Cavanaugh's Priest Lake — Restaurant in Sandpoint

Last year (2021), my family of five adults made reservations for Cavanaugh’s Thanksgiving buffet. We had patronized Cavanaugh’s in the past and thought it might be a great change from our traditional home-cooked Thanksgiving we had done for decades. Some in our party were skeptical of what the quality of buffet food for Thanksgiving would be. We were pleasantly impressed. The food quality was great, the place was decorated and festive for the holidays, the service was good, it was a relaxing alternative to staying home. Needless to say, we were all excited to go again this year (2022). I made our reservation early and we added a few to our party this year, telling them that they would enjoy it and it was worth the long drive from Post Falls to Priest Lake (we are all from the Priest River/Priest Lake area).

Unfortunately, this year’s visit could not have been more polar opposite from last year. ☹ The seven of us were semi-greeted and motioned to our table meant for four. We were told we could push tables together to have enough room. Before we were even seated, the server let us know that she was the only one, she had called for back up and please be patient. Okay, no problem, we understand busy (although there were only approx. 16 other patrons). We waited patiently for our drink order to be taken, but it was so inadequately taken that half our party wasn’t even asked, and we had to ask for the rest of our drinks while our server was behind the bar pouring the others. We were told of the three pie choices before we even served our dinner – sounds good. The buffet was about 2/3 the size it had been last year with only one vegetable choice, no winter salad this time and one dry turkey choice that only included white meat—I was told no dark meat (there was ham also). ☹ There were mashed potatoes but no gravy. Well into our meal, a white flavorless gravy was presented. Oh well, it was something. No one checked on us or offered to refill any drink for the duration. No one cleared our plates so that we had room for pie, which turned out to be an offering of pumpkin pie ONLY. We never saw the key lime or chocolate pie served in the room whatsoever. Some in our party could not eat pumpkin pie. There was not a twig of decorations, not one holiday light, no festive ambiance at all. The meal had increased in price by 28% over last year, which was not a surprise given inflation over the last 12 months; however, the quality, quantity and service had been SUBSTANTIALLY diminished. We were also informed that the wait staff had been sent home before our service time. What??!! Why??!! Our tip was generous last year; this year absolutely not!!

We were excited after last year’s meal to start a new Thanksgiving tradition . . . we will be back at home cooking our own wonderful dinner next year where we will NOT run out of...

Use to be a great place back in the day. Out of 8 meals, only 2 where worth eating. I ordered elk burger, medium well cooked, cut in half to share with wife, was rare and cold. Hard time getting servers attention to send back. Waited for the remake why others ate, except one who's meal we think they forgot, his sliders showed up 15-20 minutes later. Still no sign of that remake of the elk burger. So I went up and cancelled it as no sign of our server. Told them by the time it showed up I'd be eating alone. Sure enough when we were getting checks she told me it was ready if I wanted it, OMG. So now let's talk about the food, steak salad, had 3 orders at the table and not one person ate the steak off the salad, was fridge cold, had to have been at least a day old, maybe older and tasted terrible. The sliders, well that person only ate one and that was just because hungry. Think the meat on sliders was bad. We had an order of nachos also, pulled pork, pretty sure they forgot to add the pulled pork. Crazy thing, after food was delivered we were never asked "how is everything?". Even when picking up all the half eaten meals, nothing about how was everything. Manager did approach table and said he would be taking elk burger off check(really thanks for not charging me for a meal we never recieved) and he would discount some other things.. Those other discount were no where on the check. So we all live up here at the lake and have avoided the place due to the local talk. We will continue to avoid. FYI 6 of the group stomach's were curning an hour after we left... Very confident 2 have a bad case of food poisoning Eat at...

Cavanaugh's was recommended to us as a nice place to dine at Priest Lake. We went there for the first time last weekend and that would also be our last visit. We waited for a long time to be greeted and one of the patrons in the restaurant even came up to us to tell us about an empty table behind her table that we could use. We thanked her and said we would wait to be seated by the staff (according to the sign). Well, we were finally greeted by the staff who told us that he needed to check who else were waiting for the tables before he could seat us. At this point, i started to wonder if the fact that my husband and i are interracial couple has anything to do with this level of service or lack of. While we waited longer, the empty table that was pointed out to us stayed empty. It must be pretty uncomfortable for some patrons to watch how this unfolded, another patron in the restaurant came up to us and told us that he and his wife were almost done and we could have their table. We were finally seated by the staff of the restaurant at that empty table. i am not sure what to think of this experience but if two other couples had felt uncomfortable enough to come up to us to offer help, then it is not my imagination on how bad our service was. It is very sad this kind of behaviors still happen in 2015. To the nice folks who came up to us, thank you for...