Jake Hafner's Restaurant & Tavern — Restaurant in Town of Clay

My first visit here will also be my last visit here. It's been a good while since I've been completely been put off by a dining experience and now I get to add another to the list. We came in around 6:30pm and were sat at round 4-top in the main dining section - this is essential for later on. We ordered drinks, a potato skins appetizer, the asparagus lemon chicken, and the scallop risotto "special." On the whole, the food was mediocre. Of particular note, the scallop risotto was a bi-polar affair. The scallops, themselves, were nicely cooked. However, the risotto was abjectly grotesque having some odd tanginess that was completely unpleasant. In no way did it complement the scallops and largely ruined the dish. I thought about sending it back but I didn't. Why? Because the service was S-L-O-W. Our dinner took over 3 HOURS. After sitting down, it was probably another 20 minutes before our waitress came to our table. How about an hour and a half until...salad!?! Our drinks were routinely empty and waited for refills. The previous mention of our seating location now becomes salient to this review. Those chairs get really uncomfortable after the 2 hour mark. I believe that we were done with our meal right around that magical threshold. But this adventure was far from over. We waited yet another 30 minutes to get the check? Why? Apparently, they had some colossal failure of their point-of-sales/credit card system. Our waitress seemed clueless how to handle the situation. Perhaps this is a situation where some coaching from a manager comes in. Oh, wait...We now come to my biggest issue with all of this – not single a peep out of whomever was managing the restaurant. You were far more focused on ensuring that you got paid over our satisfaction with the experience. Our waitress was desperate enough to suggest that we go use the ATM as to pay in cash. Sure, let me pay an additional bank fee on top of the time we were "held hostage" waiting for our check. The check was printed out at 9:12pm and we were still not able to leave for another 20 minutes. How did we finally pay? They brought out old school credit card slips (the ones where you are supposed to use the imprint machine) with all of our CC info manually filled out in pen. No thank you. Poor execution, poor management and I’m not...

UPDATED - We ordered take out again. I got the 'naked Jake' hamburger and it was great. Lisa got the Vegetable alfredo and said that was great. However, THEY ARE STILL DOING THE SAME THING WITH THE APPETIZER. It says, on THIER OWN menu, 'add a side of fries and make it a meal for an extra $1.99. Apparently, whoever answers the phone still hasn't read the menu. When I said 'I'd like to make it a meal by adding fries' she said 'oh, do you just want to make it a regular adult portion?'. I said 'no, it says on the menu that you can add fries and make it a meal for 1.99' and she said 'Ok'. Looking at the bill, they added a 'side of fries' for $3.19. I know that it's not much more, but the fact that this happened twice now just flattens my soda pop. This is the kind of thing that makes me not want to go there again. Following below is the original review. I would have done 3.5 stars if it were an option. The food was good, mostly. I had fried fish, it was delicious. She had the crab cakes. She complained that there wasn't enough sauce, and they are described as jumbo or some other 'big' word, but they seemed to be the same size as any other crab cake. She also complained that the mashed potatoes were dry. The was a bit of a mix up with the order. They have chicken tenders as an app, and on the menu online it says 'add fries and make it a meal for 1.99', so I said that to the lady who took the order. When I got there instead of making it a meal they gave us an order of fries and charged 5.99. As you know from my other reviews I'm picky about my fries, and these were the kind I don't like. There appears to be some sort of coating on them, like burger kings have. I prefer fries like they make at 5 guys. Anyway the tenders were great, and I got a side of rigatoni and that was good too. I think if we dined in instead of doing take out we wouldn't have experienced the difficulties...

We were from out of town, but this is clearly a local institution. It's a "family restaurant" in the best sense. Unassuming, come-as-you-are, family-run, and family friendly. There are two parts to the place - a proper dining room, and the bar. Six of us visited on a Sunday night for dinner and sat in the dining room.

The beer list is fantastic, with a good selection of different styles, including local choices and current trendy favorites like sours and IPAs. The menu is extremely broad, from wings to prime rib. I regret that due to a large, late lunch I didn't have room for the prime rib. Everyone in our party was very happy with their food, including appetizers and dessert.

Service was friendly and accommodating. It was Mother's day and Syracuse U. graduation weekend, so the place was very busy. Our server, and the owner (who stopped by at the end of our meal) seemed concerned that the service and/or kitchen had been slow, but we hadn't noticed. We weren't in a hurry and enjoyed our time there. It was nice to see that the staff and management are keeping an eye on things and aiming for a high standard of service, though.

Prices seemed very typical and reasonable, and I've certainly paid more for less elsewhere.

Nothing blew us away, but everything from the food to the service was rock solid, which is an accomplishment. This only happens when everyone on staff cares. Kudos to management for assembling and supporting a great team.

If you're in the area and looking for good, tasty "real food" vs. some chain junk, you should stop in at Hafner's. Unique restaurants like this used to be common, but aren't anymore. When they're gone, they're gone, and we'll be stuck with Subway and Chik-Fil-A. That...