Seven Acre Dairy Company — Restaurant in Town of Montrose

Seven Acre Dairy, located on the Sugar River in Paoli, is a sort of trifecta of a hotel, dairy cafe, and a restaurant built on the site that use to serve as a milk processing plant for dairy farmers across the region. I will be focusing on the restaurant side as we did not stay at the hotel and the dairy cafe was closed at the time we were there. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and thought put into the historical side of the building with lots of older photos and some of the history behind the plant and what it meant to the community. It was nice enough outside to have a refreshing drink out on the porch overlooking the beautifully rustic Sugar River as it flowed lazily along on a summer evening and we could hear a bit of live jazz whisping it's way across the river from the park on the other side. Very charming indeed. Once inside and seated, something changed, though, and I couldn't put my finger on it until my wife was practically shouting at me even though she was sitting right next to me. The acoustics in the building built for a sterile environment meant for hard and unforgiving surfaces, and I could tell that eventhough they were not quite at capacity, the amount if diners made it hard to hear my tablemates through the echoes of the multitude of voices around us. We carried on and made it work, but it was bothersome to have a good conversation over the loud din. On to the food that brought us to the Dairy Comapany... both salads are stupendous, and dare I say, one has the title of " perfect" for a reason? The puffed rice was a great addition and necessary crunch. I also loved the ranch dressing and cottage cheese in the farmhouse salad. Try the brie and jam with crackers, you will not be disappointed! You must, must, must get the bread and butter. This is some of the best restaurant bread and butter you will ever get! I promise, smell the butter on the bread before you bite into it... you can smell that freshness before you taste it. A combination of foccacia like top crust and sour dough soft inside along with the butter is just too good to pass up! The cheese curds were pretty standard, but we loved both dipping sauces, and I really enjoyed the zingy chili sauce. I also liked the crispy brisket nuggets with the intense beef flavor packed into a cube and the yummy horseradish cream sauce cut through the beef nicely. Of the side dishes, we tried almost all of them, and the winner was definitely the swiss pie. It could easily have been a breakfast dish with its quiche like interior of swiss and egg and buttery pie crust. The turnips were decent, but we thought perhaps a bit too much lemon in the sauce. Spaetzl was overcooked in a pan fry for our taste and way too dry. It needed a sauce for sure. We had high hopes the sugar snap peas but again, it looked as if they let the peas fry too long on one side and burned them to the point of bitterness instead of just releasing those sugars and caramelizing them in the pan. Both desserts we tried were on par with the dairy side with chocolate soft serve, hot fudge, and brownie bites winning me over. The upside down cake with strawberry rhubarb topping was ok, but we felt overpowered with too much cinnamon in the cake. The service was excellent and our waitress was funny and accommodating. I would love to go again and try more of the entrées or even a few of the sandwiches, but we were quite full from the shareables and sides we ordered. It's definitely worth a...

Update: I went back for brunch. It was.. rough.

We didn't see our waiter (David R) for 10 minutes after being seated. After placing our orders, We didn't see him again for another 8, after which he came by because he "didn't catch our drink order." He did have a pad of paper when he took our order, so I'm not sure how that happened, when he repeated it back to my wife after she placed it.

We found a dead fluit fly in our water carafe. Poor buddy wasn't moving, so he was in there a decent amount of time. We got a new carafe, but had to keep our fly-water glasses.

Cinnamon rolls were ...fine. Not blowing me away, but good enough that I ate them. Gravy had flavor this time, which was a marked improvement

Wife got the blueberry stuffed french toast. It was not stuffed. The blueberries had an odd taste to them, more like craisins. Some of her slices were cold. Her drink was more wine than mimosa, which is fine for some people.

Maybe dinner is better? Maybe we just pick the worst items on the menu? But still, service was lacking. I went out of my way to give them another shot and only left wishing I hadn't.

Original Review:

Went for Easter brunch. It was...fine. Honestly pretty underwhelming.

Our table was a tiny 2-top wedged between a half-booth and another table, to the point where the person sitting against the wall was unable to get into their seat unless someone from either the booth or the table sat up. The seat opposite them was hugging a pillar that made it impossible to use their left hand effectively (my wife is left-handed). There was no room to move the table. I get the feeling they overbooked and our "table" wasn't meant to be on it's own, considering it was missing salt and pepper as well, while other tables had it.

The food was...bland. I had nearly everything from the breakfast buffet, and it was all rather plain. The gravy for the biscuits and gravy had no flavor, just a flat goop. The eggs were what I would expect from a hotel breakfast. Sausage and bacon are hard to mess up.

The soft-serve was served in freshly washed glassware. Which made it melt quickly. I had chocolate dripping down my fingers by the time I got back to my table. I'd say a quarter of it turned into ice cream soup by the time I finished eating.

The cheeses were okay. Nothing amazing. The pastries were lackluster. Some were mislabeled.

We barely had our server check in with us, despite them having and frequently visiting the tables next to us. When they did visit, they were often gone before I could say anything.

I might be back for a normal dinner? I'm not sure, probably not. I wasn't satisfied, especially with what we paid for it, and if a planned event goes so poorly for me, what will a...

We've driven thru Paoli from appleton to Monroe to see family for over 30 years and have watch Paoli change to a pretty cool place:) Although I do miss the chicken store:) Seven Acre Dairy is the "cream of the crop"!!...but i have some suggestions for improvement :

Food and Service were great albeit a little pricey, especially the drinks....doesn't seem quite right to pay for a drink that is 50% the cost of your meal, $16 manhattan or $14 old fashion, $28 fish dinner for example. The Dairy Cafe and $15 "boozy" shakes. Both of these seem way out of line...guess I'll skip the alcohol.... But the food was very good. The dairy cafe was very good, ice cream was top notch, especially liked the tuesday half price day!!

Room accommodations: Love the combination industrial look with the Creamery history. very unique and well done. Not fancy but fitting for what you are trying to create! Our issue was the noisy HVAC system (a/c the days we were there). our initial room was very noisy, neither of us could sleep so we had to turn off the AC until we awoke at 3 am too warm and had to turn it back on again to cool the room down and then could not sleep again...maybe 4 hours sleep total. For our 2nd overnight Seven acre staff was gracious enough to upgrade us to another room (a nice suite where bedroom was a separate room and somewhat quieter but you couldn't close the door as it stopped the air circulation in the room and then got too warm). Other issues with the HVAC for both rooms is that the fan speed adjustment on thermostat did nothing (tried to set to LOW for less noise). The thermostat never shut off the A/C even though the indoor temp was 1 - 3 degrees colder than the set point temp I set it too. so we had to turn it on/off manually (off to sleep).

Would seem like a nice mini split system for each room would work much better and independently:) and more efficient, less costly A/C depending on how well insulated each room is.

The other suggestion is the outside noise. The patio area is very nice but traffic thru town on PB, especially semi-truck traffic roaring thru all day made it hard to have conversations on the patio and it kind of ruin's the atmosphere you are trying to create (peaceful, small town get away, pedestrian based foot traffic to restaurants and shopping, etc.,). Ideally if the semi-truck and other misc trailer traffic be rerouted around the town or install speed bumps or a 10 MPH speed limit thru town sure would make a difference.

Overall, a nice little getaway for us, on my wifes bucket list, but overall a little pricey but we knew that going in.....

Staff was very friendly and helpful.

Thank you and continued good luck!!!

Kevin &...