We visited Alpine House on Sunday evening after seeing many glowing recommendations on Nextdoor. The food was mostly very good: the pretzel was fantastic, the Caesar salad was outstanding, and even the chicken tenders and fries from the children's menu were flavorful and well prepared. The calamari was just average, and although the roast chicken was moist, it was overly salty.
Unfortunately, the Maine lobster and truffle ravioli was awful. It was extremely doughy, lacked flavor, and looked as though it had been sitting out for at least 20 minutes. I included a photo showing exactly how the ravioli looked when it arrived. To the restaurant's credit, they removed it from our bill.
The service and atmosphere were the larger problems. The restaurant appeared very short-staffed, with approximately two servers, two bussers, and one bartender, even though it was only around 70% full. It took about 20 minutes to receive our appetizers, another 25 minutes for the rest of the food, and nearly 15 minutes between the first and last entrées arriving at our table. An hour since sitting down. We took one bite of our main course and then decided to leave immediately due to the noise.
Our waitress seemed to be trying, but she was clearly overwhelmed and hardly checked on us. None of our waters were refilled during the entire meal, and I eventually had to get water myself. Despite the poor service, we understood that she appeared overwhelmed and still left her a $30 tip.
The restaurant was also deafeningly loud. The sound seemed to bounce off every wall, making it nearly impossible to have a conversation. Some type of sound-dampening treatment is desperately needed.
Most concerning was a woman seated at the bar who appeared extremely intoxicated but continued to be served alcohol. We watched her drink bottle after bottle and beer after beer, cocktails, etc in addition to taking drinks from her partner. She was screaming and cackling so loudly that no one around her could enjoy their meal. At one point, she appeared to fall asleep on her partner's shoulder while he repeatedly tried to quiet and calm her.
We told our waitress what was happening, but no one intervened, and the bartender continued serving her. I am sorry to mention another customer in a review, but the situation was completely over the top and affected the entire restaurant. I included a photo of the woman at the bar in case management would like to identify the incident and review its security footage. A bartender should know when someone has had too much and stop serving them.
The experience became so unpleasant that we requested the check early, boxed everything, and left as quickly as possible. To make matters worse, our server turned the roast-chicken container on its side, causing the entire meal and its juices to spill throughout the box.
Our bill was still approximately $150 for two adults and a toddler, even after the ravioli was removed, and we ordered no alcohol--only sparkling water and iced tea. We genuinely expected to love Alpine House, and much of the food shows real promise, but the extreme noise, slow and disorganized service, lack of attention to our table, mishandled leftovers, and failure to address a clearly overserved customer made this a two-star experience. read more