Squires of Briarcliff — Restaurant in Town of Ossining

This place is OK for a burger but did not satisfy the pallet. Piper's Kilt in Eastchester is still the pinnacle of a fresh burger and fries you'll eat in Westchester.

First the atmosphere....Very cool. It is tuck away in a strip mall in Briarcliff Manor (where parking is tough) but don't be fooled, it was very relaxing and calming. It is old school....dark, with a very blue collar feel...perfect for a burger place/pub/bar. The bar is the center of the "first room" and that's a good thing. My wife ordered a Stella Artois on tap and I had a Maker's on the rocks (very generous pour) and the price for both were more than reasonable. We needed a drink because there was a bit of a wait. On that...there is no host/hostess....there is a book you go up to and sign your name and # in your party....pretty cool. Also....it is family friendly, toddler friendly, etc. which is great for young families... Just a bit tight spatially.

Second the dining room/wait staff....again really friendly and homie. A bit tight, but not bad.

Now the food. I ordered a Bacon cheddar burger with fried onions "As rare as you can legally make it". This is always my sticking point. If you bring out a burger that is medium rare, medium, or medium well....you lose me. And that's what happened. My burger came out and it was medium at best. Not only that it was relatively dry. I've had burgers that came out medium but had high fat contents in the meat and thus still juicy. This leads me to believe that the burgers here are not hand made fresh chopped meat burgers and cannot be made rare. The bun was soft and fluffy but toasted which was nice. The fries were very good (steak fries basically, not my favorite) but the honey mustard was delicious and plentiful.

The price though was very reasonable here. For a couple to go out to dinner, have a beer and cocktail, (2) burgers and a coke but spend only around $50, very reasonable.

Lastly.....and this is my biggest turn-off...it was cash or AMEX....little did we know. We had to go to their ATM machine (which i do not like to do, bad theft experience) and take out cash to pay for dinner...that was it for me.

I will drive 35 minutes south to Eastchester instead of 25 minutes southwest to Squire's for a burger...

I read reviews and heard from a friend about this place. I guess they are best known for their burgers. So we went and the burgers were good, although I wouldn't say they blew me away. My wife and son felt the same way. I see some people don't like their french fries but we thought they were good. The chicken wings we're really nice. I think they will be a good backup for us when we don't want to drive all the way to Candlelight Inn in Scarsdale. And we really liked the blue cheese dressing that was served with them. The potato skins were really good too. Our waitress was very helpful at the start and then just disappeared. It was difficult to even get our check at the end. The thing that really was disappointing was that I ordered a Mudslide and it came with no chocolate syrup. The waitress tried to convince me that sometimes mudslides are not made with chocolate syrup, which is of course nonsense. I actually had to stand up and ask her to follow me towards the front entrance where they have a flyer on the wall showing the picture of a Mudslide and advertising that that was one of their drinks they were offering. Of course the picture shows the swirls of chocolate just like every other mudslide on the planet. My wife said that when I did that the waitress rolled her eyes at me but I didn't see that. So whatever the drink was really good but you don't serve someone any kind of drink or dish when one of the major ingredients isn't available without telling them that first. After all of this and getting up and showing her the picture that they had put on the wall she finally said to me that they ran out of chocolate. Why wouldn't that have been said when I ordered? To give me a choice? So I was particularly disappointed with this waitress and although we still tipped her some, we certainly didn't tip her like we do for good service. Before we had went to Squires I looked at Google reviews and it was nice to see that the owner of the establishment cares enough to follow up on these reviews and to write back to people. That tells you a lot about a place. I'm sure I'll be getting a message but I would have written this...

I've been there twice and had the exact same experience with 2 different bartenders. We went there for dinner and decided to sit at the bar. The restaurant wasn't very busy however, we patiently waited for the bartender to come over to us to order drinks and food. There were a group of regular locals who also happened to be sitting at the bar that were getting constant service. After sitting there for 25 minutes without any acknowledgement, we tried to get the bartenders attention to order drinks and some food. When I asked if we would be able to order some things when they had a minute I was met with an immediate eye roll from the bartender. We placed our order for 2 beers, an appetizer, and 2 burgers. The appetizer took 30 minutes before coming out and it was cold. When I politely let the bartender know, I was responded to with another eye roll. They brought it back to the kitchen and it came out 10 minutes later much warmer. About 15 minutes later our burgers came out and were not warm, they seemed as if they had been sitting. In between waiting for food we had tried again to get another round of beers and were ignored while the bartender spent time talking to and serving the other local customers at the same bar. Finally we got the check and left. We decided to try Squires again about 3 months later and had a similar experience with a different bartender, I was surprised about receiving similar treatment. I HIGHLY don't recommend this place at all! If you're not a regular there, don't bother going. The service and the food...