Backyard — Restaurant in Stowe

Tldr: Slow service and under-seasoned food

I really wanted to like it, but I found Backyard mediocre for the 40 minutes we waited to get in on a Saturday night (the wait was not the problem. I expect a decent wait during ski season).

The Atmosphere

I'll start with the good and shout out the vibe! Nice music and well furnished interior. +1 star for great atmosphere.

The Service

I try not to be too harsh on service in a review because you never know when a place is having an off night, but speaking to my experience, the service was slow and didn't improve as the restaurant started to empty out later in the night. Everyone was kind and the hostess was attentive, but it was fairly difficult to flag down the wait staff and our waters were only refilled once during our meal. This isn't a major complaint, but it's something that I care about in a dining experience. I just spent two days on the slopes, I'm thirsty, and I'm not the only one.

The Food

I had the buffalo chicken tots and tried two of the burgers (I forget which two). The tots were decent. Really nice crispy chicken on top but the tots themselves kind of just steamed on the plate beneath and fell apart to mush. Not much flavor on the plate once the chicken got picked off. I think this would've been a pretty nice appetizer plate if they'd given us a side of blue cheese or ranch or ketchup to dip the tots in.

The burgers were my big disappointment of the night. They label them as smash burgers and will tell you this if you try to order yours cooked medium, but the patties were too thick and we found that they were cooked inconsistently across my table. Mine had a bit of pink in the middle (which I like), while my friend's was grey throughout and leathery. A true thin smash burger patty would've been better in either case.

My biggest problem with Backyard's burgers is that they didn't salt them. You HAVE to salt a burger patty or the meat is going to taste like nothing. This was a huge letdown from a restaurant that prides itself on its burgers and looking at some of the other critical reviews here I don't think this was a one-off occurrence. Some of the burgers like the mushroom Swiss on paper have great ingredient combos, but they fail to stick the landing because Backyard doesn't season their food.

More of a subjective gripe, but your burger by default will come with house potato chips. They're not bad chips once you salt them yourself, but Backyard doesn't offer french fries. Your alternatives are sweet potato fries (not my jam, personally), tater tots that weren't great, or a salad. Every side substitution costs extra and it should be obvious that the majority of people won't prefer chips as a side. From the multiple that I tried, my favorite side substitution is a Caesar salad that costs an extra $5. I know I probably seen like I'm in negative reviewer mode at this point but paying an extra $5 for a decent side after paying the $16 base menu cost for a mediocre burger didn't sit well with me. Chances are you're not overly concerned with dollar value when you're already spending hundreds on a ski weekend in the area, but this was just another aspect of the dining experience that I found myself disappointed by.

I only visited for a weekend so I can't comment on how Backyard stacks up with other restaurants in the area, but I can't recommend it. My whole party of 7 agreed that you'd get a better burger from shake shack, five guys, or tasty burger. I'd even prefer one from...

Absolutely worst experience - terrible service and food was MEH except for the duck wontons which were delicious and the burger which was OK. Ambiance is nice. We are visiting Warren,VT for a few days. We arrived at the restaurant on a Wednesday at 7:45 PM. It took about 10 minutes for our server to come to the table and get drink orders/appetizer orders. By 8:15 we got our drinks and placed order for food. We ordered duck wontons for the appetizer which were really good but arrived at ~8:40. By 8:55 we were still waiting on drinks refills and tables around us that had arrived after us were all getting their meals. Nobody came to the table to check on us (group of 3 adults +1 infant) or give us a status update on the order. We asked one of the other servers about our order and she said she would check but she never came back to the table. In the meantime, we witnessed one gentleman who works there (curly grey haired man) literally use his bare hands to grab two burger buns and check under them and then proceed to take the order to a table where two other men were sitting. Meanwhile, we asked our server for the check for the wontons and drinks because we were tired of waiting and she told us to not worry about it but we did not want to leave without paying for what we had, and we considered driving another 30 min to a surrounding area for whatever might be open but past 9PM the dining options in and around the area are very limited. At that point somehow the chicken sandwich magically made it to the table - it was dry, tasteless and over cooked. We chose to stay because we are staying about 30 min away and had little to no dining options at this point (9:15PM). We ordered a chef salad with chicken and instead came topped with pulled pork. The burger (whiskey bbq) was decent as were the sweet potato fries. To make it “better” they took 50% off the check but honestly that does nothing to the fact of what we witnessed with the food being touched by a server who is also coming in contact with credit cards from multiple tables. GROSS. I sincerely hope you improve your service and have your customers’ best interest in mind.

Do yourself a favor and eat elsewhere when...

Went here due to a recommendation, unfortunately we were a little disappointed. Our waiter never introduced himself so I’m not sure of his name, we felt that he was agitated and awkward. He would reach across the table without warning which was a bit startling and he just seemed overstimulated. A bit abrasive but other than those events, he was nice and checked in on us a few times. As for the food, we got chips and queso for appetizer which was disappointing because that was definitely not queso, that was an odd cheese dip (the menu said queso, if I knew it was that I wouldn’t have ordered it) that had chips that didn’t taste like anything and felt a bit old. We both got smash burgers for dinner (they were not smash burgers in my book due to the thickness of the patties but I’m a burger fanatic). The burgers were good but nothing incredible. I also ordered a rootbeer for a drink and it did not taste like rootbeer, just weird. The atmosphere of the outside of the restaurant however was incredible, the lights, music, and landscaping was gorgeous. We won’t return to this place especially since we aren’t from the area, but overall...