Hoof & Barrel — Restaurant in York

Went back and forth on leaving a bad review for this place. We love eating here. It's local, the food is good and everyone is always friendly. I'm not gonna tear into it, but last night was not an experience like we're used to. We got there and surprisingly got a table for 4 right away. So it started off good. Then nothing..... more nothing... 15 minutes went by as waitresses walked right by us multiple multiple times. Finally, my wife embarrassingly had to just holler out. Which got the attention of the entire restaurant and finally a waitress. The young woman was very friendly, and told us that she didn't know that we hadn't been waited on yet. I get it, places have off nights. I'm not sure how they're set up here, but you'd think the dining room would be sectioned for the poor girls to make it easier for them to keep track of what's going on with the tables. We got our drinks promptly and put our order in. We thought everything was back on track. Then more nothing, and more nothing, and more nothing. Literally one hour later, I was checking my watch, we still hadn't gotten our food. We told her at this point that we just wanted to get it to go because it was 8 pm. Keep in mind we get there around 640. I totally get the kitchen being slow, but an hour? 100$ is a lot to spend on 2 adults and 2 kids for dinner at a burger place especially when you wait so long that you eventually have to give up on it and just leave. I think it's crazy how I've we said we just were gonna get it to go, the food amazingly appeared. If I wanted to eat dinner from a Styrofoam tray at my house I could have saved myself an hour and a half and a lot of money. Like I said we loved this place until last night. That's the only reason it's a 2 star and not 1. Had that been our first time there this review would have been much more harsh. Needless to say We won't be going...

Very disappointed in the quality of the food and service. I ordered the pulled pork (“hog heaven”) and baked potato and could only pick through the lukewarm warm fatty pulled pork and tough skinned baked potato. Fatty pulled pork means it needed to be slow cooked longer. The baked potatoes were very small and mine had the toughest skin I have ever been served. That means it sat under the heat lamp too long. Plus the temperature of both items were lukewarm warm at best. The temperature of the food didn’t upset me, I can eat cold food, but the quality along with the lack of acknowledgment from the server was a major disappointment.

I did eat the center of the potato and left the tough, curled edged, dry skin. I had the pork spread out on my plate as I tried to find a few tender, lean pieces. It was visually apparent with the amount of food on my plate that I barely ate any pork.

Our table was near the kitchen entrance and our server walked by multiple times but never looked at us. She went out of her way to avoid having to do her job. The only time she had checked on us was immediately after our food was brought out to see if she could get us anything else… condiments and napkins. She had to notice my plate, my friends did, they asked what was wrong with my food, why wasn’t I eating?

My group of 5-7 friends used to come here at least every couple months or more and we all go out for dinner at least twice a week. This used to be a favorite and we’d celebrate here for each of our birthdays. We were noticing the food quality slowly diminishing, all the baked potatoes are now small, and prices have increased. Add poor service to the mix and that’s enough to keep me and the crew from...

Your Stingy with the Stars local guide here (That's going to be the name of my restaurant review TV show coming to YouTube near you sometime never).

This is our first time at Hoof & Barrel. A restaurant has to knock both of my socks off to get a five-star rating on the first visit. These guys knocked off one whole sock and the second one was rolled down a little bit.

The exterior was not awe inspiring. Looks like they converted a previous, perhaps lower rent restaurant. Don't let that throw you off. It's also not lavish inside, but it's nice nicely enough appointed. The menu is clever. The clever menu is nice if the food lives up to the billing. And it does.

It's not all beef. The menu there's fairly extensive, with chicken, fish, and sandwiches to steaks.

We started with the breadboard appetizer. It had two substantial pretzels with queso, and they were excellent. Also a small loaf of more non-descript bread with pimento cheese, and it was okay but not awesome.

The sweet tea was definitely five star, fresh and sweet enough without being soda pop.

This was a late lunch, not quite late enough for early dinner, so I went with the Philly cheese steak chicken. It makes up the bulk of my four-star rating. It was very good, maybe not quite the best I've ever had. The accompanying chips were equally good.

York is about a 45 minute drive from home, so not in our regular orbit. We were there to vote early at the government center. That may well be what brings us back next time, and we will return to the Hoof and Barrel when we do. Probably not quite enough to drag us out of the home...