I think it says something that I joined yelp just to write this review. My experience was so emotional that I needed a place to vent my experience. If you read no further just know this: STAY AWAY FROM THE BOSTON HOTEL!!! We came here tonight because someone in our family had a groupon that was expiring soon. Since we had heard decent things about the boston hotel on genesee, we were reasonably hopeful. Mistake number one. The decor is divey in more of a hazmat suit sort of way than cool. While we waited for someone to come take our drink orders I observed many a thing that I'm pretty sure we're NOT up to code for this decade or many before them. They had a table in the way of an exit door...solution? Take the "exit" word off the exit sign! Nice. I saw electrical cords that looked more fried than their fish, and the whole place needed a serious cleaning. Inches of dust were on the walls and decor. Our drink orders came and after asking about a few options on the menu, I was told they were out of about ten different things, which left me with very few options. I opted for the shrimp scampi, while other family members got steak, a fish fry and a chicken meal that was on special that night. We sat and waited, watching everyone around us get food and since the place was so busy we hoped the food would redeem the initial experience. Wrong. My shrimp came oddly paired with salt potatoes, veggies, a roll and pasta. Why the overkill of starch I don't know. The veggies tasted overcooked, frozen and bland. Perhaps freezer burnt? The roll was stale and soggy. The "salt" potatoes had that distinct taste of an old potato, were NOT salted and the butter they used had a bizarre taste. The shrimp came in a pool of grease and some sad linguine noodles. Now, I'm Italian so I know what scampi should and should not taste like. This was a prime example of the latter. The sauce was 100% grease. It had no flavor besides that of fake butter. The noodles were overlooked and stuck together (which is impressive with that much lubrication). I tried the shrimp and it was clearly frozen not fresh, chewy and had a bizarre not shrimp like taste. I went to try another piece and noticed they hadn't even cleaned them. Done. I stopped eating then and there. Meanwhile, the chicken special which sounded intriguing with mention of prosciutto and Marsala was another horror show. I have never tasted prosciutto like this before but it tasted like meat that had all the life sucked out of and was again, chewy. The sauce had separated on the plate and what I tasted was thick and way too salty. I only mustered a bite, and the person who ordered it didn't get much further. The waitress came back and noticed how it wasn't being eaten. She said she would take it off the bill, offered to bring a fish fry and stated that they're specials aren't usually very good. I was speechless. The pasta salad with the fish fry tasted like plastic...which is the best description any of us could come up with after we all taste it. The steak was bland, tough and blatantly frozen before. Throughout this experience all I could think of were shows like Restaurant Impossible and how this was a prime example of a meal that would have Robert Irvines head exploding. The icing on the cake was when we came home and looked the place up on dicey dining. Maybe it's just time to call it quits Boston Hotel! clearly there is a reason a groupon was offered and now we know why. Don't waste your time or money making the mistake we did. read more

Awful.. if I could give 0 stars I would.. lazy staff, garbage food, dull atmosphere.. I think I saw the owner slamming down a few drinks, so yeah, there's that. My burger was.. a bun, some meat, and a heap of grease.. my brother's burger was burned to a crisp.. won't be eating here again read more

Just got back from taking my boyfriend for his birthday dinner at the boston hotel. Hands down the worst dining experience i have EVER had. The tables were disgusting, with crumbs and grime stuck underneath the glass on the table and around the glass. Spit wads on the wall. Dirt and dust on the ceiling above us. Could barely see because they had one lamp to light up the entire side of the "restaurant". Then the service. It took an hour to get our food (we were the only table there), during which time the waitress didn't come to refill our drinks, but instead sat on her cell phone at a nearby booth where we could hear her entire conversation. Our food was cold, burnt and the butter was frozen. Then after we were done eating our food, we waited 15 minutes before I had to go ask for the waitress to get our check and a box. Needless to say I am very upset after wasting our hard earned money on food and service that was horrendous, and without a doubt will never return to that establishment. ZERO STARS! read more

Terrible. Went there with groupon. No wait staff avaioable, cook came out to take our oder. I ordered lobster tail. It was so tuff and dry I needed a steaknife to cut it. Tasted terrible. "Salt potatos looked like regular potatoes, large and tasteless. Served with canned corn. All I ate was the dinner roll and a little lobster I managed to scrape up. My husband got shrimp scampi. It was served over pasta, basically flavorless.. They gave a choice of potato with it. He ordered french fries, which were all he ate, with some of the shrimp. After this place burned down years ago, it should have stayed that way. Too bad, could be nice place if they knewnwhat they were doing. read more

If I could give this place less than one star, I would. The whole place is disgustingly dirty....I mean, the table was sticky, the bathroom was awful, the walls were greasy, and there were flies everywhere. It was dark, extremely outdated and just uncomfortable. We sat down and left before our server took our drink orders....it was that bad. read more

My husband and I ordered the steak and lobster tail Friday night special for $24.99 each, We were unable to use our Groupon coupon because it can't be used on specials (?) according to the owner.We found that out when we tried to use it with our payment. The meal itself was less than appetizing. There was no salad, bread was one piece of packaged roll, baked potato was old and vegetables were cool and rubbery, obviously were packaged frozen type. The lobster tail was very small and mushy. The strip steak was fairly good. The waitress was busy but very attentive. The owner was not receptive to our complaints and said there was nothing she could do about the Groupon coupon and actually chided us for not telling the waitress earlier that we would be using the coupon and were disappointed in the meal...lesson learned on our part. We will not be going back there. read more

I wasted my time going there and hate to waste more time writing this BUT be warned the BAD reviews are true .... they served me frozen RAW clams, charged extra for sauce, 2 orders were delivered to wrong table and later brought to me because the bartender said she was BUSY ( doing shots with her friend) and when I used too much HOT sauce and asked for a glass of water because I didn't want to chug my cocktail / she told me I had to buy a bottle of water because they don't serve tap during SPECIALS. Please there is nothing special about this place. read more

We eat here about every other month or so. Stopped in last nite for clams( price has gone up to $6.95 doz. bcuz of red tide) & have a couple of drinks. 10 tables or so w/ customers and ONE WAITRESS. This is not the first time for that . There is a regular waitress who was off ( or did she quit?) who can handle it..she is hopping busy..but we had a young 19-20ish girl who just kept apologizing all nite . She told us she was the waitress,busboy,cook,and dishwasher....and that it was a " mess back there".WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT THEN. The owner was sitting @ the bar drinking and did not once attempt to bus tables.. Do drink service- except his own! Another customer got up & brought us menus . We did our own bartending. The bartender was seating customers & setting tables. So...really poor service. Not the fault of the overworked waitress. The food.....after an extremely long wait...clams are good. Roast beef on weck average..We ordered chicken wings.were an ok size..they were cooked properly.But they were terrible. Some wacky tomato paste sauce? Sort of thick on some..not on others. The blue cheese was a thin dressing, not a wing dip. It's just a shame..since this is a local dive treasure...at times....lately the lack of attention to the place & it's customers is evident to us.My advice is to use up your groupons because this place won't be in buisness much longer...as long as the owner is oblivious to what is going on in the dining room....so who is managing the kitchen? 2 young 20 something's?.. Like the waitress said ...it's a mess back there... read more

My wife and I planned a nice Friday evening dinner. I happened upon the Groupon website earlier in the day and saw an ad for the Boston Hotel. Figuring to give a local business our trade, I bought a $15.00 coupon worth $25. After a very disappointing meal of soggy cool previously frozen vegetables, baked potatoes that had obviously been under a heat lamp or in a steamer pan for hours, and soggy lobster tails (the strip steak was acceptable), I presented the waitress with my Groupon (coupon), wishing to just pay the bill and put this behind us. The waitress took the Groupon but returned soon to tell us the Groupon could not be used for the 'special' dinners we had just eaten. The owner then came to our table and told us that we should have told the waitress earlier that we had a Groupon and that there was nothing she could do about it... get that? - THERE WAS NOTHING THE OWNER COULD DO ABOUT IT. I did not expect an offer to amend the tab in any way, but I certainly did expect her to accept my Groupon. Although my wife and I had decided earlier that we would not say anything about the sub-standard $50.00 dinner and just leave, we decided then not to leave without expressing our displeasure and disappointment. The owner actually chided us on our reluctance to bring the sub-standard dinners to her attention earlier. I do want to add that the waitress was attentive to us and very apologetic about the whole matter and we left her our standard 20% tip. I must say the waitress behaved in a manner more befitting a proprietor than did the owner herself. All in all, a very distasteful experience (pun intended). read more

had a groupon coupon so thats why we went. place was filthy.my glass came so dirty that i drank out of the bottle. after that was concerned about the dishes we were served on.our waitress did not know specials, think one of the owners just pulled an older family member to waitress/hostess (not on the ball)...had to get up and look for specials ourselves at the bar.food was awful i remember the old boston hotel having a great prime rib sandwich, this came all sliced no flavor.husband had a blue bacon burger. bacon looked like it was cooked day before or deep fried. so dark in the back where we ate that again I'm sure lights were turned down for a reason... use the bathroom before you get there. sad to say don't bother going. i wouldn't even use my certificate to down shots at the bar.my advice give the coupon to someone you don't like... should be rated zero stars. read more

Would give 0 stars but not an option. Went a few weeks ago with my family, about 8-10 of us as we heard good things and wanted to try it out. Walked into the dining room and when our first reaction was to laugh and walk out we should have. Room was big enough for about 20 people if that, poor lighting and was very cluttered and un organized. Sat down ordered our food after waiting 15 minutes for the waitress who walked past us several times and never acknowledged us at all. There was 2 other tables in the restaurant at the time. The food was fast to come out but I can see why now. Over the course of about 25 minutes she brought ONE plate out at a time. My sister and I ordered chicken fingers they were cold stringy and horrible. Mozzarella sticks came out hard as a rock and cold. The seafood alfredo looked appealing but that was about it. The seafood was still frozen and the shrimp still had the tails on them. Alfredo was plain and very bland and noodles tasted as if they sat in dirty water all day. My husband ordered prime rib and salt potatoes the potatoes were cold and hard and the meat was cold and raw. Had them throw it back on and it came back out with hair on it. Brother in law ordered the jumbo burger they forgot his fries and the outside of the burger was charred black hard as a rock and the inside was bright red and bleeding. Asked for mayonnaise waited 20 minutes for the waitress to bring it and they brought miracle whip. Chicken scampi was so unappealing to the eye that my sister wouldn't even touch it. The chicken looked like an aged piece of salmon and was hard. They forgot half of the things we ordered and after waiting 20 minutes for everyone to finally get their food why even bother bringing it or asking. Just wanted to choke down what was edible (which wasn't much. The french fries they didn't forget about were cold, raw and soggy and the stuffed banana peppers came out in a bowl which they were drowning in grease and tasted like the inside of the cooler.) My husband ordered clams and lobster dainties and said those were good and edible but that was about it. Even the dinner rolls were stale! After choking down one single chicken finger I had the worst stomach ache and after that made the mistake of looking under the table. The place was filthy. Thankfully we didn't use the bathrooms there I can only imagine what they looked like. They took the things we didnt receive but ordered off the bill along with my husbands hairy prime rib and the bill was still over $200 not including gratuity. Called the owners and have been waiting for a response and supposed compensation for 2 weeks now and haven't heard a thing. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GO ELSEWHERE. This place will make you sick. WORST money I have EVER spent on food and embarrassed that I even wasted my time on this place. read more