The Lab at Armens Barrels — Restaurant in South Strabane Township

This is a difficult review to write because there was so much unevenness in our experiences here. On the positive side, there were flashes of greatness. On the negative side, there were some misses. So, where does one end up in rating a place that is so inconsistent? Maybe the issue is that it is so new that they are still working out the kinks? Let’s go with that!

The concept involves pulling together a wine making operation, a distillery, and a high-end restaurant. That all sounds good to me so we got a group of friends together and went out to try it. Finding it was not difficult using our GPSs. The entrance was “interesting” as the hostess has to push a button to open a door let you into the restaurant itself – which was kind of strange. The first let down was that we made a reservation for out party of eight people. The hostess brought us to two round tables of four that were separate from each other. Huh? They could not be brought together so that confused us. We asked her about this and she said, those were our tables. Luckily, the server also came up right away. He introduced himself as Michael and asked if there was a problem? We explained that we are a party of eight and were not sure why we would be separated amongst two tables. He immediately stated that he can probably fix that and ran off – within two or three minutes he guided us to a separate room where they pulled together two rectangular tables together so our whole party could be together. It turned out to be a great move as we basically had a private room for our dinner!

Michael was fantastic throughout the dinner. He was quite knowledgeable about the food and mixed drinks menu. He was not aware of the wine, but immediately admitted that and went to get guidance – which we appreciated. Where he provided guidance, it was spot on and he was very available to us so we were never waiting for him or felt that we were ignored. Definitely a major plus.

The unevenness surfaced mostly in the dishes that we got. Here are some of the problems we saw: Several of us ordered the Halibut – having several samples of the same dish revealed significantly different sizes of the fish on the plates. Also, some of the them did not have the same level of glazing as others – one did not have any of the glaze on it at all! Next, the Cauliflower steak – the cut was too thick so that it did not cook all the way through, meaning that the inside was raw. It was also not glazed in enough of the sauce so about half of it was just semi-cooked unflavored Cauliflower. On the other hand, the Brussels Sprouts were incredibly delicious and the Charcuterie Platter combined some wonderful cheeses with a great spicy salami and some sort of wonderful cracker (on the other hand, it was a bit skimpy in quantities). The Potato Barrels sounded really great – but turned out to be their version of tater tots – pleasant enough but why serve them at room temperature? I wanted them to be hot!

The final negative comment has to do with their pricing compared to the quantity of food you get. This impression is also related to the inconsistency of the cooking, of course. Most of the main dishes run in the $30 to $50 range. They come ala carte meaning that if you want a side dish, you order it as an add-on. Those will set you back another $10 to $20 a piece. In other words - EXPENSIVE PLACE. We noted that none of us had any leftovers – portions were just too small for that. So, expensive + small plates + inconsistent cooking did not leave us particularly thrilled. Here is one specific example: Grilled Romaine Hearts Salad was one Romaine Lettuce that was grilled and then dressed. The ingredients at Giant Eagle cold not cost more than $3 – here they charge $14 - and they did not provide enough dressing to cover the single Romaine!

As to the wines and distillery, they are several months from offering their own products. They are still in the startup phases obviously. I wish them well. There are good ideas here, it’s just that their execution at this...

So first off, this is in the pancake skating (roller, NOT ICE) rink building. You should know that if you're familiar with pancake skate... It was kind of sad for me. It also still retains some of the qualities that, if you knew it was a skating rink prior, you can totally still "see it". I think they did a decent job trying to cover it up and make it look contemporary and pricey, but I can still see the skating rink. It was also so dark that you needed an ugly led lamp at the table to see the menu and only if you had it right under the lamp.

Second, our waitress was absolutely awful. She literally took drink orders while walking past and didn't actually stop, so you had to quickly get your order out. She didn't know the menu at all. I told her I can't have gluten, she didn't know what did and didn't have gluten in it (dangerous) and she also brought me out a drink with a wafer cookie in it (not mentioned on the menu). The second time I ordered it, I had to slow her down so I could ask for it without the cookie... It came with a cookie. They weren't even that busy... She also had no idea that there were desserts on the menu, she gave us an entirely different list and when we asked about the ones on the menu, she didn't even know they were there and had to get one to check. The other waitresses seemed better. We had to wait entirely too long between drinks and also between appetizer and main.

I also found it odd that, despite the place being empty, they were seating people right next to other full tables instead of spacing people out. The dude behind me was wearing so much gross cologne it was all I could smell (not the restaurant's fault, but put a booth in between us if it's not busy.) It was also VERY hot inside, it was cooler outside in the middle of a July evening. Additionally, we kept smelling burning plastic...it was very strong and unappetizing.

The food itself was very good. Not $60+ for a filet mignon of unknown origin good, but everything was tasty and presented well. We did find it odd that the only "quality cut" of steak offered was a filet, the other two were lean, less desirable cuts, NY strip and sirloin... where's the ribeye, porterhouse? I wouldn't pay $50 for a NY strip, even if it was Wagyu. For $38, we each got HALF (maybe less) of a duck breast (1.5 in strips cut against the grain... 2 of them). It was also over cooked. No one asked how we wanted it done, but duck is meant to be served medium rare. Mine was medium well to well done, which makes it drier and much less tender. Besides that, everything was good, seasoned well and seemed like good quality. The drinks were good, the beer selection, however, was absolute garbage. They were also out of Chambord (????).

All in all, we won't be going back. I can make a dinner just as good at home for a fraction of the cost and the service was just terrible. If you're trying to be upscale and charge upscale prices, train your servers better, stop being cheap and turn up the AC and maybe have your hostess wear something nicer than a sweatshirt, leggings and sneakers (when you require business casual for your patrons). Also, the quick two tone paint job on the cinder block walls isn't fooling anyone, it's a skating rink 🤣

Ps. Don't trust reviews name dropping the chef (any of them). If you know the chef by name, you're either being paid to give a review or you're his mom. Normal people who live in Washington Pennsylvania don't name drop chefs like...

Armands Barrels... Just a straightforward review:

messaged them at 2.30 prior to arriving for our 8.30 reservations. "Can we arrive early and order an appetizer and have a drink prior to our table time?"We have a full service bar, yes."

Arrived at 7.00p for a special full service night. We were greeted with what times your reservations are. We replied, "we are early, but we are going to have drinks and appetizers at the bar. The hostess said that it is not possible the bar isn't open. I showed her the message, and she asked if I would like to speak with the manager. I replied sure. The manager came out and ask "what's the problem?" I explained and showed him the message. His reply "if we said that you can sit at bar, but they will not service you as we a service oriented." WHAT???

We left and had a drink at the Uniongrill. We came back at 8.15. The hostess said I'm sorry you're early."" We asked for a drink and said we would wait in the lobby. She stated we couldn't do that. We could see the bar area and bar tenders. They were so busy that they were inspecting glasses for spots. We decided to sit in the car.

We came back in and were seated. We ordered 2 glasses of wine. The waitress brought our drinks and said, "Don't get 2 excited before you order." She rambled off every steak on the menu and said they were out of all of the steaks.

We ordered the tagliatelle with mushrooms and truffles. THE FRESH PASTA WAS COOKED TO PERFECTION. Unfortunately, that was it. There were 4 pcs of mushrooms 1/4 lb of pasta and not a hint of truffle 38.00. In addition, we had calamari, which was heavily breaded and fried to the point of ...I have no words. The cesear salad was over dressed, but tasty considering they left off the fresh anchovies.

Our very disappointing special day ended with a 130.00 plus meal. 3 glasses of house chardonnay and a beer.

A partner contacted me and asked me to return his call. I have left 2 messages. There is no return...