Really enjoyed this place - I'd intentionally made it part of my visit, planning to come here for lunch. Just looking for something simple and good. The people are really great and so accommodating. I feel like one of the guys came by my table every 10 minutes to check on me. Pretzel rod appetizer was perfect - get the cheese! Soft, warm and just enough salt. Loved it Got the Reuben with a side of Onion rings. Highly recommend. This is a sandwich that you CAN screw up. Theirs was delicious!! And about to my waitress Grace, who had a smile on any time she talked to anyone in the place!! read more

Short version: Great staff, nice atmosphere, unfortunately very inconsistent with quality. Ive lived in the Bennington area for a year now and firmly believe in supporting local businesses. Kelli's was one of our favorite spots to fo early on. The vibe is laid back, staff is always friendly and helpful. Unfortunately it seems to have changed in the past 6 months or so. Fried items tasted either overly scorched or like the oil had not been changed recently enough. I am usually very forgiving on food but there was a special grilled cheese dish my husband got that I tried one bite of and was absolutely inedible. Even the waitress wrinkled her nose at it when we returned it. We kept coming back, hoping these were only occasional issues, but inevitably at least half the ordered items were disappointing at best. Recently visited with my mother who ordered a drink with tonic, easy enough, but it tasted like club soda. Both of us HATE club soda. Ive had enough gin and tonics to know what tonic tastes like. Bartender remade it, tells us it was absolutely made with tonic, and again tasted like club soda. Maybe a line was crossed and marked incorrectly? Maybe they used poor quality tonic? I dont know. Her meal also came out and she was disappointed with the quality of meat, left most of it on the plate. That was the last straw, I cannot bring visiting friends or family here anymore, and I am truly sorry because of how supportive I want to be. I honestly hope this constructive criticism is taken from a place of local pride and changes are made. I plan to try again myself in perhaps a year and see if things have improved. Please do, we want to support! read more

My husband and I stopped in tonight and the staff was terrible!! What is going on in this establishment!? The food was sub par. The staff was only focused on flirting with people at the bar. They never even came to check on us. If you're going to have a restaurant in a small town at least care about your customers. I heard they have a new chef but it doesn't seem like a chef is managing this crap business!! read more

Found this neighborhood tavern for lunch on a trip to Bennington. Very welcoming, super clean, enticing menu and a very good selection of ice cold beers on tap! The owner, Kelli, is a breath of fresh air and treated us like locals Will definitely be a favorite stop on trips to Bennington! read more

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Went bc we were traveling with our dog and business came up on "Bring Fido" food was meh (blackened chicken cesar salad was soooo salty) burger husband had was decent. I do have to give PROPS that they had a dog menu which I've never seen before but appreciated bc we were traveling!! Kelli's also offered a large lawn / patio area where we could walk dog that was also awesome. Being outside we kinda felt neglected by staff and they really didn't appear busy. All that said if you have a dog and need a spot to eat I totally recommend Kelli's read more

Went into the tavern..told to sit anywhere..no hello no nothing. Server was Olivia. Took her awhile to come to the other end of the bar...visiting with the regular customers. Ordered our drinks and our food. Food was okay not the way we ordered it. Olivia never came back to ask how our food was. We were able to order 1 more drink. And the next thing the check is sitting on the bar. The tavern is cute and clean..but the service leaves alot to be desired. read more

Got the deep fried bbq wings which were amazingly crispy despite not looking at all charred. Loved the onion rings and my grilled chicken caesar salad, my kid raved about the buffalo mac and cheese and it looked amazing and I will be getting very soon. Can't wait to go back the folks were super nice and food was great! read more

My boyfriend and I were traveling out of state and stopped here after seeing some decent reviews. Unfortunately, if you're not a regular or someone who works there, don't bother. We sat at the bar for 10 minutes before even getting menus. One bartender was just chatting and putting away glasses while the other was busy making a single drink. The place was almost empty--only one table and two small groups (one of which seemed to know the staff)--yet the service was slow and inattentive. When the food finally came out, it wasn't right and had to be sent back. In the end, we spent an hour and a half here just to get one beer and an order of nachos. Definitely not worth the stop. read more

Great service and great food! Prices for everything was reasonable. I got a delicious lobster roll for only $18.75 with really good fries and cold slaw and my favorite beer from their selection of 25 different beers on tap. We will definitely be back again read more

We ate here twice while visiting Bennington. Altogether, we had a cheeseburger, Rueben sandwich, Buffalo chicken sandwich and a chef salad. All were excellent. The service was fast and the staff friendly. read more

Kelli's has a welcoming atmosphere with friendly staff. There was a nice variety of food selections and everything was well prepared. It was just what we were looking for in a neighborhood tavern. Will add it to the list of places to go next time we're in town. read more

They generally have a halfway decent tap list and a variety of options for typical diner / tavern style foods. There is enough sitting inside and outside that there isn't usually a wait time to be seated, which is always a plus. When the orders are correct and properly cooked, the food is fine and the prices are reasonable for the quality and portion sizes. On the latest visit, the staff rearranged some tables so we could sit outside. There was some wait time before our waitress ever stopped by the table - there was a lot of verbal back and forth on who was serving which table, doing what, etc. between the waitstaff and the confusion likely led to the delay, despite the restaurant not being particularly busy and seemingly well-staffed for the amount of customers. By that time, we had enough time to decide on drinks, appetizers, and food. We placed our drink orders, ordered an appetizer, and our food once the waitress stopped by. The drinks came out relatively quickly. They did not have one of the beers we had ordered (Sip of Sunshine), so there was a wait before the alternate beer was decided and brought out. We also ordered a Fiddlehead, which was extremely flat with no visible carbonation, which did not taste great and half was left on the table. The beer that they didn't have was left on the tab instead of correcting to replace with the second-choice; unclear if there is a price difference or not. We did not see the waitress again until after our food had come out and we had started eating. The food was brought out, but no silverware was ever brought out to table, or condiments. We asked for them and waited for them to be brought out before eating (kids all had french fries, other dishes were ordered that required utensils....). They forgot the appetizer and the waitress did offer to make have the kitchen make it, but at that point when she came out to check on us we were already halfway through our meal. They also forgot an order of fries, which were brought out after we were almost done eating. The waffle fries were cold, unsure if this was because they sat waiting to be brought out to the table of if they were not properly cooked. Two burgers were ordered medium - one of them came out medium-well and one was well-done. A kids hamburger was ordered without specifying "doneness" and that came out medium-rare. One of the burgers had a small hair in it (I get it, I have a lot of hair - it gets into EVERYTHING), but they all tasted good regardless. Things of note, speaking to ambiance, that didn't directly affect this review: -The outdoor seating is right against the sidewalk. There is pretty steady road and foot traffic by the outside seating that can be disruptive. -On the most recent visit, there were two children racing (and screaming loudly) on the restaurant lawn (outdoor seating) next to us for the majority of our meal. This has happened before. Less than ideal, but the restaurant is not at fault for parental decisions (and I would consider this a family-friendly restaurant). read more

Good food, poor service. Just left here on a busy Friday night. Took 10 minutes to get seated & that should have been indicative of a service problem. The restaurant was busy but we were the only people waiting to be seated, & a server (who I'm pretty certain saw us - it's a fairly open room) chose to clean up a table rather than seating us (there were at least 2 other tables open & ready, including the one another server chose to seat us at). We ordered burgers with side salads. 30 min after ordering our waitress came out to apologize for orders not being printed up in the kitchen. We thought it was odd that they would not have just brought us our salads in the meantime, but figured it all goes on the same plate so salads had to wait for burgers. We told her at that point we did have somewhere else we had planned on going (trying to get to a campground in the White Mts. before dark). 15 minutes later, our waitress checked on us & apologized again, & offered us a free drink - BUT WE WEREN'T DRINKING ANYTHING. Why would we want a drink now? So not helpful. What she should have done at that point was recognize we were no longer going to order anything else there & offered to give us money off our dinner. Maybe 10 minutes after she brought us our salads in small bowls separate from our burgers. Why was this not done earlier, just to keep things moving? Burgers came right out after. Quality of food was good - salads were fresh & burgers were good. We understand busy & rarely to never write poor reviews. We also never tip less than 20%. But we won't return. read more

Solid salads with cheap drinks! Full of crispy vegetables and I appreciated how fresh it all was. Clearly good romaine and cukes. Also tried the chilli and pasta and meatballs. Chilli was actually very good. Meatballs were avg! read more

Kelli’s Tavern - House salad - American Near Me - Bennington, Vermont

Great vibe, great food, rude staff. I had a specialty cocktail that was supposed to have sprite and it didn't. I asked if they could remove the drink from my bill after letting her know it wasnt what I thought it was in the description very nicely and that I did not want it. (had one sip) and Kelli and another staff member were talking shit about me loud enough for all to hear. very unprofessional read more

This evening we went to the Dutchman, and tonight there was a gentleman performing. The atmosphere was wonderful, but maybe a tad too loud. But the performer was well-versed in many genres of music, making them his own, and was rather enjoyable. I took a few minutes to be seated due to the restaurant being rather busy, but it didn't take too long. Once we were seated, we were asked about our drinks. We had decided to share a peach drink that had peach whiskey, pineapple juice, peach juice, and Grenier. It was rather tasty Was hoping for maybe a little more pineapple flavor in it soon after our drinks were delivered to the table the waitress did come back to take our order. We had decided to have the tomato basil, cheese soup and my partner ordered the hot turkey sandwich and I ordered the chicken broccoli fettuccine. The soup was good. It had a lot of hardiness to it. It was rather thick and you could taste the pieces of cheese. We did have to request crackers they did not come with the soup. My partners turkey dinner was french fries that were not very crispy very soft and OK to eat, but would've referred a more crunchier texture. The turkey was sliced thin on a very large pile of bread. The turkey itself was just too thinly cut was not a lot of it and didn't have much flavor. The gravy that was placed on top was a quite substantial amount, but had no flavor at all my dinner came out with a very large bowl of pasta, the sauce was just sort of labeled over the pasta was not really tossed through the chicken was just these little tiny cubes. It didn't look like it had been like putting a pan and gotten like a nice brown coating to. It would've liked for the chicken maybe to be a little bit more like tenders or an actual chicken breast. It was just a strange consistency. The broccoli was toothy, but probably could've been steamed a little harder. Many of the pieces of the broccoli look like pieces parts one piece I received was just the underside of the broccoli and the actual stem was not very appealing to see. It lacked salt or some other seasoning it was rather bland. I was to also receive a garlic bread. I did have to request my garlic bread because it did not come out with my dinner. Was very buttery, but not very garlicky tasting and it was a very small piece of garlic bread. All in all we have been to this restaurant in the past during lunchtime and had a better meal dinner time just seems very busy and maybe a few of the standards have been adjusted to try and deal with the busyness of the restaurant. My suggestion is to go maybe during the day and have a wonderful lunch with them but maybe try dinner especially if there is something going on in the restaurant like a musician. read more

Service Atmosphere Food all 5 Stars. Huge helpings. Service was over the top. Everyone made us feel Welcome.

The food was great and filling! We went after a splendid your of Williams College! A great little place with amazing customer service and food! We had the BBQ chicken wings, the Corned Beef Waffle Fries, and I had the Chicken Parm Pub read more

Kelli’s Tavern - a drink in a plastic cup - American Near Me - Bennington, Vermont

This review is based on two experiences in the last week. (*Industry worker here.) 1) Lunch order was incorrect. Beef was sliced too thick, fatty, (shave that meat if you're going to overcook it.) and tasted like it had been in a volcano. Not sure how they managed to kill onion rings but they achieved that as well. 2) Decided to try the bar after waiting too long for table service for a drink. Nope. Two 15 year old bar backs that couldn't serve, but no bartender. For over ten minutes. Empty drinks all along the bar and NO BARTENDER. $9 a pint for a common IPA that costs $6 elsewhere. The pretzel appetizer was possibly the worst I've ever had. So hard and dry that they would be better classified as a weapon than food. Generic honey mustard and processed cheese dip. Disgusting. Wings were chewy, sauce was not good either. Toilet was overflowing in the bathroom, let staff know and the response was "eww." Waited over an an hour for our food, when we finally...asked we were given the excuse that there was a 20 top. No apology, when the owner came back (why are they waiting tables? Clearly you can't run a business if you have 5 runners and you're addressing customers.) They said it was coming. 20 min later the first order came. 5 minutes later the next, and so on. Not delivered by our waitress, but children calling out who had ***?!Nothing was correct, one person finally gave up and ordered a BLT after sending their order back twice, it came. No tomato on a BLT? Watched four couples come in and wait to be seated during all of this. Every couple walked out. Spend your money elsewhere. There's a reason this was our first and last visit. To the owners: the pandemic excuse is over. You're failing. read more

I am always looking for a good burger. Our old favorite restaurant (was the best burger in town) was sold to a new owner and the food went down hill. We came here because the owner used to work for our old favorite burger place and want to try their food. We both order burgers and chicken wings. All good but could be better. The burger was cooked perfectly but it's not as juicy as I would like it to be. Not sure what ratio of fat is in their ground beef. Chicken wings were crispy but could use a little more flavor like more garlic parm. The beer was good. They have a good selection. Water is city water I really don't like the taste of it but not their fault. Service was good we got our drinks and food in a timely fashion. If you are looking for a quick bite it's okay. read more

Kelli’s Tavern - Cajun burger with no bun. - American Near Me - Bennington, Vermont

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Stopped in for lunch on Sunday during drive to ski vacation. Typically VT solid tap beer choices. Enjoyed great burgers and shoestring fries ( that would have been exceptional if freshly fried! but still tasty!) Nice/ attentive waitress, fairly spacious layout, clean bathroom. Solid spot in my book. read more

the home made mac and cheese is scrumptiuos. highly recommend. and they give you lots. comes out piping hot. friendly staff. great customer service. enjoy. stop on down, youll be glad that you did. a dedicated customer nancy balconis read more

I will never eat at Dutchman again. Asked for fish and chips and my husband wanted a fish sandwich...did not have it...ok. Waiter Recommend a lobster roll, ok ordered that... didn't have it. Last resort, blackened chicken Caesar salad. It was unpalatable. I ate NO chicken because it was nasty and chewy. It was not blackeded, it was a little burnt. I think the cook thought that is what blackened is. I did not eat my salad and he did not take it off my bill. Additionally, I woke up with terrible stomach pain and vomited. I ate some of the lettuce and "french onion soup" (that had a piece of swiss on it), so I don't know if something was bad. I tried them when they first opened. I got "homemade" mac and cheese, which came with a breadstick that was as hard as the table. The sauce tasted like they poured jared fettuccine sauce on it. Not good. I didn't want to give a negative review because I wanted to give them a chance to work the kinks out. Well, the kinks were NOT worked out. Negative stars from this family. Do yourself a favor, eat somewhere else, like Madison Brew Pub. read more

I am a customer here often and I figured it was time to leave a review . I just wanted to say that the servers here are very present and attentive to their customers and tables. Also, the dishes here are delicious. I love to come here it's a great environment and atmosphere never a bad experience!! KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK read more

The meatball sub and onion rings were outstanding! My husband's chicken Parmesan melt was great also. The service was quick and friendly! Definitely recommend this place. Tavern food. read more

Got the chicken parm and my girlfriend, the Alfredo chicken. Both were tasty with portions large enough to bring home leftovers. The staff was very friendly, would eat there again NO DOUBT read more

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25 beers on tap= pretty incredible! Pretzel sticks were good but only come with a honey musty Dijon and cheese(cheese costs extra to add). The beer i had was nice and the table bar is a nice wood bar. read more

Initially, the out door dining on this beautiful afternoon caught our eye but the way we were welcomed and served was outstanding. We did not have a reservation but the staff happily seated us. The food was excellent, the special, a cheesesteak, was done right! We had "Alaska bites" which were cod - battered and deep fried and served with tartar sauce. Our son had their homemade mac n cheese with garlic bread and it was gooey and fantastic! We are delighted to have stumbled upon this place and we will come back very very soon! read more

The food was very good! The service was also incredible. I originally thought it was going to be awkward in there because I'm ‍ but it ended up being really chill and nice. 10/10 would definitely go again if I come back to Vermont read more

What a great little hometown tavern we had something like 25 beers on tap, which was amazing and their food was awesome. I had the best BLT ever anywhere. Thank you for your hospitality. read more

Excellent food!! We went to Bennington for the day and stopped here for lunch. Very clean and quaint. Service was awesome! Had a chicken sandwich special that was very tasty. All the meals coming out of the kitchen looked amazing! Everyone at my table raved over their food. Good value for the amount of food as well! read more

After trying another location where the service was entirely unacceptable the group I was with quickly looked online trying to find another restaurant as we were visiting Bennington only for the day. We found this restaurant and said oh it opens in 10 minutes. Let's give it a try when we pulled up, they were opening early and the staff member said come on in and was super welcoming, we had our choice of seats and the service was incredible . Our food arrived quickly it was all hot and delicious and when the check came, we all marveled at how little lunch cost. I would highly recommend this location as between the staff, the food and the price, you are getting a tremendous value!! read more

Newly opened. Good burger selection, great beer selection, as well as interesting drinks,. A nice outdoor patio. Has a nice casual neighborhood vibe. American pub type food. Attentive service. read more

Kelli’s Tavern - The Dutchman's Burger - American Near Me - Bennington, Vermont

We happened to discover this place while sightseeing. The outside seating is friendly & spacious. The service was perfect and finally the food was delicious (Reuben & the Rachel sandwich.) I highly recommend you stop here if you're anywhere nearby. read more

they ain't even have any of the soup of the day. I've been waiting to get the soup since opening and then i go to order and it's already all gone. read more

We stopped here late in the evening after a long day of travel from NY - the place was quiet, but the young staff members were friendly and made us welcome. Great burgers! And a fantastic selection of beers/cider on tap. Great service, good value, would definitely stop here again. read more

Great food and nice beer selection. Had the fish and chips and the fish portion was last and super crisp. Friendly staff.

Can't believe the Dutchman was that great their chicken tenders actually tasted like my cousin strange gg

Walked over from the Harvest Festival, thinking we could sit down and try a place we hadn't been before for lunch. We sat down, ordered drinks and food, and proceeded watching table after table get their orders while we waited. After about 40 minutes, our waiter told us our order ticket had gotten stuck to another and the kitchen had not seen it. She said our food would be coming soon, and we would get a discount. Another server brought out our food and Dutchman's brought out fish instead of the turkey Rueben my wife ordered. More waiting, a Reuben appeared, but with corned beef. Our waiter never came back, and we didn't get any chance to reorder drinks. Yet another waiter came by, asking if we needed the check. At this point I suggested Dutchman's comp us for the terrible service and messed up meal, to which the waiter responded a discount was more than enough, she wouldn't comp the meal, and she wasn't even supposed to be working today. Lastly, there was no owner or manager on the premises to talk to about our experience. We understand that a mistake can happen on a busy afternoon. What is not acceptable is the total lack of hospitality; we were made to feel like Dutchman's could care less after multiple mistakes. So, we won't be back and suggest you consider the many other fine establishments in Bennington when you choose to go out and spend your money. read more

Good atmosphere, great service, and excellent food! Will definitely be going back!