Clark & Lewie's Travelers Rest Saloon & Grill — Restaurant in Stevenson

A very, very weird dining experience, and one I will not repeat willingly.

First, the good: the view is wonderful and the deck pleasant (although if you're squeamish of the sight of dozens of very large spiders catching bugs while you eat, stay inside).

But then you sit down, and the trouble starts.

The service started out attentive, but then got really weird, with the server trying to reach under the table to place napkins on our laps. This rubbed me the wrong way, if you know what I mean.

I ordered the poutine with duck. No duck was present.

10 minutes after ordering the fish sandwich, they tell me they are out of that fish. My friends then ask what about their fish & chips (as the server hadn't addressed the lack of whitefish toward my friends, just me). She allowed that yes, their fish & chips would be made with salmon, if that was OK.

Well, whatever. Things happen. I ordered the shortribs instead.

I cook shortribs regularly. My Korean family uses this cut of meat on a regular basis. These, sir, were not shortribs. I get a place heaped with the driest mashed potatoes on this side of the Columbia, and a heap of salty, pasty, gluey pot roast that had been cooking for several days. I was not impressed, nor could I finish my meal. The server seemed to understand, and didn't bat an eye at the fact that we all left quite a bit of food on our plates.

The server's knowledge of the drinks list was a bit strange as well: she told us they had an IPA and an India Pale Ale, not realizing they were the same thing; when I asked for the dryer of the two ciders, I got a super-sweet cider ... they have a few decent beers, but if you want anything other than pedestrian IPAs, you might be disappointed.

My uncle had the salmon. He said it was acceptable, despite looking extremely dry and not very appetizing, and being a pretty small portion.

This place is just very, very weird. It's like someone made a place that LOOKS like a restaurant, but isn't really. I have a feeling they don't know what they are doing. There were more staff than customers at one point, wandering around on the deck, some smoking on the side of the building right as a mother with a child in a stroller tried to walk back (yuck! - the cigarette, not the kid, who was very well-behaved). Constantly reaching over me to refill my glass whether I want it or not is a little irritating.

Anyway, just a generally weird place. I don't think it will last long unless they get their...

To say I was a disappointed would be an understatement. Venue looks fantastic as the atmosphere is great and well-thought out, the view is absolutely gorgeous... But once you get past that, things start to look a little iffy. Every sit down in the area seems to offer some variation of fish and chips, so I thought I'd try their variation, "TRAVELER'S FISH AND CHIPS."

$16 got me two small pieces of fish and plate full of fries. The fish itself was alright, the batter was okay but nothing to write home about. Batter kind of slid off when you'd bite into it, just kind of got messy by the time I was done. The fries were cold, and HEAVILY seasoned. Normally I am one to clean my plate but I couldn't get through half of them because of how much salt was on these.

My significant other got the "Classic Clark Burger" - although she said she liked it, she mentioned it was average and not really worth $13.

Normally I'd go back to try another food item before making judgement but service will keep me from coming back. It was painstakingly slow for how busy they were. We were standing next to a few empty tables and it probably took us over five minutes just to get seated. We got offered a seat outside, so we moved but then to get my drink that I ordered was atleast another ten minutes. It was about 30 minutes until we finally received our food that we had ordered (and no one checking to see if we wanted more drinks or any appetizers).

I will mention that the drink offering was decent for the area and actually fairly priced. Kudos for that.

TLDR: I hope their more unique items are worth it (because you're definitely paying a premium, by the looks of it). If you want a good view and a pint, check out Clark & Lewie's. For food, I'd personally recommend checking out Big River Grill or...

We came here on the recommendation of some locals, and we are glad we did. Sort of. We happened to be there on a night with live music and incredible weather. Perfect way to spend the evening.

It quickly became packed, and rightly so. Food was great, and the music was good too.

The only downside was the service. Not sure if they were short handed, or understaffed. But our waitress was all over the place, and eventually just stopped being seen. We sat for about 30 minutes waiting for our check, asking every server that we could find. Finally someone brought us our check. Bad on us for not checking the details, as we simply handed the server our card, since we were tired of waiting to get the check.

When she came back with the receipt to sign, we realized it was the wrong bill, we had already been charged, and by then, that server had disappeared too. We found a gentleman that seemed like he might be a manager, so we tried to tell him what happened.

He passed us off to someone else, who couldn't help. We finally got ahold of the bar manager, and tried to explain to her. She figured it out, credited us back for the wrong order and charged us for the correct bill.

She apologized for the issue and said that things were crazy tonight, and not normally like this, and was sorry that our first visit was such a mess.

We ended up nearly an hour past when we planned on leaving, due to the delays. Thank goodness for some good music to pass the time!

All in all, the food was great, location was great, atmosphere was lovely. But the service was awful.

Next time I am up that way, I hope I can give this place another chance. Hopefully they get their service figured out and are able to process their patrons in a more accurate and...