Bespoke Brewing — Restaurant in Strasburg Township

VERY disappointing. This is our second time at the new location. Both times we have had issues with our food. However, this time, I felt I had to write a review in hopes the Owners will recognize there are significant issues they need to be aware of and address. For a Friday night, it was barely packed. This should be a wake up call for the Owners. The chili .. is not thick. It's more soupy. It's just ok. My side caesar salad that I got with my entree was slightly warm and the romaine lettuce was wilted. The perogies were overly fried, tough, and some had more of a burned flavor. Then, to the entree round ...I ordered a hand-dipped fried buttermilk chicken sandwich. Before I begin ...Look .. you might think I'm being "picky" with the previous comments. And, you're entitled to your opinion. But, spending $96 on our check to receive the type of food we received was extremely frustrating. We work hard for the extra money we have and we love supporting local businesses. We want them to thrive. Truly. But, this disaster of a chicken sandwich left me thinking I was Gordon Ramsey on his television show "Kitchen Nightmares". No joke. I saw this young girl walking toward me with a hunk of black .. yes, black .. burned breaded chicken. The poor bun was so small compared to the huge piece of black, fried chicken sticking out from it. I opened the bun to see a blob of what I think was the chipotle mayo that had been totally absorbed by the chicken and bun -- essentially rendering the chicken sandwich dry and burned. Did I say black? Yes, BLACK. I hadn't discussed the previous issues with our other food with the waitress. I figured it didn't rise to that occasion. But, this? This? Wow. So, I very kindly, politely, looked at the waitress and said, "Umm, I think this looks burned. What do you think?" She politely said, "I think this is darker than normal". Well, that's putting it MILDLY. They had a young girl who was expediting the food -- delivering it to tables. Someone needs to ensure that cooks and expediting staff are aware of what food should look like when it goes out on the floor to guests. The sandwich I had should NEVER have made it out to me. EV-ER.I didn't want to try my hand at another chicken sandwich, so I then chose another sandwich to eat .. a burger. I ordered it medium well and it came out a perfect medium. I can't complain about that. Rather it a little more pink than I like then burned. I'll take it. Maybe we're gluttons for punishment, but we ordered dessert. We ordered the stout brownie with ice cream. The waitress came out to tell us that the brownie was "more fudgey" than a normal brownie. She said, "It's not cakey". She wanted to make sure we'd be ok with that. I think that she was trying to tell us it was "underdone" and so we passed on the chances of getting a disaster for a dessert and ordered the special "pear and pecan cobbler". Umm, only that the waitress told us that it was not the special any longer, even though it was on the special list. But, ok, we're rolling with it. We asked what the cobbler was and she said cherry. We ordered the cherry cobbler, warmed. The first few bites were just fine. Nothing special .. a little dry, but ok. Then, I had a bite of the crumble and it tasted like a huge amount of salt. I literally couldn't swallow it. I had to spit it out in my napkin. Yep. The waitress came to ask how the cobbler was. I was not going to say anything, but I had to tell her. She seemed to have a curious look to her face when I told her that it tasted like salt. I'm not sure if someone making the cobbler got sugar and salt mixed up, but I've made a lot of cobblers and I know salt from sugar. The waitress didn't really seem to care one way or another about my salt in my cobbler comment. And, that's what was also disappointing. Honestly, if I served my customers burned, BLACK fried chicken and then served a cobbler with salt in it, I would have comped the meal without hesitation. Overall, this restaurant won't last with these inconsistencies. People won't be honest and just...

My sister and her boyfriend were visiting after having had to flee their hometown (Asheville, NC) due to the damage from Hurricane Helene. We figured, since Asheville is full of breweries, that taking them to the local brewery in town would be a fun and familiar change of pace. Boy, were we wrong!

It was midday Saturday and the place was fairly busy, but our party of 5 was seated fairly quickly. The few staff working the busy dining room were all friendly but noticeably pretty young (it was clear they were woefully undertrained; I blame management for our experience). We ordered the crab dip and pretzel appetizers to start. The crab dip came out first covered in a thick, super-oily layer of cheese, which we scraped off as it was quite unappetizing. The pita chips and bread pieces that came with the dip were all extremely stale, rendering the entire dish inedible. We couldn't help but laugh at how gross the whole dish was. About 10 minutes later, the pretzel came out with an apology from the server that they spilled the cheese sauce. Well, no wonder: the cheese sauce was about as watery as it gets! It seriously tasted like someone mixed instant mac-n-cheese powder with water. So gross. The mustard sauce that came with the pretzel and the pretzel itself were edible, however.

While we waited for our entrees, the "atmosphere" of the dining room became an endurance test. At almost every table was at least one small child who felt the need to shriek bloody murder at varying intervals. When the table next to us (with the loudest child by far) finally left, we watched as the staff neglected to bus their table for about 20 minutes. When the staff finally got around to cleaning the table off, one of the older female servers rested a dirty dust pan ON TOP OF THE TABLE while removing dishes and sweeping. We all sat in disbelief watching them clean, clearly seeing no issue with having a dirty dust pan lay where the next guests would unfortunately eat.

When our entrees finally came after about an hour of sitting and listening to children scream, we were faced with meals that were — much like our appetizers — pretty inedible. My sister got the "portobello rueben," a truly puzzling sandwich that included a big wet mushroom that looked like it spawned in a basement, wilted arugula, mystery cheese, and a some saurkraut. Two others got the "sourdough patty melt" that arrived on soggy sliced white bread... no sourdough to be found. The cheese on the patty melt was not so much melted as it was sweaty and clinging to the bread. My sister's boyfriend remarked that his patty melt was "something he would've made in college when he was drunk." All 3 of these sandwiches went uneaten.

Surprisingly, the best thing that we received was the salmon sandwich and the black and bleu burger. Neither of these sandwiches were particularly fabulous, but they actually looked pretty appealing by comparison to what the others received. Sure, the burger was nowhere near "medium rare" as my husband had ordered it, but it certainly wasn't undercooked. I'm not sure why they asked how he wanted it cooked in the first place if medium was all they could pull off. We also had zero complaints about the beers we ordered.

The moral of the story here is that this staff desperately needs training. I'm concerned for the cleanliness of this establishment as well as the food quality. The only thing that salvaged this experience for my group was that we all have a good sense of humor and have worked in the service industry, so we know how poor management leads to these kinds of situations. Save your money and go...

After seeing this place listed on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, my wife, son, and I visited on a Friday evening for dinner. We enjoyed our visit so much that we returned on Saturday night with friends for dinner again.

On Friday, my wife chose the sangria while my son and I both had the Brewer's Flight, which features 4 beers, paired with small bites of food: Thirsty Pilgrim Pilsner with pretzel sticks and mustard; Provisional Lager with salami and cheese; Field Day Pale Ale with dried apricots and cashews; and Rise and Grind Stout with dark chocolate Wilbur Buds.

Head brewer, Jon, definitely knows his stuff, as all of these pairings were excellent, with the food selections highlighting the flavor profiles within each of the beers in the sampler. I also had the Tepache Sour, which was very good. I've had a lot of different lagers over the years and I can say unequivocally, that the Provisional Lager is simply the best lager I've ever had.

For dinner on Friday, my wife and I both had a Mac Stack, while my son had the smoked nachos. We did not have dessert. The food was somewhat typical of what you might expect in a brewery, but was good. Business was a little slow on Friday evening, with only a few other people coming in during our time there. Saturday evening was much busier.

On Saturday, I chose the BBQ platter with chicken, while my wife chose the Sweet & Spicy Chicken Melt. Perhaps this was just a function of it being much busier on Saturday, but both of us felt the food was much better than the previous night.

We also had dessert on Saturday, which we understand is provided by the Speckled Hen in Strasburg. My wife chose the Red Wine Berries & Cream and I chose the Creme Brûlée Cheese Cake, while our friends had the Apple Pie. All desserts were very good.

Despite my frequent attempts to help cultivate my wife's palate over the years by having her try different beers that I think she might like, she is definitely not a beer drinker and has never found anything she liked enough to drink. She usually feels most beers are too "hoppy" or "yeasty."

She not only tried and liked both the Rise and Shine Stout and the Provisional Lager, but actually enjoyed the lager so much that she had a full-size Provisional Lager with her meal. In her words, the lager doesn't have the usual 'nasty aftertaste' that she feels most beers have.

I will definitely be back again. I've visited most of Lancaster County's microbreweries over the past couple of years and I think I've found my favorite place. If you live in the area, definitely check this place out, and if don't, it's well worth a trip to visit...