Merchant Tavern

WOW burgers were phenomenal many varieties. Grilled perfectly tender tasty and not greasy. The drink menu was pages and pages beers, wines mixed drinks with in-house gin and rum. We had cheese curds and sauerkraut balls both excellent. We arrived about 6 pm Wednesday the place was packed and we braced for a wait but got a table for 4 in a minute. Our server was prompt arriving seconds after we settled. She was attentive but not pushy. I wish I could remember her name, 19 brunette, I would ask for her next time. The place was large but split into sections making a cozy atmosphere.

I want to start by saying that up until this point, The Merchant was one of my favorite restaurants in the area. The food and ambiance were always great, though admittedly the service usually left much to be desired. By that, I mean that the waitresses are always the same cookie cutter breed of rude young woman who seldom checks on your table and acts like your presence alone annoys them except when they come around to collect their tip. Regardless, I chose to look past it because the food was great. For the past 10 or so years, The Merchant was always at the top of my list when it came to birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, celebrating milestones, or receiving people from out of town. I've likely given this restaurant several thousand dollars over the years as well as the money of my immediate family, extended family, and friends. I told everyone who would listen that this was easily one of my favorite restaurants, but after my experience this weekend, I will never come back. Not only will I not be back, but I'll be actively turning my family, friends, and business colleagues away from here. This past weekend, my entire family and I came in for a reservation on Saturday night and got in without issue. The girls at the hostess station were kind and accommodating. At first, our waitress seemed at minimum agreeable too, but once she took our orders, she disappeared for probably 30 minutes. Having not seen her for a while, my daughter decided to go visit the bar and order a drink. Once up there, an older male and younger female bartender unsurprisingly treated her like she was bothering them, but then took her order. Our waitress then walked up from behind and confronted my daughter saying that she should have just ordered at the table. The female bartender had already begun making her drink and my daughter explained this, so the waitress sort of walked away mid-conversation. The bartender came back with the drink and said that it would go on our table's check, but my daughter had taken cash up with her to just close it out; she then looked at my daughter like she had three heads and got the attention of the male bartender. The male bartender then walked over and said with an attitude that "they guess" that's fine. There was an older gentleman next to my daughter at the bar who looked at her incredulously, wondering similarly why the workers were behaving this way. She returned to our table with her drink and we thought that was that. When our entrees came, many of our plates were as delicious as I'd expected, but several people at the table, my daughter included, were hesitantly disappointed in what they received. One of my guests and my daughter received sandwiches that were on ciabatta, and it was pretty apparent from both of them that the bread was old. Ciabatta typically has a crusty outside and a soft, tender inside with air pockets; this bread was stale, firm, difficult to bite through, and the "crust" was rubbery. My guest simply ate his burger forgoing the ciabatta completely for the sake of politeness but my daughter's steak sandwich was inedible. The steak slices were almost completely rare, there was little cheese, peppers, onions, mushrooms, or garlic aioli. Even with as "wet" as the rare steak was, it didn't even penetrate the stale bun. My daughter thought that she'd gotten the sandwich before, but this was clearly not the same. Whether she was mistaken on which sandwich she picked or not, this was not acceptable. We let the waitress know and while she suggested that the kitchen re-plate it with different bread, this sandwich was too far gone to be salvaged, not to mention cold. Having only one bite out of it, we were hoping to get her a different sandwich or maybe a burger, but the waitress explained that we would have to pay for this horrible shoe-sandwich as well as the burger. They have a policy where they do not comp something simply "because you don't like it" and she was getting visibly irritated and rude with us. Trying to explain to the waitress that different bread would not save this sandwich, she got the manager to come over. After waiting 20 minutes for him to slowly meander over, we tried explaining similarly to him, and he got equally as short with us. After getting increasingly frustrated, we said that we could not in good conscience pay for this sad excuse for a sandwich, and he had the audacity to threaten to call the cops on us for not paying for the sandwich. We did not yell, we did not insult them, and we didn't even further escalate the situation, yet their answer was threatening to call the police. At that point, we knew that these are not the kind of people that can be reasoned with. To add insult to injury, we saw a busboy and other workers snickering, talking, and staring at us, so we paid the bill and left. Maybe the owner will see this and make some changes, at least I hope. Without good food or service, what do you have? A permanently closed sign.

Stopped in for dinner before our show at Weathervane. Great atmosphere, good food, and even though they were busy the service was amazing. Our server, Dillon went above and beyond. Just be cautious of the hellfire burger, the sauce is so hot that its practically inedible( burger was cooked perfectly, just recommend getting the sauce on the side) Also, skip the fries they are a bit on thebsoggy side. Everything else we had was great though.

Stopped in after seeing a show at the local playhouse... busy place... great food. Hostesses were very friendly and sat us outside on their patio. Food was delicious. The Mac and Cheese is a definite. Service was lacking as we were forgotten by our server... otherwise it would have been five stars. Manager was nice and courteous and took care of us... without this it would have been 2-3 stars. Would return. We all have bad days.

Thai mussles- with bacon, ginger and shallots! 5/5 this was amazing! My favorite thing we tried. Seafood hushpuppies- not exactly what i expected. It was good but not great. 2/5Calamari- the aiolis they used on these spectacular buttermilk fried babies is so tasty! 5/5Shrimp n lobster gratin- there was onions, bell peppers and loads of cheese. The bread was perfect for serving this dish to make it less messy. 4/5Steak- we order medium and it was cooked as we ordered. Great flavor for both the steak and the delicious smashed tatters. 5/5Shrimp and grits- the shrimps were huge! Not over cooked which is easy to do with shrimp. The grits has a slight smokeness from the gouda cheese and i believe pork belly was a topper! 5/5I HIGHLY recommend getting a reservation for this place. We walked in and waited about 45 minutes. Avoid the hassel, and prebook your party.

First time in at the Merchant Tavern and I had a pretty good experience, the service was fast and our waitress was really kind. It was kind of dark in the restaurant which gave it that tavern vibe. We ordered the poutine fries as a starter, the BBQ pork belly on these fries was AMAZING and wish I could have had more of it. I wanted there to be a menu item of just the pork belly because it was honestly the best thing we ate here. the fries were okay and the cheese was cold so it for sure was not my favorite poutine but I would order it again just for that bbq pork belly. The salmon salad was good, the lemon vinaigrette came on the side which I appreciated. There was not a ton of flavor for the whole dish but it was refreshing and a solid size piece of salmon. The Hell Fire burger was spicy and most of the flavor came from that sauce, was not a super juicy burger from what I could tell but it looked good and a nice looking bun. The fries were good, not super crispy but they are decent fries as a side for the burger.If i were to go again I will be trying mel's killer steak sandwich, it looks DELICIOUS!

I'm a regular and been meaning to post / review for some time - what I love about the Merchant is the consistent quality of the food and drinks along with the friendliness of the servers and bar team. I've had some really great food here. And the bartenders follow the recipes (which are well done) to the tee, so the end product is consistently good. Lots of TVs in case you want to catch a game out. Great place, highly recommend.

For one the Service was good, the waitress was attentive and pleasant. Now to the food. I ordered the country fried pork, which was one of the best dishes i've ever had, it was amazing.My wife ordered shrimp and grits, which was good but nothing to write home about. Ambience was fine, very crowded, but did not seem so, if that makes sense. Overall would definitely recommend.

We made reservations 4-5 days ahead of time and were called the day of our reservation and told our party of 14 at 2 tables would not be seated together and that we needed to cancel one of the reservations. Talked back and forth with the restaurant several times, waited on the manager to call us back, which he never did. We kept reaching out because they called at noon and our reservations were for 4:30.We ended up being told that they were not going to be yelled at, when that never happened and that my deposit would not be returned because I didn't give them 12 hours. How could we when they called me 4 hours before my reservation. When I insisted my deposit be returned, the manager hung up on me. Will never go there again.

Thursday was the last visit to to this establishment forever.We has a party of five for dinner. The hostess would not seat anyone until the entire party arrived.The last time they would not accept reservations w/o a credit card and there was a $10 charge for a no show.With restaurant dining on the decline these folks should be happy anyone shows up. BTW the place was virtually empty at 4:50PMWent down the road to a much better establishment called Papa Joes, a favorite.See ya, don't wanna be ya!