The Copper Still — Restaurant in Town of Haverstraw

Having never come here to have a cocktail or two, I'm absolutely now under the impression that this is a place to drink at, not eat at. Sometimes "bar first' food can be pretty decent (Star Tavern in Orange, NJ comes to mind), but this is unfortunately not that. Any calories I consume here in the future will be sipped.

I ordered lunch for pickup this past Thursday. It was a cold and rainy afternoon so something carby in the pasta family seemed appealing. I opted for the Sizzling Shrimp Pasta ($18.99), which featured penne pasta (one of my faves) in creamy garlic sauce with what was identified as "toasted French bread." The pasta itself was okay - cooked decently and while the sauce was predictably on the heavy side, also okay. I ate about half the dish, including the shrimp (a little sparse but honestly I can't remember the last time I thought a shrimp pasta dish didn't go cheap on the shrimp - the star is always the pasta whether you like it or not). Would I get it again based on that? Eh. Probably not, especially with the higher price point, which would be competitive if the dish itself was a better overall quality but even with my limited experience in this area I know I can get better bang for my buck. And while I did put the leftovers in the fridge, I wasn't interested in eating it the next day.

The so-called French bread was literally the worst bread accompaniment I've ever had. Not an exaggeration. Based on appearance, they seemed to be going for kind of a garlic bread vibe with the seasoning. The bread itself was incredibly stale - it tasted like it was a week old, if not older. I had a co-worker sample it, who immediately agreed with me. The top had a little bit of flavoring but the bottom was completely neglected (didn't even seem toasted, which is bizarre) so most of your bite was just plain stale bread. The only positive is that it was so unappealing that I only wasted the calories on the single bite. Huge miss.

The only positive (and some would argue this is more important than the food quality - debatable) was that my brief interaction with two staffers when I came to pick up the food was very pleasant. There was a young woman behind the bar who was cheerful and addressed me by name (they had it from the pick-up order), which I always think is a classy, professional touch that doesn't happen enough, and the fellow from the back who gave me my order and handled the financial transaction was chipper as well. I'd consider at least coming back for a drink based on that one- or two-minute exchange, so they're at least hiring good people service-wise. I honestly can't say the same though for the...

The food was good but the service was terrible. We arrived at 5 o’clock and there were only 2 other tables seated in the dining room. Our waitress sat us at a dirty unset table and wiped it down while we were seated. She complained about the rags that she was using while she cleaned. She only came to the table 3 times. To clean it, take our order, and deliver the food. She never asked if we needed anything or refill our drinks. I got up and flagged her down to ask for another drink and a rack of ribs to go. A half hour later, there was no drink and no ribs. I got up and found her again and asked for the check. She apologized and said that a bunch of tables came in all at once but there were only 4 more tables in the dining room and there were 3 other waitresses in the bar. When I finally got the check, I paid it in cash and went looking for the waitress to ensure that she received it because it was cash, but I couldn’t find her. I gave up and left it on the table. I also noticed that she had left the rag and cleaner on the table next to ours the entire time and that the other table had condiments set up but ours had nothing. The service was...

Let's start off with a positive: LOVED the wings. LOVED the burger. Everything we ordered was delicious.

And unfortunately, the negative: It was pretty crowded last Saturday night - I get that. But they were way understaffed. It took forever for someone to come to the door and seat us. We had to flag someone down. Then it took forever to flag down someone to take our order. When the waitress brought the wings, we had no napkins, forks, knives, plates, etc. I had to flag down the young girl at the door and for the 4 of us, she brought over 2 plates and two sets of utensils. I asked her, because there are 4 of us, can we get two more plates and two more sets of utensils and she gave me a look that said she clearly wanted to kill me. Nobody ever checked on us. Nobody asked us if we needed anything. Finally I had to get up, find the waitress and ask for our check. It was kind of a drag, honestly and I wouldn't go back...