I have to agree 100% with Hannah P.'s review of Shawn's in Waterville. I almost feel like I should just copy her response and use it as my own, because I lived her experience. My friend and I came to Shawn's because we were in the area and we love Shawn's on Bancroft as well, so why wouldn't it be just as great here?
First the positives: It was clean, the server was friendly and the Bread Pudding is still the freaking bomb!
Sadly the rest is not so good. It took our friendly server at least 10 minutes to make their way over to the table to get our drink order- it was within an hour and half till closing and the place was not busy, not sure why it took 10 minutes to acknowledge us and take drink order. The server never came to refill us on their own, we had to hunt them down or wait until they returned to the table.
We ordered Mushrooms for appetizers. When they came out 20 minutes later- they were lukewarm and incredibly over fried, you could tell by their appearance. I am not sure what the breading was on these mushrooms, but neither of us were fans and lukewarm fried mushrooms are gross. Both of us were disappointed- we have now invested 40 minutes into being here and we knew we were not in our regular Shawn's environment.
Our food finally came out probably another 20+ minutes after we got our appetizer- which if we had ordered big dinners might have been ok, but my friend ordered a chicken wrap with tots and I ordered the chicken bacon ciabatta with onion rings. (BTW this was the moment you had to ask for a refill, because otherwise you might not get anymore because you wouldn't see the server again until after the meal, so it was probably a good thing we asked)
My friend swapped out the ranch dressing that was supposed to come with her wrap for Ceaser dresssing- they upcharged her an additional .80. Not a huge deal, but it was never mentioned there would be an additional charge for swapping. My friend said her wrap and tots were good. But I was sadly disappointed in my Ciabatta and rings. My Ciabatta was clearly sitting under a heat lamp for awhile or something because one side of my Ciabatta was rock hard and the other side was fresh and soft. The ingredients in it were plentiful and tasty but the bread itself ruined the sandwich. Now can we just talk for a minute about the $2+ extra for the onion rings instead of the chips? I gladly paid the extra because I was going to share some of them with my friend and we love Shawn's onion rings- but I was not prepared for 5 onions rings. Tho be it they were delicious- really 5 onion rings? I struggled to share with my friend there were so little, she's lucky I like her.
We now come to the end of our meal and both my friend and I ordered the famous bread pudding bites. I swear these need to be sold in multiple restaurants all over the city- they are absolutely amazing. Fried beautifully on the outside, hot and gooey on the inside and the drizzle over the top and soaking at the bottom is heavenly. When I finished eating, I deeply regretted my mushrooms and Ciabatta - but couldn't walk away totally disappointed with Waterville Shawn's, because they did get the bread pudding right.
Update: In all fairness I did not address the issues with the server or staff- therefor they were not able to correct the wrong. I appreciate the manager commenting and I will always address the issues before posting, it's the right thing to do. read more