The Algonquin

I thought I had written a review for the Algonquin before because it is my favorite spot on Lake George … Went there with a friend for lunch yesterday and really enjoyed ourselves.
Now that it’s fall, we were seated inside (as opposed to outside), and while we weren’t seated by the window, the location of our table offered a lovely view of the lake.
Our server, Nicki, was very attentive, timed the presentation of our drinks and food perfectly, and brought the check within minutes. She gets 4 stars.
I like the Nantucket Bloodies. They cut the hot premixed mix with tomato juice (I can’t take the heat) for me, no problem. The two shrimp are a nice tough.
The food was good. We started with soup. The roast corn bisque, a special, was not very exciting. Skip it. My onion soup was a better choice, very tasty with just enough bread and cheese in a well-​seasoned broth.
We both ordered the lobster roll, another special. It was flavorless, and a bit disappointing. The cole slaw had a better sauce. The fries were quite good, crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. The food would get 3.5 stars from me.
This is the place to go on Lake George. Great service, lovely view and good food.

This place does a very good business only because of its location, The food is not that good and the drinks are expensive and watered down. Here is a email the owner sent me threw Unilocal.
Hi Chris, Randy S. sent you a message on Unilocal:
Subject: Algonquin
«Sounds like you should be eating in fast food restaurants. If you are unable to afford places like this, why do you go there? Sounds like you are looking for Diner food, quantity focused. Its idiots like you who shouldn’t go to these places that write the most ridiculous reviews. There is a nice Diner at Exit 19 on 87.»

The only good thing about this place was the duck that sat next to me on the deck. I ordered a cup of clam chowder and it was room temp when it finally came. Then we got our food I ordered the crab stuffed snapper, it was the worst fish I’ve ever had it was rubbery on the outside and slimy on the inside. Also my friend got burnt crab cakes, and my boyfriend had the taste of tin in his mouth after he ate the tuna. The waitress never came to ask how it was until everyone else was well finished eating. Poor service and inedible food.

The location and view is great. The food was okay. I asked for my filet mignon to be medium. It came out completely well done. I showed the waitress and she offered to get them to make a new one. Everyone else in my group is eating so I didn’t send it back because who wants to eat alone. The waitress thought $ 5 off the meal was appropriate. It certainly was not appropriate. Will not be coming back…

Great bloody Mary’s. Food was excellent as well as the service. The men were helpful on the docks with the boats.

The worst fried fish I’ve ever had. I couldn’t even finish it! The only decent thing I had was the wings.
The service is OK.

The location is great. We sat on the deck. Beautiful sunset. Our service was perfect. We didn’t feel rushed. She was friendly and professional. The food was just ok. And expensive! Dinner for 5, with two appetizers and drinks was $ 330. That said, you are also paying for sitting at one of the most beautiful spots on the lake. I just wouldn’t go for the food.

Disappointing food and service. I watched waiter use his uncovered hand to remove tomato from my daughter’s sandwich after he saw that kitchen sent it out with it despite her order. Would have been better to apologize for the error. My lunch was to include fresh sliced avocado which I sent back because it was nasty brown. Waiter’s comment made it seem like it was unreasonable to expect fresh avocado on Lake George. We have dined here before and left pleased. Hope this isn’t a new trend.

This place is my family’s Lake George staple. The food is great and the staff is extremely friendly. Nothing better than some clam chowder and the view from their dock.

yuck. Fish Point, their signature dish, was oily and flavorless. Lobster roll was bland and tasted like it was made three days ago (come on, how do you screw up lobster roll?). Burgers were good, so was the Vermonter sandwich. To make matters worse, the service stunk. We will. It return.

Twice today we walked in and waited… and waited for service that never came. The first time a server finally walked by and ignored us (I called out to him and asked if we should seat ourselves, to which he replied it was a private brunch, not open yet, as if we should have known so). Later that night we decided to try ahain; we sat at the bar and waited. And waited. No one acknowledged us, three well dressed patrons with cash in hand, so after five minutes we left. Poor service from the outset, two chances given and not a third.

My cousin and I came here last week for some lunch and Bloody Mary’s. We were seated promptly outside, our waitress was very friendly and helpful. My cousin got an original Bloody Mary, followed by a special Bloody Mary Shrimp Cocktail combo. She is sort of a BM connoisseur (lol) and thought the Blood Mary was good, but preferred the BM/​Shrimp Cocktail. I tried the original BM but learned that they weren’t for me lol.
We both ordered the Sweet Baby Ray Burger — which has bacon, cheddar, bbq sauce… lettuce, tomato, and onion. Of course I get it minus the veggies. I asked for it medium/​rare and it was cooked perfectly. The burger was delicious. Messy… but delicious. Served with chips and a pickle.
Great place with a great view and good food. Would totally come back here.

We were a party of 7 people on July 5, 2015, celebrating 2 birthdays in our family. We are local and have eaten at The Algonquin countless times over the span of 3 generations. The Algonquin even catered a family wedding 25 years ago, which was fantastic! This visit was the most disappointing meal we have had at any restaurant in a long time. We will not go back. The docks are in need of repair and have nails sticking out of them, the docks were not filled to capacity with boats, however, we were told there was a 20 minute wait to dock and when finally docked and seated, the food was sub-​par at best. Our party commented that if we had eaten at Friendly’s, the food would have been better, more plentiful (the lobster roll was bland and had at the most 2 tablespoons of shredded lobster/​mayo mix) and ¹⁄₃ of the price! We mentioned the disappointment to the manager and his only reply was «we have been very busy». The inside seating and bar area was mainly empty! This was a sad day in our family as we have been loyal, consistent customers of The Algonquin as long as we all can remember, and again, will not return.

Fantastic view and good bartender!
The food was generally unsatisfactory.
We asked for rolls to go with our cheese plate which saved it because they came out hot and fresh.

My husband, 2 year old and I had dinner in the lower restaurant last night. We sat on the covered porch and had a beautiful view of the lake. The service was great and the perfect speed to be able to relax, yet efficient enough to service dining with a little one. My husband had the seared ahi and I had the chicken harvest salad. Both were great, as was the baked Brie with apricot jam. I even admit to sneaking some bites of my son’s chicken tenders.

Came here for a quick bite and drinks. I’ll start with the positive. The view is great and I loved eating outside.
The food was not good. Fish tacos were actually wrapped like a burrito; tasted like cheap fish. The nachos looked like something a kid would make by himself.
The drinks were either very watered down or we were shorted alcohol. No one in the group was satisfied with the drinks.
In sum, the two star rating is for the view. Everything else is well below average.

Right off the bat, if you’re coming here for the first time you should know the upstairs is the fine dining section and the downstairs is the more casual section. My review is based on the upstairs. Choose wisely depending on what kind of atmosphere you’d prefer.
The upstairs menu is more limited. They do not allow children under 10 and they do not serve fried foods. Except fried ravioli. So, we asked for calamari and they said no. The downstairs had calamari but because there are two separate kitchens they can not make it upstairs. I’m pretty sure they only serve wine upstairs. No beer or hard liquor.
Atmosphere was fancy, classy and a bit uptight. Ambiance was nice because they had live music from a pianist. The service a little slow. It took them 15 minutes to bring our bread after we had ordered all our food.
Overall, the food was good. The lobster bisque was different than how places normally make it but it was very good. My ahi tuna was fabulous as well. It had a nice smokey flavor to it. I tried the the filet mignon and crab cakes as well. The filet mignon was great but I thought the crab cakes were just ok. Too much of a green and red pepper taste that it overwhelmed the crab flavor.
So why three stars? Honestly, I’m just not a fan of fancy restaurants. I feel like I could spend a lot less and get the same thing somewhere else. Some people may prefer fancy places though so to each is own. I would 100% come back here and try the downstairs area. I think that’s more of my kind of place.

Came here the other night for a nice dinner. we called for reservations and was told that there are two levels of seating– fine dinning section or the regular. we chose the fine dinning section thinking there would be more privacy. We arrived at 7:50pm for our 8:00 reservation we were brought upstairs and seated immediately. The upstairs has its own kitchen so there are two different menus as far as seating goes. My friend was a little upset because he really wanted the fried calamari but it was only served on the downstairs menu. The waitress was a little rude and said she can get us a table downstairs if we’d like to eat that — minus one star. I enjoy fine dining but didn’t appreciate the attitude.
We decided to start off by ordering some drinks and looked over the menu. I felt the menu was a little bit limited. I ordered the lobster bisque and the shrimp cocktail to start. The soup was amazing nice and creamy texture with bits of lobster in it. The shrimp cocktail was cooked perfectly and were large and plump. My friends ordered the onion soup and said it was really one of the best they’ve ever had. My friend Jay had the fried ravioli that he said were really good served with a garlic cream and marinara sauce and the raviolis were nice and crisp. For dinner I ordered the two 4oz filet mignon (medium) topped with crab cakes. The steak was served with red potato
wedges topped with melted asiago cheese and sauteed green beans. I really enjoyed it. My friends ordered steaks as well 2 of the boys got the 22 oz porter house, my friend Kristina ordered the wasabi crusted tuna steak. I tried tuna for the first time and it was actually pretty good. I’m one of those people that don’t enjoy raw fish but this was pretty tasty. We were so stuffed we really couldn’t even imagine eating dessert.
The views are beautiful, the restaurant is located rite on the water and is reachable by boat. They have a dock that you park your boat at and come in and enjoy a nice meal. They have a additional parking lot across the street which is nice because this place gets packed.

* 2.5 STARS (Note: Rating based on quality of food & prices)
I feel bad about this rating because The Algonquin was recommended to me by a friend. Decided to have my birthday dinner here while vacationing in Lake George & had very high hopes. Let me start with the good stuff first: outside seating w/​beautiful view (right on the water), waitress/​service, appetizer (flatbread bruschetta).
Now, the not so good stuff: (starting with the dinners) — My boyfriend ordered the small seafood scampi with angel hair pasta. He didn’t really love it. I ordered Filet Mignon (medium). The quality of the steak definitely wasn’t worth the $ 28 bucks. Sorry! The outside of the steak was pretty much charred black. This did not help to enhance the flavor of the meat in any way! I was pretty disappointed because I was really looking forward to a good dinner. If it wasn’t my birthday I would’ve stopped there but I then decided to top it off with some birthday dessert & coffee. I guess I figured since I started out on a good note with the appetizer, maybe I could end it on a good note…? Dessert: warm apples with ice cream (was ok). The coffee was not to my liking at all. It was on the strong bitter tasting side sort of like Starbucks (which I dislike immensely)! I added several half & half’s but it didn’t seem to help reduce the bitterness :(
A few more things to be aware of when sitting out by the water. First, the obvious… It’s pretty buggy! We had to put napkins over the appetizer & our drinks to try to keep the bugs from adding a little extra protein to the mix! Also, a BIG problem is the ducks! The sign clearly states DO NOT FEED THE DUCKS but the kids at the table next to us totally ignored the sign (yes, they saw it), as did their parents. Once they fed one duck, many others came for the goods! It was all downhill from there. The ducks walk right up, surround your table & stare you down just like a dog begging for table scraps. Another group of people were seated behind us that also decided to throw some bread down once… & that started the chain reaction. Then they couldn’t rid themselves of the ducks. And we couldn’t either! At first they though it was very cute but quickly realized their mistake. Be warned, if you feed the ducks ONE time, you will make friends til the end (of your meal)! Also, others around you may not find it cute if they obey the sign & you don’t! No matter how tempting it may seem at first, you will quickly regret doing so!
I do want to say it’s not my intention to discourage anyone from giving this place a try. It’s a lovely little spot! It was my b’day & I went big. If I had a do over I would probably keep it on the simple side & order a sandwich or a burger. Nothing too fancy.
(Adventures at The Algonquin)… Due to a severe thunderstorm warning, the wait staff was giving updates to the customers each time they came to deliver food. The storm didn’t hit by the time we finished dinner so I decided to order dessert. Before I ordered, I was alerted by the waitress that there was a tornado warning issued. Maybe that was a sign… lol
Anyway, the wait staff was very nice & kept us entertained right up until the check came! Oh, we did manage to get back to the hotel before the first raindrop fell :-)

The service was great. We walked away with a lot of food. It was priced well. We arrived around 1 pm and had a five minute wait for a table of five. The waiter asked us if we all wanted water with our drinks. This was great as most waiters/​waitresses don’t really care. He was welcoming and very patient while we were deciding.
The appetizers were above average for a vacation spot. We got the nachos as well as antipasto. We each ordered sandwiches and they were huge. 2 of us had to take home half of our sandwiches and we eat a lot, believe me. Everyone was thrilled with their sandwiches and they weren’t overpriced. We ordered the French Dip, Vermonster, and Lobster Roll. There was so much lobster on the lobster roll you had to take it off with a fork!
We were a bit hesitant when we saw this restaurant had 3 stars on Unilocal!but it deserves a better rating! The waterview is outstanding and enjoyable and the chips weren’t stale as someone said in their review!
We, all 5 of us, highly recommend it!
By the way, the little shop next store is cute and they have postcards, something that is hard to find these days.