choose a table with padded chairs instead. Second, the place is fairly big, but both the men's and women's restrooms had just one toilet. Even though there were very few people there, there was a line.

Service: friendly, but slow. We started with water to drink. By the time the waitress came to get our food order my water was empty. We were glad we ordered water, because we were standing up to leave just as she finally came to take our order. Coming with the bill and to collect due the bill was just as slow. The food did come fast though - surprisingly fast actually.

Food: my order: boneless wings (Parmesan garlic) and cheese curds basket. Cheese curds were good, but really, how can you mess them up? Wings were warm at best, and not very flavorful - I didn't even remotely have garlic breath after. They weren't burnt, but somehow the breading was hard, took a real push to get a fork into them so I could do them into the weak blue cheese dressing - no evidence of blue cheese present. Friend had the Reuben and garlic fries - mostly because the up charge to change sides is far too high. The garlic fries were excellent - by far the best thing at our table. Nice and crispy, but again, a little light on the garlic. The marble eye of the sandwich was very good, and very nicely toasted. But the rest of the sandwich was very unremarkable. Nothing to make one day it was a bad sandwich, but nothing to make you say it was a good sandwich, either. The only thing really to say about it was that it was a nice sized sandwich with proper proportions of sandwich ingredients. Not a bad sandwich, but not a good sandwich. Just a sandwich.

Menu: the menu has an ok selection. But one of my pet peeves is when the menu doesn't include the price of soft drinks. This menu didn't even list soft drinks at all! The waitress could tell us they were Coke products, but she didn't know the cost. Thus we stuck to water.

Price: the prices would have been good for good food. They were only ok for the food we actually got.

All in all, given the recommendation that I had been given, I was very disappointed, and I wish we had gone to my first choice of...

Oh, my! Where do I begin? Have been there 2x in the past 2 weeks. Went there once with hubby to Wed. Wing special. No wings to be had (I understand there is some kind of a chicken shortage). Ordered boneless wings instead. They were pretty much tasteless, hardly tossed in the sauce we requested, & about room temp. Also, had the cheese curds because the menu said the price on the latter was reduced if u ordered the chicken special. Cheese curds were fine. The waitress was very friendly & attentive, despite the fact that the cook or someone else, was delivering the food to the patio out a side door. When we got the bill, the cheese curds were on there at full price. When we explained it to the waitress, she apologized & put the reduced price on our bill instead. She said that the "special deal" should be taken off the menu as it no longer existed. Next visit on the patio, had lunch with a friend. We ordered deep fried pickle spears as she had a dining coupon for a free order with an entree purchase. Boy, were they BAD!! The breading was almost mushy, it was tasteless & just slid right off the pickle. Also, served almost cool to the touch. Once again, food came out via another person via side door to kitchen. I cannot speak about my dining companion's wrap sandwich, but the Cuban Sandwich has taken a serious nosedive since the last time I had it a couple of years ago. Bread was not toasted, & was cool & soggy. Very little pork, & 1 tiny piece of deli ham, sandwich spread was like something out of a jar & had very little flavor. Oh, & the fries were what they always are.....limp & lukewarm. No surprises there. To top it all off, the waiter was utterly clueless on how to wait tables. He acted like he might be from...

I've been to many restaurants where I've had to wait, but this place was ridiculous. We were a party of 8 and it was over an hour before our order was even taken. And that only after I flagged down a waiter that walked past us a dozen times averting his eyes. Eight meals ordered, two of them were missing parts of the order...my meal was missing completely! When my chimichanga finally arrived...20 minutes after my family was finished eating, I asked for a to-go box. The waiter proudly told me that he had stopped the kitchen from putting the cheese on my chimichaga. Oh, you mean the cheese the menu lists as part of the food? No refills, inaccurate orders and over two hours for mediocre food...sorry Barn Board, there are too many good places to dine out in the area...I would normally not give a local business one star, but I won't be recommending...