THE SAWMILL.
– The location is a dream, as it overlooks the south end of Canandaigua Lake across to steep hills, and there is even a dock for boaters with an appetite to tie up their craft.
– The place and it's furnishings are rustic and welcoming with the promise of a delightful experience. It is well laid out and beautifully built. There is even a unique and lovingly painted mural on one of the walls depicting the location.
– The menu is very limited, which is fine, and typically a sign that EVERYTHING is prepared with care and expertise.
BUT:
We might have said that it was OK to good, simply due to the location, except for several details that made us feel unwelcome, uncared for, and unsatisfied.
— We saw a couple of people leave before we mounted the stairs to the entrance, and once inside we were pointedly told that we just missed the dinner rush. It was 7:30 and the place was empty.
— The waitress told us they'd been open for 6 summers, when it actually opened in 2011. Let's see, that's, um, one summer ago?
— Fresh fried chips were tasty but WET.
— Bruschetta was OK, but it's the first creamy WHITE bruschetta I have ever seen.
— The meatloaf was drowning in too much red sauce.
— I must say the deep fried pickles were super delicious.
HERE's what REALLY turned us off:
– One of our guests ordered a turkey pot pie. What can go wrong with that, you say?
– It was SALTED beyond palatability. While we are four individuals with very different tastes and preferences in food, but three of us tasted it and agreed... NOT EDIBLE. Seriously, I've licked water softener pellets as a child that didn't hold a candle to this.
– Our guest chose a different dinner, and we told the waitress that we felt the pot pie was overly salty and asked her to please put in an order for a DIFFERENT dish. She was very nice and took the pie back.
– Several minutes later she returned and asked if we wanted to put in the order for the other dinner. Thought we'd just done that. WHAT? Translate: THE CHEF TOLD HER TO CHARGE US FOR THE INEDIBLE MEAL, THEN ADD THE CHARGE FOR THE NEW ORDER ON TOP OF IT. We were stunned. Not wanting our guest from several states away (we ourselves live right up the road) to come away hungry, we DID put in the other order, which our guest changed to a simple burger in the mean time because the rest of us had finished and she felt awkward eating alone.
– All of us have eaten at 5-star establishments and dirty-water-dog-street-carts alike, BUT NONE of us have experienced a meal returned for being unacceptable being thrown in our face and charged for. A simple “sorry” would have gone a long way, and not charging for the meal would have been the common, hospitable (not to mention smart business) practice.
In the end, I wished we had stayed home and eaten leftovers. I was so steaming mad that I swore I would write a colorful and scathing review.
Don't waste your time or money on The Sawmill unless you feel like taking a chance. Just bring your own peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sit out on the town dock and you will feel loved and pampered aplenty. Actually, I hope I'm wrong and we just had a bad experience. A chef's or an owner's bad attitude can break a place like this.
Oh, and the next time you see a deer salt-lick at Tractor Supply,...
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