We had visited the Newport location several times and have nothing but wonderful things to say about the food, staff at atmosphere there. This was our first stop at the Newbury location. We *might* try one more time if in the area again and not in the mood for pizza (which is the only immediately local alternative).
We visited on a weeknight, only about half the tables were in use. We were seated behind a large party of adults, who were using some profane language - which is of course their right on a night out with friends and beer, however we had a young child with our party and had hoped some more consideration would have gone into our placement. Not a big deal, certainly, but there were plenty of other places to sit. We would have asked to change tables if we had known when we first sat down our fun loving neighbors would be more vocal... and if our waitress had bothered to visit that side of the restaurant. She spent so little time there, she probably was not even aware it was noisy.
We were seated quickly, and quick beverage orders taken. We elected to put in for an appetizer at that time, as the three of us were positively starving after a long day on the road. About 15 minutes later, after enjoying by osmosis the tales of our neighbors' antics, the waitress came by to tell us she put in the order for our potato skins. As our drinks (presumably complicated concoctions of water and a cup of milk) had still not arrived, we were surprised to see little appetizer plates and napkins placed before us. The beverages arrived about 5 minutes later, but with an extra glass of water and no milk, which took more time to arrive, and when the milk arrived, it came with an extra extra glass of water.
We utilized their restrooms, which were clean and as pleasant as public restrooms go. The hall leading to them has a sort of slick film on the floor, it was quite slippery.
Finally the blessed potato skins are placed before us, mana delivered from heaven by the hostess, not our waitress. It is after the hostess walks away, we realized that although we have convenient plates, we had not yet been blessed with silverware. We waited patiently for some sort of follow up from our waitress, or anyone at all to walk by... and after 5 minutes of rumbly tummies staring at increasingly cooling food, we went to the abandoned hostess station to retrieve some for ourselves. As well as a package of crayons for the little one, which were there in abundance in all their glory, having been told when we first sat down that they were out of crayons.
Dinner arrived a good half hour later. A table seated close by after our arrival had their meal served and cleared by a different waitress. It looked good.
Our food finally arrived. I had the Merrimac and Cheese, which was lukewarm and bland aside from the bacon and peas providing the only flavor. The cheese sauce had settled a bit, leaving a pile of grease on the bottom of the bowl. Our offspring had the macaroni and cheese from the kids menu, she loved it very much, as well as some homemade potato chips which we all sampled and loved. The apples for her meal were a nice touch. My husband had the salmon, and he described it as "It tastes like they almost had something good here with the marinade, but this spent way too long under a heat lamp to be the tasty flaky piece of fish I paid sixteen dollars for..." His mashed potatoes had a crust over them, which he also attributes to the drying heat lamp but he assures they "would have been really good." read more