The Old Grist Mill Tavern — Restaurant in Seekonk

We ate at the Grist Mill two weeks ago and it was peaceful, very pleasant and very enjoyable. Last Saturday night, we had the entirely opposite experience. We had 6:30 dinner reservations and still waited for 45 minutes. The restaurant personnel seemed overwhelmed. The lobby was so packed with people that the crowd spilled out into the dining area and there were people dining with waiting customers standing next to their table. They had to eat with a stranger's rump next to their face!

When we were finally seated, they put us right near the door and some people in our party kept their coats on because the crowd at the door was holding the outer door open and the freezing cold air blasted our table.

The menus from two weeks ago had been replaced and the prices were at least 75 % higher for the holiday. All entrees were now al la carte and every side was $5. The new menu really felt like a pure money grab.

The line for the salad bar had a least 12 people waiting and the line wound around the restaurant with people again standing next to patrons dining at their tables. It was very awkward for both parties.

During dessert, a woman at the table behind us tragically had a medical emergency and we had to leave our table and stand in the lobby for 20 minutes to allow rescue personnel to work on the woman. When we returned to our table, there was a puddle of VOMIT 18 inches behind my chair. As the woman was being wheeled out on a rescue gurney, a different customer who was walking out fell onto our table. We had to catch him or he would have fallen into our laps. We initially thought he had slipped in the vomit, but he had been overserved alcohol and was too drunk to walk. The rescue personnel had to come back to care for him!

After all this chaos, our waitress brought us the check as if nothing had happened. She casually said "Are you going to finish that dessert or would you like a box?" "I can smell VOMIT. I think I'm finished eating, thank you." No mention of us having to leave our dinner and stand in the lobby for 20 minutes. No mention of the drunk falling onto our table. No discount off the tab or even a free dessert. Nope. The money grab continued.

Grist Mill was a huge disappointment on this...

STAY AWAY FROM THEIR TEA PARTY!!!! Two stars because the geese and the gardens, they were the only good thing about the "Garden tea party" I am an avid English tea enthusiast, so when I see a "Tea Party" I am there. I've been to English tea parties were the hostess was from England and her house an English cottage In the country side, it doesn't get any more authentic than that. All this to say, I know what a tea party should look like. This wasn't it, the sandwiches were regular dinner rolls with almost noting inside, chicken salad and tuna salad, they added cucumber to the tuna to make it "English" I guess. The scones were the same I get at my cafeteria's work for $1.50 and the sweets were from the supermarket, I see the same mini cakes and cheesecake. The tea was tea Forte and I liked it, but we got out tea after we were done eating. They sat as a table without umbrella in a 90 degree sunny day. We ended up changing tables to a different section, 4 tables followed us because the heat was unbearable. Service was bad from the moment I called to make the reservation. I made a reservation for 3 people, they had me as party of 1 and my friends as party of 2, why??? The hostess doesn't know anything that's going on in the restaurant, one of their bathrooms (2 for 100 people or more) was out of order but she didn't tell me when I asked where it was, so I walked into a very disgusting bathroom. When I told them they said they knew, that I should used the other one. Our server was very nice and very overwhelmed with a bunch of tables, he tried, but came short, he messed up our tea order, every single one and like I said before, they came after we were done eating. The salad bar was sad to say the least, it's included, but not good anyways. They were having a baby shower and we had to walked through the party to get to the salad bar or the bathroom, people had to walk right in front of their photo op, we had to wait for them to finish taking the pictures to walk past. Two waitress to bring us to our table and they both looked like they didn't know what to do AND they were holding hands, so weird. The whole place is very disorganized and chaotic, the manager should get fire, he/she doesn't know what...

This was first visit here since the fire in 2012 and even before that it had been years since visiting. We had a 5:30 reservation on a Saturday. We arrived about 10 minutes early, we asked for a table by the windows but we're told it was reserved for 7pm and could not sit there. We waited about 10 minutes to be seated. First they wanted to sit up at a tiny table at the top of the stairs near the salad bar. This table was barely big enough for 1 person, so we asked again about the empty tables by the windows. Again we were told (by the manager not the hostess, the hostess would have sat us there) we couldn't sit there because of 7pm reservations. Keep in mind it's 5:30 and we are a party of 2. We ended up in a booth in the bar area, which was nice. The piano playing was a bit loud but actually added a nice atmosphere. Our waiter was a tall young gentleman, I can't remember his name but he was very attentive and very nice. Our drink orders were served quickly with fresh cinnamon and corn bread. We ordered the The Grand New England Feast (land) and it's alot of food, and it's served family style. The turkey was the best of the 3 meat choices. It also came with meatloaf and ribs. The ribs were tasty but not my thing, and the meatloaf was a bit overcooked and seemed more like individual slices thrown on a grill. Mashed potatoes were tasty, as were the green beans. The mac n cheese was excellent. It was supposed to come with dessert, which wasn't offered but we were to full to eat that anyway. Overall the food was very good, and we were glad we got what we did because it allowed us to try a variety of menu options, and we will most likely go back. Just to sum up the table issue, we were done and out by 6:30pm, a full half hour before those reserved window tables were reserved for, and were still empty when we left. FYI.... if your going on a Saturday night, be sure to make reservations, the walk in wait was 90-120 minutes and people were...