Stuart & John's Sugar House — Restaurant in Westmoreland

i’ve been coming to stuart & john’s for years. it’s a splurge but the bottomless complimentary homemade maple syrup always made it worth it. today my friends and i came in on a double date, our first time back since they reopened for boiling season. i like to hope that today’s experience was an outlier as typically we enjoy ourselves despite the longer waits, but since our server was the owner i’m not certain we’d get different treatment were we to return.

my group of four was sat promptly, but it took a while for our waitress robyne to greet us, her only table. so long that she came with her note pad asking what we wanted for both food and drink (she likely realized we’d had plenty of time to review the menu and make selections, no apology for her delay in greeting us). after i ordered, i made sure to ask if she wrote it down correctly as i’ve had proteins omitted in error prior and wanted to be sure - she did not repeat orders back to us upon transcribing, something she would later claim.

our next interaction with robyne / the owner was at least 50 minutes later (young servers brought our drinks as robyne was busy doing anything but checking on us) where we again received no apology for the wait. her unprompted, cheerful explanation for the delay was “the burgers have to cook 5 minutes each side” as if that made up for the fact we’d been waiting nearly an hour. she brought my boyfriend the entirely wrong meal and made things very uncomfortable when he pointed it out to her. again, no apology. someone else brought out his food when the rest of our party were finishing our meals. we’re not ones to ask for handouts or complain (because awkward) but if any, this seemed like an appropriate occasion to take my boyfriend’s meal off the bill.

i approached robyne at the ice cream counter upon paying our tab as i felt compelled to calmly and politely relay how disappointed we were because it seemed like she had no idea anything was wrong. instead of understanding, she doubled down that the reason our meals took close to an hour to be served was because the burgers (only one ordered at our table) take ten minutes to cook? and that the reason several other tables came, ate and left within our wait time was because what we ordered was too complicated (normal breakfast items, one burger and one special). to me, that doesn’t really make sense and it just felt like she was too embarrassed to admit maybe she forgot to put in our food order because she was too busy doing owner things behind the scenes. it felt very dismissive and unprofessional. she was unwilling to accept accountability for an overall disappointing experience.

robyne did offer us free ice cream (??) after our conversation but still didn’t want to admit any fault. instead this ended up being the first time in my life i did not tip. unless you count the $3 fee for not using cash (bringing our total to $89 for 4)… not sure we will be back, especially since the prices have skyrocketed and portions have shrunk. sad.

edit: i now see the owner responds to all google reviews, good or bad. i’m hoping she won’t be disrespectful, dismissive, or dishonest about our experience to try and make it seem like we were the problem in reply. had the situation been handled cordially when our concerns were voiced politely, this review would not have...

Very disappointing. Went with my family and waited well over an hour after being told 40 minutes. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meals which was great but I didn’t enjoy mine. I got a simple veggie omelet and it tasted bad. Veggies were fresh. It looked great but whatever oil they used tasted reused or old and it overtook my meal and covered my omelet in grease. I tried two bites and even put hot sauce on it to hide the flavor but it didn’t work. I picked it apart to test the veggies which were good. I complained and asked for a refund. I ate three pieces of bread and two cups of coffee and the potatoes were cold and hard as well. The manager insisted I hate half of it and gave me only half my money back. I was very angry and extremely disappointed that they lost a customer over a $9 difference after spending $150 with them. Poor customer service on the managers part. The servers were great but unfortunately I will never visit their establishment again. Very unfortunate. And disappointing that they hold no accountability, concern or empathy for their locals.

You clearly could care less. You’re callus humans. Such a shame people like you exist. Fortunately you have a lot of customers with...

We just ordered ice cream there and it was not a pleasant experience. First the girl taking the order couldn't comprehend that I wanted 3 different flavored scoops in one bowl. Then I order two identical Razzles with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.

Thats where the fun really begins! The girl making the Razzle then made a Reese Pieces Razzle. She looked absolutely dumbfounded when I gave it back to her and asked for the one that I ordered. The girl that took the order apparently had to explain the difference between the two Reeses products to her.

I then get two cups of milk with two ground up Peanut Butter cups and two whole Peanut Butter Cups. I was trying to figure out why I got a straw given to me for soft serve ice cream but I soon figured it out.

For $16.00 I got two small cups of sweet milk and 8 Peanut Butter cups.

Not sure what happened because they used to give you a real serving for the amount of money you spent and the product was properly made.

So sad to see things fall apart like that there. They have always...