Village Brewing Company — Restaurant in Somerville

I visited Village Brewing this past week for the first time in nearly 2 years. Unfortunately, although quite a bit of time had passed, my original complaints regarding the place still remain.

First, I will give credit where it is due. The atmosphere of Village is nice, with an industrial vibe that I like. The open view area of the brew tanks, along with the high ceilings and eclectic lighting over the bar area is a nice touch. The beer I selected (Jersey Haze) was quite good.

Now for the downside.

As with pretty much every other visit in the past, I had 2 major complaints with our experience: the food and the service time. Regarding the food, the one positive was the chicken & waffles platter my son orders, which was very good and he thoroughly enjoyed it. The sliders I ordered were just OK (ordered because the Fish & Chips was unavailable), but nothing too exciting. The largest issue was with my wife's Spinach & Squash salad. The chicken was quite dry (overcooked), and the dressing had an extremely off-putting odor to it, almost as if it was rancid, which was unfortunate as the salad was practically drowning in it. No, we did not complain about this as I will explain below.

Regarding service time, we were seated at approximately 6:45pm after a brief wait. Once the hostess left the table after seating us, it took about 20 minutes for our server to come to the table and take our order. During our almost 2 hours in the restaurant, our server only returned to the table perhaps twice, and that was because I flagged him down to ask for a refill on a drink. At no point did he ask how our food was. We had plans locally after dinner, so by the time we received our meal (which took quite a while) we just dealt with what we received because we didn't have time to wait for anything to be redone or order something different.

I had high hopes for Village when they opened, so much so that I joined as a Silver member during the soft opening phase several years ago. I was hopeful that over the 2 years since my previous visit that things would have come together, the food would be more consistent and tasty, and that the service issues I saw during the opening months would have been resolved. Regrettably, this does not seem to be the case. My most recent visit several days ago left me with the same general sense of disappointment I had during the first few months. I will visit Village again for the occasional craft beer, but it is highly unlikely that I will order anything...

We were a party of 5 (reservation was for 6, but one person dropped out last minute). Our waiter promptly came to the table and took our drink and food orders. The kids got their drinks within moments, but from then on the service was substandard - waited nearly 20 minutes for our adult beverages to be served by someone from the bar. By then the kids had finished their drinks, so we asked the bar man for another round of drinks for them only to be told "I'm not your waiter." We explained to the bar man that our waiter was AWOL, pointing to him in the back by the kitchen. The bar man sauntered off toward the bar. What was especially interesting was that our waiter did not appear to have any other tables, and as mentioned could be seen hovering in the back by the kitchen. After a while he graced us with his presence. We then got our appetizers. Shortly after finishing our appetizers our main course was served. Oddly, our waiter didn't bother to clear away any of the empty plates/bowls from the appetizers...simply left them on the table. After the main course was served we did not see hide or hair of our waiter for quite some time. After awhile he once again graced us with his presence, and we asked for the check. Oddly, I held out my hand for the check when he came back with it. The waiter muttered 'thank you' and placed the check on the table just out of my reach. All of this was quite surprising to the wife and me as we've frequently visited this establishment (service is normally attentive, friendly and proactive). Then all became quite clear to us. As our reservation was for 6 people, we were considered a large party. A 20% gratuity is automatically applied to the check. One can only assume that the assurance of the 20% tip impacted the waiter's attentiveness, We will not be coming back, whether as a party of 5, 6, or just 2. Suggestion to the owners of this establishment: While some large parties may not always tip appropriately, you should reconsider the automatic gratuity as it clearly impacts the attentiveness of a waiter who knows they've nothing to lose whether they provide good service or not. In this instance, the service was abysmal to put...

I Don’t usually write any reviews. But when I do it’s either because I had the best damn experience I’ve ever had or the worst! In this case it’s topped at the worst ever experience I’ve had in my life ! My girlfriend and I , as well as friends have come to village many times in the past and have recommended it to many others for their great service , great food and drinks. However this visit we had the worst experience and I’ve noticed this place just isn’t the same anymore and it’s been going downhill. We are locals that came here often but after today we will never be back!!!! Let me start by saying the waitress was absolutely rude and lacked any social skills or common courtesy. We sat down and after that it was downhill. We put our drink and food orders in and the service was painfully slow. We watched as our waitress gave better service to other tables around us as if we weren’t valued or something. Never asked us how we are doing or if we needed anything while she did for others . People who sat down 1/2 hour after us got their food orders before us! We waited almost an hour to finally get our food and it was cold and stale like it sat at the counter for the whole hour we waited to get it! Our drinks came out warm. And after all that we decided to not complain and just eat as we were hungry. It wasn’t enjoyable . The food had a rancid taste so we decided to not eat it . We were not offered anything ! We paid and left hungry and the staff thought that was ok . Well you just lost a long time customer ! Over priced for the quality. This place really used to be a great go-to, it’s a shame. We even brought our friend to show how great village was and it was such a bad first experience for her here . I feel like the staff just doesn’t care. I was able to see into the kitchen and they were throwing food at each other fooling around while table runners were also helping prep food after touching money without washing...