The Cellar Restaurant & Lounge on the River — Restaurant in Town of Owego

Short version: beer was flat, served food that had gone bad. Not returning.

Long version: We have been here several times ( 6+ times) and have generally had a great experience. They have a cute view in the back and interesting food pairings. We visited the cellar most recently for our anniversary dinner, and it was not good. This is why I am changing my rating.

The dinner started off on the wrong foot: My husband ordered a beer. It was the last bit in the keg so 1) there wasn't enough to give him the full glass amount 2) it was completely flat. Not enjoyable at all.

The waitress came with the glass 3/4 full and said, "the bartender apologizes, as this was the last bit in the keg. He will get you a new one. He is opening a new keg".

Well... a "new beer" turned out to be the waitress bringing us a small sampler like glass (the type you get for beer tasting) to make up for the 1/4 beer that was missing. Like common! Just dump the last flat beer and get the customer an actual full glass of non flat beer.

We decided to let that go and enjoy our night. We did not bring up how flat it was or make a fuss over this. We were just going to forget about it and drink flat beer lol.

Next issue: we were served coleslaw that had gone totally rancid. This time, we informed the waitress. She took it back to the chef to try and said he confirmed, "yes it is borderline. He is just going to throw it out". Not borderline. It was inedible and they knew it.

No apology, no offering of a new side. This is not the type of service to expect from a "nice restaurant".

This experience has completely turned off a loyal customer. I Hope the owner/manager sees this and makes some changes, as I would want to know how my employees are treating cutomers and dealing with these sorts of situations.

Overall, our bill came to $100. We still tipped 20% despite the issues to support those in the restaurant business/service industry, but I am never...

Our reservation was at 5:00, we were waiting in line while people were walking in for take out orders and they were being taken care of before we were finally seated at 5:20. Then were seated right next to the rest rooms. The waiter took our orders for our drinks and appetizers. Our appetizers arrived before our drinks. I ordered the prime rib for 2 that should have come with a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, but whe he brought us the bill and questioned him why we did not receive the champagne and strawberries, he replied with that I did not right order the right one but still got charged the full $55 of the "special". My wife spoke up when the hostess came to pick up our payment, to ask about our bill about the champagne and strawberries and she said that he must have been confused and brought us the champagne and strawberries in which she said that she threw in one extra strawberry for the misunderstanding in which the strawberries were small in the first place. The prime rib that I received should not have been priced at $55 for the piece that I received. This was supposed to be a special romantic dinner for my wife and myself. We have been there several times prior to this and were very pleased and that's why we decided to have dinner at your establishment. We were very disappointed with our visit tonight, on what was supposed to be a special Valentines Day dinner. It will be a while...

This has been my mother’s favorite restaurant for over 30 years. I recently took her there while I was visiting and we had a terrible experience. It took over an hour after we ordered to receive our meals. During that time the server did not once come over and say anything to us. I’m no restaurant pro, but from my experiences in many other restaurants I would think the server would have come over multiple times and updated us. And check to see if our drinks needed refreshing, and probably even offer us some bread or an appetizer. None of this happened. And there was no apology at any point in the process. At the time, the restaurant was half full and there were at least three servers in the area we were sitting in. So I really can’t think of any reasonable excuse for ignoring us. When the food finally came it was very good, as we expected. But it was hard to enjoy it at that point. My mother, as a long time customer, was quite upset.

So I hate to do this but I don’t know how else to get this message across. On our way out we tried to tell the owners about our experience and were brushed off without an apology. I called 9 days ago about this and still have not received a call back. I very rarely, if ever, write negative reviews but I feel this message needs to be heard by both potential customers...