Peter Trout's Tavern and Inn — Restaurant in Southwest Harbor

First and foremost the food is amazing. The owner and her husband are very pleasant people, but the server (who wears a red jumpsuit) was extremely rude to us. We showed up and had to wait because the outdoor seating was full (obviously totally fine). We were told seating was on a first come first serve basis, but ordered right away. After waiting for around 15 minutes a family left and their table became available. We went to sit down at it, but the waiter asked us to wait for him to clean it first. Some other customers, who arrived well after us, sat down at the table right as he told us this. The waiter noticed them sit down and preemptively, before we said anything, told us too bad "it's a dog-eat-dog world" and went inside. That is not what first come first serve is. He should have politely told them that we had been waiting for a table to open up. We eventually pounced on a table right as some other customers left that, obviously, hadn't been bussed yet. It's absolutely ridiculous to be forced to do that during a pandemic. The waiter came over to bus the table when he came back out and mocked "looks like you learned something.” He wasn't trying to be funny. We then waited for our food to come out for well over an hour. We weren't served until after the customers that inadvertently stole our table had left. Really great food, but the waiter was extremely unfriendly and the wait time was absurd. I have no idea why he was so unpleasant. We were very polite and respectful every time we interacted with him. We didn't press him to ask the other customers to let us sit after his preemptive, rude, “too bad”-type remark. We really like the food and the owners and felt they deserved to know about our experience.

EDIT: The owner responded and totally missed the point of the review. If our server had explained that to us it would have been totally fine. What ruined our night wasn't having to wait, it was the extremely...

One of the worst dining experiences I've ever had. Got there with my wife at 5:30 on a Saturday. The restaurant was not full but fairly busy, and we were seated within 5 minutes. Our server, a young blonde girl, seemed visibly upset that we weren't ordering drinks (she just quickly walked away without saying anything when we said no drinks). They were out of almost every fish. We ordered a half dozen clams, the half-skillet fried chicken, and the ceaser salad.

It took ONE HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES for the food to come out. At no point did our server once come over, check on us, apologize for the inconvenience, etc. After an hour, I had to ask another server what's going on, and they checked with the kitchen and said they are working on ours now and it will be about 5 minutes. Took another 10-15 minutes.

When the food finally came out, the salad was literally two large romaine lettuce stalks lathered in cole slaw (literally like they took a brush and rubbed mayo over two pieces of lettuce?) with thinly grated cheese sprinkled on top. That's it. We did ask for no croutons, but even with that, wth kind of salad is that? In retrospect, I should've taken a picture, but we were so hungry and in a rush to catch sunset at that point. The oysters were good, fried chicken was good, and the biscuits were ok at best. Nothing felt worth the wait, however.

Finally, I had to ask the waitress to get our check as she passed by, (which she seemed annoyed by again), since the only time she checked on us was while I was literally in the middle of my first bite of giant lettuce with my mouth full. We got out of there at 7:10 and missed sunset at the lighthouse....

So we just left Peter Trout’s. We arrived just after 6 and added our names to the list (posted to the left of the entrance). Third in line, not bad…but table available after 20 min. 3 - count them - 3 staff to wait inside AND out AND manage the bar. Order was taken fairly promptly, and beer/wine (overall, a large assortment including some expensive local ciders) arrived quickly. THEN THE WAIT. Crab cakes and fried chicken sandwiches - when they finally arrived, the server left so quickly we never got to order a second round…and we were parched. All in all - good food with way too few staff to run in anything but 1st gear. So that ruins the meal. As for the food: Baquerones (uncured/fresh anchovies on buttered toasted thin-sliced sourdough squirted with a dash of lemon; 2 pieces each with 4-5 split fishes) excellent: 5/5. Crab cakes: unusual for their size and - while a fair amount of filling, huge pieces of crab and perfectly sautéed: 4/5 (would have been 5/5 had there been a few fried potatoes along with slaw and aioli and mustard sauces and homemade sour pickle slices). Fried chicken sandwiches - regular and Nashville - filled the bill and were well received and readily eaten without complaints. Both large sandwiches and served with potato fries. Really would have loved to sample another IPA or even a cider (personally, I’m not usually much of a fan) but really sluggish and uninterested serving staff - overworked or whatever - precluded such. Nice view over harbor of Hinkley yachts (but this is MDI, so views abound) so can only...