Sue P.
Yelp
Dear Bill And Corinna, Below is the review I left for you on Google. It's a shame if you haven't seen my far more detailed review of our experience there, but not to worry, as I'm more than happy to copy and paste on Yelp for you and anyone else to see. I was also anticipating your snarky, inaccurate response because as I scrolled through your reviews on both Google and Yelp you seem incapable of taking ownership of your poor service and quality. Also not every business in VT is struggling, this is a terrible excuse for your lack of management skills all around. There are many amazing restaurants in VT, the only one who seems to be struggling in the general area is The Barnard Inn. CHEERS!
We've owned a vacation/ rental house in VT since 2019 and we were excited to finally check out the Barnard Inn for dinner last night, Wednesday, July 26th, for Burger night. Unfortunately our experience was not a good one and we will not be returning and will not be including it as a suggestion for our Airbnb guests. The hostess greeted my family of 4 (2 kids, 2 adults) and asked if we wanted to sit inside or outside, the inside was cute, there was only 1 small table available outside plus it was getting cool out so we opted for inside. She kindly told us it would be a few minutes so we sat and waited. Several minutes went by and a different woman who was handling both the bar and some of the tables came over asking us how many in our party and if we wanted inside or outside. I later learned this woman was Corinna, one of the owners. I told her inside and I pointed to an empty table that simply needed to be cleaned off and asked her if we could sit there. Her response was, and I quote, "Absolutely, just give us a few minutes to clean it off." The hostess cleaned it, poured four glasses of water, grabbed menus and set us at the table. Within 2 minutes of being seated at the table, Corinna came back over and said to us while pointing to the hostess, "I'm so sorry, she made a mistake, you can't sit here, it's my only large table, you'll have to wait for a smaller table. Thanks for understanding." My response was, "Well actually I don't..." So not only were we being asked to move, but she was blaming a "mistake" on the hostess when she specifically told us we could have the table that I asked for - I heard it, my husband heard it and our 9yr old daughter heard it. I was immediately put off because mistake or not, you do not sit a party of 4 that includes 2 kids - or any party for that matter, and then ask them to get up and go back to the waiting area. The only table available outside was still the small very wobbly table on the grass, we did try that, but it wasn't feasible with 2 kids who move around a lot. If Toziers was open on a Wednesday we would have left and gone there because their service is always outstanding, but we were all starving and at this point it was 730pm. We finally got sat, it took at least 10 minutes for a waitress to come over and instead of a friendly greeting she said, "What do you guys want?" Our daughter immediately said after she left, "Well that was rude." No one came over to ask how our food was once we got it, when our 9yr old needed more ketchup she literally got up and got it herself - they don't have ketchup bottles, just those tiny squeeze packets and a few of them looked spoiled and came out chunky and gross, and the only staff who was friendly and apologetic for the seating situation was the hostess. To boot the burgers were mediocre at best, (Toziers and The Worthy Burger are far better for a burger and far better service), and a 20% tip was automatically included to the bill when 15% wasn't even deserved. And to top it all off, the table that we were asked to get up from remained empty the entire time we were there, and I made sure to snap a picture of its emptiness before we walked out. I did make a point to let the hostess know that we all knew the situation wasn't her fault and that the owner needed to learn a thing or two about customer service. Needless to say we will not be returning or including it on our list of suggested restaurants for our Airbnb guests.
Meanwhile I went through some reviews and it's VERY apparent the owners can't take responsibility for their poor quality or handle criticism - every response on the negative reviews is ignorant and snarky. Instead of being rude and defensive towards everyone who was disappointed with your lack of quality you should be apologizing for not adequately providing what people came to your restaurant for, figuring out how to rectify it and turning them into happy customers who want to come back. There are so many amazing restaurants in VT with fantastic food and service, but this is not one of them.
Lastly, as someone who owns and runs a successful business back in MA, I would never have the audacity to treat any paying client the way we were treated at the Barnard Inn.