Magruders Pub and Banquets — Restaurant in Town of Lancaster

I am so upset and disappointed by Magruders!! We have always had family functions at this place because the food is excellent and up until yesterday the service was good! I had my daughters bridal shower there yesterday. We were supposed to have the larger banquet room but got switched to the smaller room without notice because another party that was supposed to have 25 people called and said they would have 65 or 70 people instead. When we got there 2 hours before the shower to set up , that's when are were told se were moved to a different room. Nothing was setup the way it I was told it was going to be and there was one less table then I was told there was going to be. This threw off my whole seating chart in which there were two different families so I had to scramble to rearrange everyone. we had to move the gift basket and the other gift table ourselves. I still did not get my extra table. We were told not to have anyone go to the bar to get drinks but the waitress was not coming around. When the waitress did come around she was super nice. Props to her. Then the girl in charge Diane the owners daughter kept telling me the food was ready in the warming box did we want to serve it earlier? I said I still had some people who had not arrived yet so we should play a game and then she could serve. We had the food served and by the time we all just got our food and the last person sat down to enjoy there meal Diane was coming around to all the tables and asking us to go up for seconds. The food had only been out for about for about 15 min. Total. I said I still have 2 people on there way in 10 minutes. She said it dont matter the food would be in the back she would make up there playes but it was the Health dept who says the food cannot sit out. I checked with the health dept. It is 2 hours or less for food served hot in warming trays. So she lied then she asked my daughter who had just started to eat to get up and get a plate for her groom to take out. ( How kind of her).lol We asked if she could finish her food first and she walked up to the buffet and put food in a take out box and left it up there. Then she went to the girl who was serving just the meat and told her " give them 5 more minutes and take the food away. All my guests were appalled at this. I still have people calling me to say how awful that was. My daughter who's shower it was, was so embarassed by then and had so much anxiety about this, well needless to say it ruined the rest of the day. She called me so upset later that evening. Diane also made a rude comment to the grooms mother at the end which she did not think I heard. When I called her out on it. She said she was not going to argue with me. Mind you the whole time the actual owner was there and never came to apologize for her rude behavior. They were only interested in rushing us out because they had an unexpected party of 65 people to take care of that they were not expecting. That was not my problem. So now all of my family plus the other 25 guests at the shower will be letting people know what unaccommodating people they were. So...

Weeks before an event, a call was made to this venue to ensure gluten free options would be available. The gentleman who we spoke to said he’d make sure the banquet manager knew and to also inform the people throwing the event.

The day of the event, we asked which options were gluten free. This is when we learned that not only was this not taken into consideration, but it wasn’t taken seriously. The banquet manager started rattling off what might be gluten free (which cannot be risked when someone has celiac disease), and when we informed her that we needed to be certain, she aggressively started asking what gluten was and causing a scene. When we mentioned we called ahead, she got very loud and stated “nobody called me. I’m the banquet manager. Nobody called me!! What even is gluten? Like flour right?! Nobody called me!” She made someone cry, that’s how aggressive she was. We had to ask her to leave our table because she was causing a scene which we did not want. We only wanted to ensure everyone could enjoy the event and their meal, safely.

(I’d like to add - it’s truly okay to not know things. A simple “you know, I’m not certain. Let me go check with the kitchen” is ALL that was needed)

She later came back and took the plates, asking the one with celiac disease if she was going to go for seconds when the contents of her plate were clearly not from their buffet (it was from the other attendees with celiac disease’s meal she brought from home because being contaminated with gluten with celiac disease is incredibly dangerous). She was then informed that this was food from home, and the banquet manager once again became aggressive and said she spoke to someone who was also attending the event who was a nurse and she told the manager what was gluten free. This question is for the chef, not a guest. Instead of asking the chef, she complained to other guests about us having a dietary need, in a restaurant, and got advice on what was an option for someone with celiac disease from fellow guests who haven’t the slightest idea what ingredients go into each item, or if cross contamination took place in the kitchen.

Well… as it turns out, the best option if you have any dietary restrictions is to avoid this place. If they were this ignorant to our face, imagine how little they care behind the closed doors of their kitchen.

Furthermore, the wheelchair ramp settled in some places and was very difficult to push an adult up in a wheelchair and there were no wheelchair accessible handicap spaces.

I’d like to add, the waitress who wasn’t the banquet manager was wonderful.

In all fairness, the two people who couldn’t eat the food at the event didn’t miss out on anything. I had three bites before I stopped eating because it was not good (and I'm putting that nicely)..

All in all, I’d give this place less stars if I could. Maybe if they ditched their banquet manager, things could be better. But I’ll never find out because I will...

This was one of the craziest experiences we have ever had with a restaurant. We called weeks ahead to request a banquet room for a birthday party. We were clear that we wanted to order off of the regular menu, just be away from the noise of the bar. Diane (the owner's daughter) said that was no problem and it would only be a $25 charge to rent the room. We confirmed that morning, 3 hours before the party, that we were coming at 2PM with Diane. We arrived 5 minutes before 2PM and Diane notified us that we were unable to order off of the regular menu because they "Weren't sure if the party was happening" and sent the chef home. The only things we could order were Pizza logs, chicken wings, beef on weck, and fish and chips. That is all. She specifically said we could not order salad, burgers, or ribs because "The kitchen is closed on Sundays so we dont have that prepped." She never told us the kitchen was closed on Sundays, prior to the event. Also, the chef was sent home at 2PM, as the party was starting. We had no server to bring us drinks and were told that we were "on our own for drinks". We were told we could only use 2 of the tables in the banquet room. Despite having such a small menu, ordering the food was chaotic and we were missing 3 meals at the end (one of which was for a child). Throughout the meal, Diane came in several times soliciting for open positions at the restaurant (bartender, server, and a chef if anyone is interested). She said "no one wants to work anymore" but I can understand not wanting to work in this chaos. After we finished eating, Diane brought a single check with all of the items on it. We had discussed and agreed that each family would need their own check and she agreed saying "no problem!". When we brought this up to Diane, she said she never would have allowed us to use the banquet room, had she known that we wanted separate checks. Again, this was previously discussed and agreed upon with Diane. After dropping off the check, Diane left the restaurant. We were charged $50 for the room instead of the agreed upon $25. The bartender (her daughter) said there was nothing they could do besides cancelling the transaction and rerunning it, causing a double authorization. Honestly, the food wasn't horrible but definitely not worth the headache. We...