Beardslee Castle — Restaurant in Town of Manheim

They ruined my best friends wedding. She got married there last month, I was her maid of honor. We were not treated like guests, we were treated like a burden.

The staff was rude, at a wedding?? They started cleaning up while we were still there at the end of the night. I personally heard them say to each other “yeah, they’re mad at us right now for cleaning up while they’re still here.” You’re not really talking about us right in front of us, are you? To top that off they almost tripped the bride (my best friend) with the vacuum cord in her wedding dress and never even apologized, just acted like they didn’t notice.

We wanted more food they told us there was no more, but we had guests that did not show up, there should’ve been extra? We wanted “to go” boxes but they said it’s buffet style, so you can’t have a box (but we paid for this food on the table?)

The rules with masks and social distancing make things complicated enough, but they kept policing the guests to wear their masks even while we’re trying to take photos and dance with each other. The manager, Lynn, even shooed us off the dance floor at one point (4 people) because we weren’t wearing masks together. Her guests?? I was 1 of 4 on the dance floor when she did that.

The staff never smiled. And kept “telling on us“ to the manager, Lynn, when we we’re either too close to each other or not wearing our masks. Yet they took PHOTOS OF THEMSELVES in the brides photo booth, without her knowing, that she paid for, WITHOUT their masks on! We literally have photo evidence of them contradicting themselves after all the attitude they gave us.

The brides plate was dirty, there was dried food on it. I saw it with my own eyes because I was sitting right next to her and she showed me.

The worst part was in my opinion, that when the bride complained to the manager about the way she was treated, after how hard she worked to make this wedding still happen during a global pandemic, the manager Lynn, basically mocked her and just said “no I didn’t” back to everything she said. Adding passive aggressive remarks to all her written responses to the bride. Completely denying all of my friends complaints instead of apologizing, like a professional. Showing kindness, and understanding that yes, your wedding was ruined by a pandemic, and yes, our staff was rude to you as a collective whole and “ I’m so sorry“ and “thank you” for your business. No. Instead, Lynn actually tried to pin the mother of the bride and the entire bridal party against the bride... by saying that we all “talked badly about her behind her back that day.” How could anybody say something like this? How extremely unprofessional, and truly terrible. I’ve been the bride’s best friend for 13 years, I know her family, they are a tight unit. Nobody would’ve ever said anything bad about the her? Especially on her wedding day. How could Lynn try to turn our family against each other.. just because she can’t take some well deserved criticism?

My best friend ended up reporting her bad experience to the Better Business Bureau, as she should. I really hope they do something about the way she, her husband, and her wedding guests...

I really have a hard time understanding how they get such high marks for food and service. This was our second visit, the first being abysmal. In fact so bad we had not returned for near 7 years. This visit was because of friends desire to attend one of the murder mystery events being put on there. Started off in the dungeon bar before being brought up to be seated. They were out of at least half of the beers on tap. For a Saturday evening this seems to be more a result of bad management than, "we had an event the night before too" sort of thing. If you know the event and the numbers are assured then you stock up the bar to accommodate the patrons! Hospitality 101! There was also no bar back so the bar tenders have to pull double duty. This leads to everyone having a long wait at the bar for drinks. Their selection of single malts is also rather less than it should be. And again they were low or out of a number of them. The food at the event was hit and miss. They kind of failed to accommodate a member of our party that is a vegetarian though they were given a good months advance notice. I can't imagine that our party was the only one with such a dietary restriction. The chicken breasts were pretty darn good even though they were a bit over cooked. They get a pass on that since they did have a large group to prep for and feed. The roast beef was fantastic, some of the best I have had in a very long time. Mash potatoes and rice were good and well seasoned. The pasta and vegetables with red sauce was mediocre. A decent red sauce is not a hard thing to do. The fish was decent but needed a little acid, but no traditional obligatory lemon wedge was to be found. The flowerless chocolate cake was darn good too, who ever makes them knows their business. As to atmosphere, the dungeon and first floors are rather cool and fit the image sold. The second floor is all banquet space though. Staff tried hard but were overwhelmed to some extent. Basics like keeping water filled on tables fell to us patrons. If you wanted more you had to get up and go to the mini bar and have the bartender fill it from the gun. In the case of Beardslee this turns out to not be a bad thing. The gun water is filtered and there is no chlorine taste to it unlike the source of the water initially proffered by wait staff in the start. But well water is variable and heavy treatment is state mandated so gotta be understanding I guess. The show was amusing and the actors have a good time with their parts. They do a very good job of engaging the audience and some times illiciting participation. It is a good way to while away an evening with friends. While we wanna be fans of Beardslee the above, in combination with the really bad first visit plus the 65 mile trek, make it hard for us to...

Do not go during a wedding!

I added this as a surprise to our vacation plans with my girlfriend. We drove 2 1/2 hours to experience fine dining here before we continued our trip to the Adirondacks. I was excited and willing to splurge a little bit on a fancy diner before a week of camping and trail mix.

When we arrived we were greeted with some beautiful scenery and a gorgeous castle. The interior was very nice as well. The hostess and waitress were very polite and diligent. The food itself was delicious and so was the wine. After dinner we briefly visited the dungeon downstairs and that was probably the coolest part of the whole place. Unfortunately they were closing up at 9pm so we were unable to get a drink.

After we were seated we noticed that our table was in a high traffic area. There was a wedding upstairs and drunken guests were constantly walking back and forth by our table and it was a bit loud and disruptive of our meal. The odd part was that we were in a completely empty room that had multiple tables open tables that had more privacy.

Then we noticed that there was no music on our floor. We were listening to muffled dance music coming through the floor above us. As the night went on, the music turned to louder, bass-heavy songs. Which is not what I had hoped to be listening to during a nice dinner.

I was not annoyed by the wedding or it’s guests, but rather at the restaurant itself. The wedding sounded like fun and I’m sure I would have enjoyed it if I was a guest but I wasn’t.

I will also mention that the water tasted like sulfur and there was also an air-vent directly above my girlfriends seat that dripped water on her.

Normally I wouldn’t complain about this sort of thing and I would barely even notice it. However, I had high expectations for this place and that’s why I was willing to spend more than normal on 1 dinner.

When you’re a fine dining restaurant and your guests are paying over $100 for 2 entrees and 2 glasses of wine, then IMO you should put more care into their experience. If you’re having a wedding, I would encourage you to keep the wedding guests separated from your diners. Neither of the two groups of people should be walking through and disrupting the evening of the other. As for the music, if there is no possible way to make it quieter, then I’d recommend that you sacrifice the loss in sales and close the restaurant for the duration of the event for the sake or preserving your reputation. You don’t want guests to feel like they’re in a basement of a club.

Had I visited on any other night without the disruption of the wedding, it would probably have been...