Samuel Slater's Restaurant — Restaurant in Webster

Just Wow! This place is a local home run!

I never review a place till we've been there at least 5 times, because you can get great service 1 time & lousy the next. A couple dining visits isn't always indicative of how a restaurant or its staff truly is. Anyone can have good or bad days, & that could directly translate into bad service or bad tasting food. Today I'm going to break my tradition & review Slater's after only 3 visits.

This place is absolutely awesome!

Each time we've been there, the staff, food, kitchen, managers & the views have been nothing short of amazing.

The Staff:

Every employee here is always smiling, so nice & helpful. From the workers in the front who take your name, seat you, or help answer gift shop questions, to the waitstaff & kitchen staff (I always call out "Great Job!" to the kitchen staff & give them a "thumbs up 👍". They always say "TY" & give me the thumbs up back.). Everyone is just so nice & great at their jobs there.

All the waitresses we've had serve us have been so kind & attentive. They'll ask how everything is, answer questions, refill drinks quickly & do so with a smile. Every appetizer is brought quickly & the food is always served hot. Wonderful wait staff.

The Managers:

A restaurant's staff is a direct reflection upon the management team. Kudos and 2 thumbs up to Slater's owners & management team. You've done a tremendous job teaching & training your staff & keeping everything spotlessly clean & consistent. Can't praise you enough.

Now, let me ask you (the reader) this... When was the last time you've been to a restaurant & the manager was cleaning tables? 😳 Yeup! The manager was cleaning tables! I asked her if she was the owner, & she said she was a manager. Yeah, we couldn't believe it either. #Impressed

The Food:

Sooooo good! You can tell that all fresh ingredients are used & everything is seasoned & cooked perfectly, just as you've ordered it. Everything we've gotten has been served hot & spot on delicious! We can't wait to get back there & try something else on the menu. We already have this Friday night slated in for a "date night" at Slater's. 😁

Cleanliness:

This place is spotless! The walls, the ceilings, the floors, the little gift shop, the kitchen, the tables & chairs, the outside areas, the dining patio, the bathrooms... EVERYTHING was spotless! They definitely pride themselves on cleanliness. Sadly, not many restaurants do. This alone has us wanting to go back again.

The Atmosphere:

What an absolutely cool place to chill. You can sit at the bar & watch the games with friends on the big screens, or take a romantic date to, out on the patio overlooking the lake. And with all the friendly staff, it just has the coolest, most relaxing Vibe.

Drinks:

We can't speak to the drinks, because we don't drink alcohol & never have. We had a Pepsi, a ginger ale respectively & water with lemon. All were good.

The bar area itself is a sharp little area that was clean & has a few big screens with the games playing. There's plenty of places to sit & they have this awesome, long, standing only, wooden table with the entire lake's name printed on it. It's so very nice & classy/cool. So if you're bar area sitters, you're sure to like Slater's.

Lastly, the Views:

In a word... WOW! What an absolutely picturesque & beautiful view! A great place to go, relax, destress & have a great meal. Looking out at the gorgeous lake & trees is so calming & peaceful. The beautiful old world paddle boat is so cool to take in too. Watching the boaters pass by & sharing hello waves back n forth was so cool. Nothing but nice people all around. An ideal place for a 1st date.

All I can say is we will definitely be back & definitely be regulars now. We couldn't be happier with Slater's & it may just become our new favorite restaurant. We simply couldn't recommend this place more.

Thank you to all the employees at Slater's. It is each of you that make this place shine & has us wanting to come back. A restaurant is only as good as its employees & Slater's...

Monday evening dinner while on vacation. Arrive at the perfect time to get a seat on the deck. Sun setting, nice breeze, just beautiful. Waitress takes our orders for a drink and an appetizer, encourages us to order our meals, said we will wait. Drinks arrive, appetizer shortly thereafter. Everything that comes to the table has an edible flower including a $9 appetizer- it does not deserve an edible flower - just saying. We order our meals, prime rib special for my husband, pan seared scallops for me . The meals arrive. The presentation on the scallops are incredible- cooked perfectly. The prime rib - not so much. Looks like its been microwaved - you know mousy brown around the edges, barely pink middle - not medium rare by any stretch. I ask my husband for a piece to try and as I said, microwaved - like eating chalk. Terrible. Not sure what is so hard for a restaurant to get a prime rib special done correctly - but not happening here. Tell the waitress, she says I will send over the manager. In the meantime we watch as the waitress delivers an order of 3 - $32.00 filet mignon dinners to the table across from us - all are sent back -overdone. What - 3 filet mignons all overcooked? Who is running the kitchen, can you imagine what that mistake was in regards food costs? The manager never shows up, the waitress comes back and offers a dessert in lieu - no the manager is not coming! Okay, we say. Brings over a dessert to go - 1" x 3" slice of lemon thyme cake with two dots of whipped cream - I kid you not. We left it on the table. Walking out we caught up with the manager and explained the situation - she provided a gift card. Not sure what the deal is here, the waitress was clearly inexperienced, hey everyone needs to start somewhere - but when your wait staff is pushing $25 and up entrees, they better be good. The manager refusing to come to the table was unacceptable - however when we did catch up with her recognized it wasn't her fault. Clearly she has been put into a position she has no business being in - inexperienced and extremely young - not that being young in and of itself is a problem - but in this case the fact that she was inexperienced AND young was likely the reason she wouldn't come to the table to discuss the meal. We will come back (not just because of the gift card in lieu of the prime rib) but because we always like to give a restaurant a second chance particularly when one of the meals was so spectacular. We are so pleased the Ranch has added a restaurant and banquet facility to their repertoire - but guys step it up, hire a manager that manages and an experienced waitstaff - or try training them, according to other reviews it seems to be hit or miss with the waitstaff, training would definitely help. Oh and the kitchen line needs a good steak person, one that knows the difference between medium rare and medium well, might help...

I’ve been wanting to try this restaurant for awhile and finally was able to make it happen last night. I truly wanted to give another half star but couldn’t...first I’ll start with the initial impression: the young ladies working the hostess station were sweet and greeted us with big smiles and our reservation for 6:15 was ready when we entered at 6:05. The restaurant is beautiful, upscale casual, warm and inviting. We were met at the table by our server which was nice and given water, warm bread and garlic dipping oil which was delicious. From there our service was up and down, she was very sweet but there were periods of time I felt she could have been more attentive- As we did wait awhile for drinks. We tried the leap day spritzer I believe it was called and in my opinion it tasted like orange soda and was about the equivalent to two shot glasses of liquid. The old fashioned was strong but I like that. We tried the chef choice tapas which was escargot. While it was an appealing presentation and the escargot was tender and the flavor was nice it was not traditionally served and the bread it was constructed on was too hard, which made it difficult to eat. I enjoyed it however my two family members did not as they are more experienced with “traditional” escargot. Our food did take awhile to come and the drinks we ordered were not enough portion wise to carry us through this time so we basically sat there sipping water rather than sipping a drink like we normally would do between courses. We all elected vodka cranberry cocktails as our food came and they were standard size and ok. The presentation was beautiful of our meals. We tried the pork shank, the Alaskan salmon and the special Baja Haddock. All of us were underwhelmed. My mothers asparagus with her salmon was so salty she couldn’t eat it, we thought she was being sensitive and tried it and we agreed as well. The pork shank was beautiful but I was told it tasted the equivalent of a “New England pot roast” and wasn’t what they expected BUT it wasn’t bad either. Large portion of homemade potatoes that are similar to what your mom would make which had a nostalgic feel. Comfort food elevated was my opinion of her meal. My Baja haddock was lost in translation. The fish itself with a little pepper had a great flavor but the pico de gallo (?) which is what I believe it was added nothing to the fish, the cabbage had a good flavor but the plain white rice was just empty carbohydrates as it didn’t do anything for the dish in any way. I found myself cleaning the fish off and just leaving the other ingredients on the plate which turned out to be half my meal. All in all it was just a Mehhhh meal and for $184 (with tip) for three people we will probably not be returning. I really wanted to like this place as I have been searching for a new summer time date night/girls night spot for the future but I left very...