Fireside Cafe & Dinner House Bar & Grill

The new "Fireside Cafe & Dinner House Bar & Grill" has been open for about 2 weeks now inside the Heritage Inn and Suites off of Norma. Rumor said that they had done some renovation to what was the old Victoria's Restaurant, but we encountered the same Paris courtyard motif that was the "trademark" of the old restaurant. We were greeted with a "sit wherever you want" by someone wearing a white t-shirt and paint spattered jeans. The menu was presented to us and it certainly was not impressive in style, with its typos and sentences that just ended incompletely (the cordon bleu apparently is "breaded with a creamy"). Our waitress, Diane, took our orders promptly, but the salad that comes with dinner took about 10 minutes to make it to our table; we were the only diners. I had the shrimp scampi, while my husband ordered the ribeye steak, medium rare. His steak came medium to medium well and the toast that came with my scampi was burned on one side and untouched on the other side. The scampi came with 5 plump shrimp, tails intact. Since it was served in a high sided dish, cutting off the tails was a challenge. The sauce on the scampi was tasty, though the lemon flavor was a surprise, hovering at the edge of being almost too much lemon. No dessert was offered, so I don't know if they have any at this time. The menu is close to what is being offered at Ale's, which is in the same parking lot, so the Fireside is going to have to work hard to make themselves special in some way. Diane handled our concerns professionally and she was the best part of our evening. It would be good to have the staff wear something to differentiate them from the customers, as we had no idea who were actually working and who were just friends sitting around. We'll be giving the Fireside another try in a couple of weeks to see if they've worked out some of the kinks. :) All in all, I think they have a HUGE battle ahead if they want to stay afloat and not lose their hotel guests to Ale's and to attract non-hotel clientele. Brainstorming a way to make them special will go a long way in achieving that goal.

By far the most disappointing dinner I've ever had. Upon arrival we were greeted by the hostess/waitress/bartender who told us to have a seat anywhere honestly I think she's the only worker in here. I ordered the ribeye cooked rare it arrived well done with no flavor what so ever and served with frozen veggies and batch made mash potatoes. My girlfriend ordered the chick cordon blue which looked like a Costco chicken bake cut in to 1/4's and served with soggy French fries.