The Downtown Bistro - Lancaster

I 'd like to preface this review with the fact that I have never given any establishment a one star review. As a former service worker I always tend to be understanding and forgiving of service slights but The Downtown Bistro failed us on almost every level possible. A friend and I were excited to stop here on our way to Hocking Hills for lunch having researched places on our way in. The establishment wasn 't very busy when we walked in. The hostess seated us without a word, I said Thank you so much! when she placed our menus down but she didn 't acknowledge me and just turned around and walked away. Our waitress came over and took our drink and appetizer order. I ordered an old fashioned which turned out to be the only decent thing about my experience. For my appetizer I had the crab cakes which was more like breadcrumb cakes with barely even a hint of crab. I also tried the stuffed mushrooms my friend ordered and while she enjoyed them, I didn 't find anything special about small 13 dollar mushroom caps. After a disappointing appetizer and a strange interaction with the waitress when inquiring about their daily specials (one she claimed was simply chimichurri , I decided to just order their lobster bisque. The menu says they only serve it on Fridays and Saturdays so I thought it must surely be good and fresh! Well it was neither. The Lobster bisque had no lobster and wasn 't even a bisque! It was some sort of tomato broth monstrosity. What was even more horrific was the steak that was delivered to my friend. She ordered it medium rare but what she received was some sort of rare, pre-seared, boiled looking, unappetizing piece of meat (please see photo . When the waitress eventually came back over my friend told her, I didn 't care for this. The waitress simply said, ok and took it away. No apology or sincerity (which was her general disposition, odd for someone who expects to be tipped . She seemed generally annoyed and bothered by us throughout the entirety of our stay. The Downtown Bistro is lacking in both edible food and halfway decent service and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this was the worst experience I 've ever had at a restaurant.

Went to this restaurant because it was rated with 4 1/2 stars. Was disappointed with the slow service for a hamburger french fries. Just so so. Had some clear misses with things like a no-name brand ketchup. Fish was a frozen lower quality piece of salmon. I don't think that I will be going back.

Stopped by for lunch on the outside patio and everything was great so we decided to return the next week for dinner. We called and they said they were short staffed and patio was closed. We called the next evening to see if it was open. They said yes with weather permitting. It was a beautiful evening so we went. We asked for outdoor dining and the host went directly to a server to ask and she said no it's just too hard. I don't know how it's too hard to walk thru a door. So we went to the Ale hose and had a nice meal on an outdoor patio. It will probably too hard for us to give the Bistro another shot.

We were checking out the Hocking Hills area and saw the comments about the overall quality of this restaurant and had to try it. It was great! I share the concern about not getting an answer when we called to check on a reservation, but we were early enough to get a table. We had a couple appetizers and dinners and everything had great flavor and quality. Top this off with GREAT service from Elaine, even though it was clear she had a bunch of tables. We will definitely return when we come back to this scenic part of the State!

Coming here for a family dinner for the first time and wanted to find out if we needed a reservation or not. To start off I called 3 times without getting an answer so this isn't a good start for a first impression. However walking in and being greeted with a happy smiling face definitely made up for it. Service to be seated was super fast and as soon as we were seated the hostess boy brought us a beautiful glass bottle of water and two glasses with ice water already in them. The waitress wasted no time getted our drink orders and getting them in and back to us in a timely manner. She was so sweet and had an amazing personality she was so accommodating and very attentive especially for how busy she was. We were very impressed. Drinks: We ordered two drinks a yuengling lager from draft and a mojito. It took them 15 minutes to make our drinks but there's quite a few people so I'm not to worried about the slowness of service. The yuengling was good but my mojito didnt have any lime in it at all and if you know your drinks like I know mine that's a big no no. It didn't taste right at all, told the waitress and she apologized and let me know that they were training a new bartender and I completely understood. She had them remake drink and it tasted great! Food: We ordered the mediterranean pasta and steak and lobster. The mediterranean pasta was perfectly cooked the shrimp was spot on the white wine sauce was fantastic loved the kalamata olives but would've loved bigger pieces the spinach blended well with the entire dish as did the onion overall a fantastic dish would definitely order again. The steak was cooked perfectly to order perfect char you can tell they take great pride in their meat selection process. The lobster was cooked perfectly it blended well with steak. The asparagus and potatoes and blended well with the meal as designed would definitely recommend. Price: for everything we spent around $60. You definitely get what you pay for. Overall Experience was above and beyond my expectations and I couldn't be more impressed. I definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone and everyone who reads this review. 10/10