Cassidy R.
Yelp
A group of us visited this restaurant on a Saturday night recently and while the food/ views of the lake were good, the service was pretty terrible. When we arrived, we knew that there would most likely be a wait for outside seating given that it was a weekend and peak season. We were told the wait for outdoor seating was 40 minutes and we headed to the bar to wait for our table. There was only one seat available at the bar, so one of our group sat down and the rest of us planned to stand and grab a drink. When we went to order drinks, the bartender told us that we could not stand at the bar because it was against their insurance policy...which seemed completely unfathomable. I could understand this if the place was at capacity (it was not) or if the bar was 2-3 people deep waiting for drinks (it wasn't). I totally understand capacity issues in a restaurant, but never had I heard of not being able to stand at a bar while waiting for a table. This was a red flag for us but given that it was late and our names were in, we went elsewhere to wait for the table.
When we returned to Garwood's for dinner a while later, we gave our name to the hostess and she escorted us to our INDOOR table. Now, we specifically asked for outdoor seating when we arrived and proceeded to wait 40 minutes for that seating as opposed to the 20-minute wait for indoor seating. When we clarified with the hostess, she completely blamed one of us in our group, claiming that we had asked for "first available" seating. This never happened and the fact that she was blaming the customer was a huge issue for us. After a few minutes, she rudely let us know that we would have to wait yet another 20 minutes for outdoor seating since we didn't clarify with her at the beginning. The second time around, we were able to all get seats at the bar and we waited for our table.
When we finally sat down to eat, all of the other tables were finishing up and paying their bills. While we were waiting for our food, waitresses were busy rushing around and starting closing procedures. Now granted, we were sat close to closing time, but to start shutting down the patio while our group and another group were still waiting for food doesn't exactly scream "welcoming".
Overall, I would skip this place just based on the service we received. We never received an apology for the seating mixup or the extra wait time and the food wasn't good enough to warrant a return trip.