Firewater Tavern — Restaurant in Tewksbury

While traveling through Massachusetts, we stopped here to eat, bowl and play some games. The restaurant was fairly empty compared to the bowling area. We were sat as soon as en employee noticed us and luckily as soon as we sat down we were asked what we would like to drink. (I had not even had a chance to open a menu yet.) Our server did not seem too knowledgeable about what they had in their own menu. We ordered our drinks and waited painfully long to make our food order. When we began to order our appetizer, our waitress assumed we would wait to order our dinner and off she went to ring in the food. We had ordered their garlic bread with cheese, which is shown in their menu as a cheesy garlic bread option. We were also ready to order our dinner but she had vanished. I eventually had to wave down the server at the table next to us, to ask him to please find our server. About a minute later, someone from the kitchen came out to our table to deliver our garlic bread and mozzarella sticks. Which is not what we had ordered. At this point, I was a bit annoyed because we had already easily spent 30 minutes here waiting to order our dinner and our appetizer wasn't even right. I canceled the garlic bread and declined the food they sent out to the table. About 2 minutes after that, our server came to our table like "What's up? Did you guys need something?" I explained that we wanted to order our dinner a while ago, as we were on a wait to bowl and also explained that she rang in something completely different from what we had ordered. These things happen and I don't hold anything against her, but I truly feel like she needs more training and to be more attentive to her tables. She was super sweet though and she apologized. Someone from the kitchen ended up bringing us out the correct order of garlic bread and cheese and said the manager would take it off the bill, which was definitely not something we expected at all. Now the food is what really turned everything around. Their chicken croquettes with mashed potatoes and cranberry was absolutely delicious. We ate well and felt full afterwards! The food definitely made up for the long wait. Unfortunately for the long wait, we had to sign back up for the bowling waiting list which was an additional hour wait on top of the time we had already spent and waited. So in the end, we did not even get to bowl. I would really love to give this place another try in the future and give them...

Stay clear of this place unless you enjoy having your credit card over charged. My boyfriend and I stopped in for dinner this past Friday night. Restaurant was not busy, the bar had a few guests. Before I even pulled out the bar stool, the female bartender was asking me what I wanted to drink-great, but I prefer to sit down and look over the drink menu. We sat there for a minimum of 25 mins without anyone coming over. Again the bar was not busy, neither was service bar otherwise I would have been more understanding on a Friday night. Both bartenders walked passed us multiple times, serving everyone around us while we still had nothing. We watched people get their food, pay their bill, and leave all before we even got a drink. Finally Bernie, the other bartender grabbed us drinks, we ordered, food was fine but nothing spectacular, service was okay after that. Get our bill and it’s $86 and change, put it on my boyfriends card. I’m a bartender/server myself so I always tip cash, I threw down a $20 and called it a night. Fast forward to Tuesday and my boyfriend has a $101 charge from the bar. Receipt was MIA at the time but I specifically remembered it being $86 because I remember deciding what to leave for cash. He calls, and the manager says there’s nothing they can do if we don’t have the receipt. I have been working in different restaurants with different computer systems for many years and I have never heard of telling a customer that they cannot bring up an old payment. They showed zero concern for their bartenders stealing money from customers. No apology, nothing. We find the receipt and sure enough the total is $86 and change. Now we have been calling for two days and have either gotten hung up on or no return phone call. So unless you like money being stolen out of your bank account by entitled bartenders, I would stay clear of this place! I cannot imagine how many people they have...

We had a nice bowling time, then decided to eat here, and it was regrettably one of the worst food experiences we had.

Let me start by saying that the waiter was very nice and quick and the seating is generally acceptable, but not the food. The service was the reason I gave 2 stars.

It was one of the worst food I have ever had. We got nachos with BBQ chicken, fish tacos, mozarella sticks, and three kids meals (2 pizza and 1 cheeseburger) with fries and chocolate milk. Nachos lacked reasonable toppings and came cold. It was simply an amalgamation of chips glued hard with each other with rubbery cold cheese with the remaining topping sprinkled lightly on top... As for mozzarella sticks, just imagine you bought the worst grocery store brand, cooked it, left it for 2 hours, then came back to eat it. Chocolate milk for essentially the lowest quality sugary and watery chocolate milk you can ever buy. The rest of the food was average AT BEST. After the family had a night filled with joy playing bowling, we went home all aching from the food we ate and regretting the restaurant.

The weirdest part to compliment that experience is that we asked for tomato and lettuce for the kids cheeseburger, only to realize when we got the check that we were charged $2 for the tomato slice and $0.5 for the leaf of lettuce. We were not told at all that they charge for these two pieces nor the pricing is reasonable.

We will certainly come to bowl again, but will also certainly...