My husband and I went to Spoonriver this week ahead of a Guthrie show. The hostesses (there appeared to be 3 of them) took a couple of minutes to decide where to seat us (even though both the inside and outside tables were 1/2 empty). Once we were seated, a very attentive staff member brought us water and shortly thereafter a few slices of bread. I want to call out that this young woman (very slight, with large, round glasses) was quite attentive throughout the meal. Our water glasses were never even close to empty and she bussed everything with great timing. What stunned us was our server. She did have a around 4 tables in our area (which isn't a lot and she couldn't have been terribly busy with indoor tables since there were only 4-5 tables seated in total inside). It took well over 10 minutes for our two drinks to arrive (one beer that was served with around 2" of foam head, one mojito that was excellent). Our spiced olives took another 10 minutes after ordering to arrive (20 minutes to get a little bowl of olives and 2 pieces of toast?!?). Almost immediately after we finished the olives, our dishes arrived. I had the shrimp noodle salad ($19 for 4 shrimp and a relatively small portion of noodles with fresh cabbage, great mint and that was about it). My husband had the Spoonburger, which was advertised as lamb but was primarily rice and other fillers with just a hint of lamb (oh, and he subbed a salad for $2 and it was around 2 pieces of Bibb lettuce with very little else). We had to hail down our server to bring us our tab, even though our plates had been removed around 5 minutes earlier. Horrible, horrible service from the server. Mediocre food that is expensive for what you get.
Pros: Location next to Guthrie, patio seating, interesting drinks
Cons: Service, value for the food
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