Old Stone Farmhouse — Restaurant in Saint Thomas

I'll start with how excited I was to make this reservation for my family over our Christmas vacation. I call and ask for a great table for 6 at 7pm on Christmas Day. They say they're not open Christmas Day, but can accommodate us for Christmas Eve. Great, I'll take it. Reservation set. Anticipation begins.

We show up and I check in my family and we're a little early. Hostess says the group ahead is finishing up but we can grab a drink at the bar while we wait. No worries, we all grab a drink and chit-chat at the bar.

Well, 7pm rolls around and we've all finished our first drink and our table is still not ready yet. Alright fine, we'll grab another drink. Clearly the table wasn't "finishing up", but no big deal. We finish our second drink around 7:30pm and awkwardly hang around longer till 7:45. 45 minutes past the time I called a month in advance to reserve. Not off to a great start.

We all sit down and the server greets us, explains the specials, and gets some drinks for those who need a refresher. He mentions he has one dish left of the daily fish - so I quickly say I'll take it- and just my luck, it's reserved for me. He then comes back a little while later to deliver our drinks and take our orders. We order a couple of the specials that are being shared between my parents and my sister and her husband; my wife orders a filet mignon, and I'm excited I've got my fish. This all happens and the time is just past 8pm.

Here's where everything spirals - and where this restaurant gets my worst recommendation and review I've ever given. We wait another 30 minutes for our appetizers to come out, and we're going on another 30 before I decide to have a chat with the manager. She mentions "she'll take care of it" and goes back to the kitchen. I sit back down and she comes back from the kitchen and says they're working on it and asks if she can accommodate us and get us anything to drink. We just want our food. They mention they can bring bread ( THEY'VE HAD BREAD THIS WHOLE TIME?!). This next part is important...When our waiter brings the bread, he CLEARLY, AND FOR THE WHOLE TABLE TO HEAR, tells my father that dinner will be 50% off tonight for us having to wait so long. Well we go on waiting another 45 minutes. It's now just before 10pm, before we finally are served.

Meanwhile, our waiter DOES NOT EVER COME BACK TO OUR TABLE. So we head up to the hostess stand and ask for our check after waiting even longer at our table. We all head to the valet/taxi area and leave my father to pick up the check (he insisted). Well, we wait about 10 minutes and he's still not with us...what is going on with this place!?!?

My mom goes to collect him, but comes back to our group saying THEY HAVE CHARGED US FULL PRICE AND REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE 50% OFF. We return and the waiter is now behind the hostess stand, standing next to the hostess and flatly lying to my father about what he said. The manager is hiding next to the bar, saying she has to believe what her waiter has told her, and the waiter is saying that HE IS THE MANAGER. What??

We refuse to pay the bill our of principle and how utterly terrible our service was all night - especially when we were told we would be receiving this discount (many of us were ready to give up after the bread came and before dinner because it seems very clear they hadn't even started cooking our food yet). We're in a standoff with the waiter not budging...AND THEN HE CALLS THE POLICE. To avoid any prolonged embarrassment we now feel having the police being called on us (we are not unruly, we are not aggressive, and with no justification for this) we decide to leave this restaurant lead by the worst management and staff I've ever dealt with- and go home.

To me, the only scenario I can think of that makes minimal sense is that the waiter never cleared this "discount" wIth management OR management told him it would come out of his own pocket to cover the cost. Either way, it's no excuse for how terrible an encounter we had and with so much promise from the beginning.

I could not more...

The look of this restaurant is breathtaking. We had a group of 7 and reserved our table beforehand. We are all foodies and we were super excited about the menu they offered. We got one of each of the 4 appetizers. I asked the waiter if the soups and salads were sharing size, and he said yes. I had wanted to try the crab and corn chowder, but was hoping for a smaller, less expensive option as one bowl is $21. When I told the waiter this, he said, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." The appetizers were delicious, and I was surprised when he brought out a huge bowl of the crab and corn chowder and 7 spoons. It was delicious too! We were out celebrating our first group vacation, and for some of us it was the first real vacation we'd taken in years. We ordered drinks and bottles of wine as well. A couple members of our party had wanted to order the lobster meal that was pasta with lobster, mussels, and a variety of other ingredients, but we were told they had just switched the menu that day and hadn't updated their paper menus yet. The lobster dish was now a lobster tail with various sides for $64. Most of us went with the scallop meal instead, but one of our party members wanted to try the lobster tail so he asked if we could just get a lobster tail without the sides and ordered a lobster tail to be added to the side for each of our dinners. So, to be clear, all seven of us ordered a full meal, and then had just one lobster tail added to that meal. When the food came out, the scallops were good, but the cous cous and vegetables were bland. One of our members got the salmon and said it was the best salmon she'd ever had. The lobster tail was extremely overcooked. Parts of it were so overcooked it was hard and very chewy. We were even more disappointed when we saw on the bill that we were charged the full $64 for each individual lobster tail on top of the full price for our original meals. We were also charged the full amount for the crab and corn chowder, and that wasn't expected either. The bartender had come over at some point during our meal and said that since one of our group members drink orders hadn't come through that it wouldn't be charged, but it was. By the end of dinner we were all sweating because there was no A/C and our cab was waiting for us, so we paid the way overpriced bill and left. We knew our bill would be high, but we never should have been charged full price for those lobster tails. I guess I should have been more clear about the crab and corn chowder, but I've worked it food service for the better part of my life and would never tell a guest, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it" then turn around and charge them full price. But, that was my fault for assuming and not clarifying beforehand. All in all, the ambiance and the look of the venue is stunning, I can see people wanting to have their weddings there it is that beautiful. But be very sure you understand what you're ordering before...

We had high hopes for this restaurant given their good reviews and seeing pictures of the beautiful location. Unfortunately, the restaurant did not deliver.

The first issue was that we often dine with our 4 year old son and clearly no one at the restaurant gives any thought to this. Many visitors to VI will come with their kids and kids generally like more simple meals. When we asked what they could do for him the best they could offer was gnocchi (which most kids hate) or a small filet steak. They could have easily served him a dried pasta with sauce and charged us $30 and we'd have been happy. It seems pretty clear no one working in the kitchen has ever dined with a child.

The second issue was the food was overpriced and lacked even the most basic flavor. The adult version of the gnocchi was more salad than pasta. At first we couldn't find the gnocchi in the greens it was served on, but then we finally saw a few sad, not very tasty gnocchi hiding inside. We actually called the waiter over to ask if we got the right meal, and we weren't the only table that did that.

The other main we ordered as the grouper, which was flavorless and a bit chewy. Given that this dish is $46 it should be a lot better than it was.

The only item we ordered that was kinda okay was the scallop starter, but that was mostly because the sauce was good. The scallops themselves were nothing special - I can make better at home.

Overall, we left with a bad taste in our mouths. $160 in food and hungry kid and disappointed adults. My son said it best when the bill came - "this is not a good restaurant". We are frequent restaurant eaters being from New York City and he is actually pretty experienced in this area.

Overall, this was the most disappointing meal we had in St. Thomas only because of the food. The location was beautiful and staff were decent - the kitchen needs to...