Mail Pouch Saloon - Swanton — Restaurant in Swanton

Went for dinner with my friend and when we were seated there was a 5/10 minute wait. Upon being seated we had a kind server who got our drinks and orders fairly quickly. I will say during this experience our waiter was very accommodating and kind. He was both apologetic about what occurred and I left him a large tip because of this. We ordered the nachos for a starter which took about 25 minutes to come out. We order a burger and wings at the same time. After our starter 40 minutes passed waiting for our food. Within that time our waiter apologized and offered to discount our food half off. Another 25 minutes passed and our waiter said that the food would be free if we wanted to wait another 15 minutes for it to come out. We agreed and the food came out 25 minutes later. After that our waiter informed us the manager would like to give us half off on the starter and our meals and give us “cheesecake”. Being gluten free i cant eat cheesecake and frankly after being there for nearly 2 hours i didnt wanna be stuck waiting any longer. I declined and asked if the manager could just allow us to pay full price on the starter and make the meals free as promised. The manager never came to our table even though I requested them too. I found it incredibly unprofessional to try to haggle with a customer when we were already promised our meals to be free. The waiter said the manager didnt want to do that so i said id pay half for everything ordered. I have never waited so ling and been offered such excuses before. I’m not sure why a manager never came to speak with us and instead had this poor server running back and forth delivering messages. Frankly one of the worst dinning experiences ive ever had. Definitely will...

We really wanted to like this place since we had seen good things on Facebook. What we experienced was horrible service and overpriced, mediocre food.

To be fair, the place was busy (15 minutes wait). Upon being sat, it took another 15 minutes to be acknowledged for a drink order. The waitress was very rude to my husband when he inquired about sweetener for tea. We were not asked if we wanted an appetizer. Had to chase down server again to order an appetizer at which time we were sternly "warned" that the kitchen was very busy and running behind. We went ahead and put in our food order.

Appetizer came out piping hot in a timely manner. Was best part of the meal.

THEN....we WAITED....and WAITED....and WAITED with very little attention from server. No check back on appetizer quality. No clearing of dishes. Nothing.

After 45 MINUTES of WAITING, my husband asked her about our order and she said, "I checked on your order. Like I warned you, the kitchen is very busy."

At the 1 HOUR OF WAITING point, I requested the manager from the bar. Manager came to table then went to kitchen. Food arrived within 3 minutes.

Server said, "you must have crossed paths with manager." Manager returned to tell us kitchen was very hot and people called off. No offer to discount or accommodate despite me mentioning it being our first time.

Again, no check in on food quality, no apology for the wait time. Dirty, empty appetizer plate still on table.

Upon finishing, server dropped check and very awkwardly asked if we wanted cheesecake. We declined.

She then returned for us to complete part of check with tip and offered to bring us a cheesecake on her. Mmmhmmm.....

Needless to say, we won't be back.

2 hours and $60...

Will never go back. In the past 3 times I have been there it has been a bad experience. The first visit the hostess said she could not seat us because the kitchen was backed up and they had to let the kitchen get caught up even though there were plenty of seats open. You would have expected from the hostess to seat you anyways and allow you to get a drink and view the menu while the “kitchen was getting caught up”. We ended up sitting at the bar as our only option instead of waiting and we were served right away. The 2nd visit we got seated right away but our food took forever to come out. The most recent visit on 9/12 we were seated right away on the outside patio and the waitress came to our table right away and took our drink orders but took forever to come back for our food order. Once we ordered our food it was all down hill from there. We waited patiently for our food to arrive and our waitress came to our table to reassure us our food was coming soon but needless to say it did not. We only ordered chicken chunks and it took 40 minutes to get our food and it was served semi warm without the tater tots that I ordered so I had to wait for those. I complained to the manager and voiced my experiences to her and she said they were losing power in the kitchen and the fryers went down. The manager ended up comping our bill. But this place seriously needs to get it together. Each visit I experienced a different excuse for poor service! Sooner or later your going to run out of excuses! Maybe the owner needs to be present so he/she can witness how poorly ran their business...