Pond Restaurant — Restaurant in Warner Robins

I want to give 2.5 stars but with the environment I’ll round up. My wife and I have been here twice and both times it’s just ok. After our last experience we will not return. First off the environment/atmosphere is fantastic, decor, lighting, table placement make it seem like you will have a great night out; however the food was less than subpar and the food presentation for price leaves much to be desired. I have been meaning to write this review for over a month but thought maybe we will try again…that’s not the case. Our first outing the food was ok and seemed over priced for the lack taste and presentation; our second trip was more of the same but worse. On our second trip, a date night for my wife and I saw us go to the pond for what we hoped to be a great dinner. We had reservations and was seated promptly; our waitress took our drink orders and brought them promptly and then she takes our appetizer order, entree order and disappears. Shortly thereafter another waitress brings us our appetizer and says our waitress was in a meeting….she delivered our appetizer and moves on. I ordered the ora salmon special, my wife grilled shrimp. After quite a bit of time our appetizer arrives from a different waitress, our entrees quickly follows. Allow me to give a visual, I wish I had taken a picture. Imagine a small piece of salmon, like round 6ish sirloin steak, under cooked and no sauce on a large dinner plate with a plain baked potato next to it. Yes, for the “special” a small under cooked piece of salmon, no sauce yet the menu clearly said sauce and a baked potato just cut in half with butter and sour cream on the side. No sauce, nothing to dress this $45 entree up. I asked the waitress that brought it out “where is the special sauce”, she said she didn’t know bc she didn’t know what I ordered. That’s right bc my waitress was in a “meeting”. I said well it’s raw, she said “you didn’t order it this way”? Um no I like my fish done…so I ordered the special and got a small, undercooked piece of salmon with no special sauce. My wife said her shrimp tasted frozen and not fresh. We never saw our original waitress again, we had 3 different waitresses jump in but none invested in our table. I went to hostess as we were walking out to check the specials and sure enough my salmon was suppose to come with a sauce. I briefly complained to the hostess but it wasn’t her fault, she knew about the situation with our waitress and offered a gift card but honestly I would never use it because the food was not tasty or enjoyable at all. I cannot give them a 1star because there is potential and the bar was very quick to serve….I will never go back and I cannot give more than 2.5 stars due to lack of service, poor presentation of food and...

We were there to celebrate a 74 year olds birthday. This visit (10-1-22) should have been a 4 star. So starting with the hostess not telling me that I would be paged on my cell when our table was ready for our 4pm reservation, that I checked in for at 3:55, we waited unnecessarily for an additional 15 min. I was standing in her view the entire time. When I approached her to get an update, she said "oh we paged you, I thought you left". All while she was walking away from me and as I was explaining to her that she never said that paging my cell was how we would be notified. She totally ignored my statement. No apology. Next she goes to seat us inside, when I asked for outside preference on the reservation. When we got outside she then told us that all their tables are for 4, but we could pull up another chair to the 4 seater table. Looking around that was clearly not true and at that time the patio was only about 30% occupied. There was a 6 seater table that only had 2 chairs, so we (me and my party) pulled 3 chairs to that table. All while the hostess just stood there. Now for our server. Nice as she was, she was not an attentive server. Things that we needed like silverware and drink refills was requested first to her, after a long wait usually one of 2 other servers ended up volunteering to help us the entire visit. We asked her for saucers for the appetizers, by the time she got around to bringing them there was no longer a need. As for our main courses, the food took over an hour. When I asked the first female manager that passed our table if it was normal to wait for food that long, she told me yes. She went on to explain that if I didn't want to wait an hour for my food I need to come on a weekday, because this was just how it goes on a Friday and Saturday. No apology. The male manager was slightly more compassionate when he came by. At the end one of us ordered a slice of cake to go. After another wait, I had to go inside to check on our checks and the cake. Thankfully the food was good. We enjoyed steaks and chicken breasts. The patio is a very nice setting.

*Went back July '23 for Sunday brunch and was pleasantly surprised! The staff were all extremely friendly and helpful. The manager even recognized my face and asked about my last visit. He asked to hear the entire senirio. After telling him, he aplogized and stated that he hopes that this visit is a much better experience. And at was! The Sunday brunch buffet was very tasty and had loads of options. (I personally would not want onions cooked in my grits, but maybe they can add the option of regular grits or even cheese grits in...

The ownership and management have completely failed the staff and business. This is what I heard then saw. The lack of leadership and presence has this place in serious trouble. We arrived for our reservation on time. Only to be seated 45 mins after. When asking the hostess during our wait how much longer it might be, "not much, not much" then when it was at the 40 min mark, I asked what is really going on. I recommended you all should adjust your seating and reservation supportability based on your capacity to support after seeing (and hearing) you are "short handed" and that Mr. Joe, wasn't even there to support/assist/deal with guests as any restaurant owner should be. The Hostess was very pleasant though, and was doing what she could. Then on to the food. First before that, our waitress was very pleasant, but also stressed because the place is being mis-managed. I'll get to that. The food was very sub-par. Thank the Lord I didn't pay for the Sea Bass because the "Grouper" (which was not grouper) from "Indonesia" was dry, thin, not flakey, just bad. The "rice pilaf" was mush. The broccoli for my wife and I tasted like it just came out of the water after sitting for hours, and was soggy and salty. My shrimp were so salty I didn't eat but one of the four. My $17 old fashioned was merely just a 1.5 oz of whiskey, and the martini was syrupy and just not right. When I relayed all of this to our server, she of course welcomed the feedback as any good sever should, took it to the manger, who shaved off 20%. Really? Why in the world would the manager have not engaged the guests directly in the first place?? Where is that leadership? Was not surprising though at all. My server asked if I'd like to speak with "the manager" and what good would that have done honestly. The lack of guest engagement was enough for me to know they do not care. To top it all off, the table near us was also having issues they could not resolve. This is very unfortunate as we visited The Pond when we first move here over a year ago for lunch. It was AMAZING. How someone could run something so good into the ground so fast...