EARLY AMERICAN TAVERN — Restaurant in Sussex

I felt compelled to write this review after not one but FOUR terrible dining experiences at the Early American Tavern. Let me begin by saying that my husband and I live in Wantage, my family owns a business in Sussex County so we love supporting local businesses and think it's important. With that said, every time we dine here with our children whether- it's afternoon or night, summer or winter- the experience, service and food are always so incredibly disappointing. However, our experience last night was nothing short of horrific.

As outdoor dining is the only available option right now, EAT only has 7 tables available and there was apparently one server for all of them. We had a reservation and was sat at 5:15 by the manager who took our drink order and those were brought out promptly by her. 15 minutes later the waiter came to greet us. We ordered our children's meals and two appetizers. 15 minutes later, he came back with no food to take our entree order, which came with salads. Another 20 minutes later he returns with our salads, but no appetizers or kids meals. I asked him about it and he stumbled so it was clear he literally didn't put any of that food in. Another 10 minutes goes by before he brings out cold Calamari, and burnt nachos - STILL NO KIDS MEALS. He drops the food abruptly to bring napkins to another table so I try to stop him and say the food is cold, the nachos don't look edible and we're still waiting on our kids meals AN HOUR LATER. As the manager walks out, our waiter's response was "CAN YOU DEAL WITH THEM".

Look, I'm not high maintenance or very particular when it comes to dining out - and I can sympathize with a waiter being overwhelmed or having too many tables. HOWEVER, this gentleman (dark hair w tattoos) was rude, condescending and so egotistical that he couldn't muster up an apology - and then went back to SOCIALIZING with the very obvious regulars.

I will say the manager was very sweet, very apologetic and even said the nachos looked "horrible". As we sat waiting for another 15 minutes my husband went inside and told them to cancel the entrees as we wanted to go home. The manager was nice enough to bag it up and we did give them money, however our experience with the waiter was so terrible we threw out the food when we got home as we didn't trust him. We arrived at 5:15 and left at 6:25 having only eaten small side salads.

I don't like to write bad reviews as I know many businesses, especially during these times, can depend on their reviews. And if our waiter hadn't treated us with such little respect I probably wouldn't have written this review based on the food alone. However my family and I left so upset, I felt it was necessary. To the manager, your kindness did not go unnoticed. Bringing small children out to eat already poses its challenges so to have the same awful experience on multiple occasions is very frustrating. We will not...

Second update: we've been back multiple times and are always highly impressed!!!

Update, this was remedied and we are very happy with the professionalism shown to fix it.

I didn't want to have to leave a poor review but the turn around time for the owner to call has been roughly 5 days at this point. I've been looking forward to eating here for months and we decided to do take out for Christmas Eve. First, the ease of ordering was wonderful. Pickup was on time and seemed pretty straight forward. When my husband got our stuff home we realized that a part of our meal was missing (his bad for not checking either). We also realized that the mozzarella sticks we ordered were empty inside! The cheese has totally exploded out and disintegrated, so we had hollow greasy bread sticks.

We called just to see if they could refund us the mozzarella sticks and pecan pie. She said she'd remake them and we can come pick them up, it was really very nice of her to offer that for us. However, we declined because the trip was roughly 30 mins round trip and not worth it at that point. She then stated that we couldn't be refunded without the owners approval and he will be back on the 26th. My husband has called back three times since and now the owner won't be back until after the New Year.

The problem we are having is the lack of resolution to this and not even the customer service because everyone we've talked have been wonderful. It shouldn't take over a week to resolve something as small as mozzarella sticks and a piece of pie. I don't understand how there isn't a manager there in the owners absence to deal with queries like ours and resolve the issue. I would very much like to give this place another shot but am worried about the lack of resolution if we have another issue.

Overall the other items we got were delicious and very well made! And the people we've spoken to have been very nice...

Can't say enough about this place and the service, but I'll try... Big shout out to Tammy from "Big Red"! I have to start with a little back story first. A very close friend of ours had recently lost his 5 year battle with colon cancer. He enjoyed hiking the great outdoors and hanging out with friends. So, as a tribute to him, 15 of us decided to get together to hike the Vernon Boardwalk and some went on to the Stairway to Heaven trail. We had a beautiful day for it and all had a great time reminiscing about our fallen friend and the good times we had together. We all get back to the place we were staying and pretty much crashed from exhaustion. We must've tried calling over a half dozen places to find a somewhere for all of us to eat. No one was able (or willing) to accommodate us, on such short notice, until we got a hold of Tammy at The Early American Tavern! She told us to come on down. She even hooked us up with a private room, upstairs! Just to complicate things (like the typical Long Islanders we are) we asked for separate checks. She took it in stride and the service she and her staff provided was awesome! Tammy, early on, let us know that she wasn't even a waitress, she was the bartender! To keep all of the orders straight, she assigned us all nicknames. Lol! Her personality was outstanding and she was a perfect fit for our quirky group. To top it off, the food came out piping hot and delicious. So, from Big Red, Nobody, The Plaids, The Gingers and I think it was The King or Royal Highness or something like that... Thank you so, so much for a terrific ending to a very memorable weekend. If we're ever in this area again, there's no doubt we'll be back for more great...