R and I met up with two friends a couple of weeks ago on Wednesday for lunch. This place was recommended because Manuel's Tavern has a lot of history, opening in 1956. The owner was a strong supporter of the Democratic Party, and his business became a venue and a meeting place for decision makers and supporters of the party.
Free parking is available and can easily be found in two parking lots; one behind the tavern and the other one diagonally across the street. There are, what I consider, three separate sections in Manuel's Tavern: the bar area with a big bar and booths with tables, a nice sized meeting room (First Level - that's what it's called) and a large dining area (named Eagle's Nest). Wood is used almost everywhere - tables, counters, walls, ceilings. Whatever isn't mostly wood is brick. There are so many things on the walls, many pictures of customers/patrons, plaques, and many random things. You have to come here to see it. I actually love the old and quirky vibe. If this place could talk...!
When the four of us arrived, we sat at one of the tables in the large dining area. There were probably 5 tables total that had customers sitting at them, with two servers handling everyone. We had a QR code at our table that brought up an online menu, but it didn't have any prices listed. No, this is not one of those places that intentionally leave off prices on its menu. A server came to our table and brought us menus after we pointed out that the online menus didn't provide prices. It's a good thing that we weren't in any hurry, and were taking our time catching up with each other since we hadn't seen our two friends for a few months, because our server took her time getting to us. Eventually, our server came to take our orders, writing them down on her order pad. I ordered the country fried steak, fries, green bean casserole and a biscuit. R ordered the corned beef reuben and fries. Z ordered the lunch special tacos meal, and S ordered the pulled pork sandwich meal.
45 minutes later, our food was served. We were all really hungry by the time our meals arrived. Unfortunately, I didn't like my meal at all. The country fried steak, including the gravy, was barely warm. Instead of getting the fries and green bean casserole that I ordered, cubed roasted red potatoes were on my plate, and collared greens were in a side bowl. As I ate my very bland and mediocre country fried steak (had to add salt and pepper to have any flavor), I waited for our server to come back out on the restaurant floor, but that took about 10 minutes. By that time, I had finished my country fried steak, and sampled a bite each of the red potatoes (cool temperature and just ok tasting), the collared greens (salty and cool temperature) and the very flavorless and cool (temp) biscuit. Finally I got to flag the server down, explained that I didn't get what I ordered, and told her what I ordered. She offered to get me what I had originally ordered and asked if I wanted to keep the two side dishes, to which I quickly answered that I didn't want to keep them. Ten minutes later, she brought my hot sides. The fries were very good. Crisp but not hard on the outside and salted just perfectly. The green bean casserole was just awful, though - completely mushy, and I didn't have any way to salvage the flavor. The salty collared greens tasted a lot better than the green bean casserole, but that isn't really saying much. The others said that their food was ok - no one raved about any of their meals, though. R told me that the chef got chintzy with the amount of meat in his sandwich. I was disappointed with our server because she seemed to purposely ignore our table, plus, with her writing everything down on her order pad, how did my two sides come out incorrectly and almost cold? In hindsight, I believe that my meal was ready first, but it stayed in the kitchen and got cooled down while the other meals were completed so that all of the meals were served at the same time.
I definitely won't be coming back here for mediocre food and inattentive service. read more