Commons Lunch

Often stop in for Saturday morning breakfast. Always great and not to expensive. Try not to look in the pie rack. The dessert are enticing. Service is consistently good. Décor is casual oceanside. Lot’s of locals.

Was excited to eat here until the manager on duty told us we were not allowed in the restaurant with our lattes we had just purchased down the street. She assumed we had alcohol in them. It’s 10 o’clock on a Sunday mind you. She told us to go outside and chug. Not the best customer service to say the least.

Food was subpar. At best.
The service was awful.
The waitress was the worst I’ve experienced in a long time. She never looked at us or greeted us when we got there. Her first interaction with us, was to abruptly remove the spare chair from the table, with out asking if we were expecting another guest. She, not once announced herself or said excuse me before placing our food or drinks on the table. She almost spilled multiple dishes as well as dropping things on our table off her tray while serving our drinks.
The worst part was the patrons (or maybe he was someone who worked there) were just as rude. One gentleman walked up to our table and without a word to any of us. Removed the ketchup, that we were using, from our table.

This Dinner was Delicious I had a cheeseburger was delicious and the Fries was good I also had the eggplant Parmesan Fries it was So good I also had the Vanilla Frap it was one of the best milkshakes I had overall People come eat here if your in Little Compton.

Gorgeous afternoon in Little Compton Commons. Great food, incredible view sitting outside in the deck watching the slow pace of this old town. Onion rings were overflowing and delicious. Chicken salad with cranberry and walnuts was great. Highly recommended. Stop and smell the roses! Thanks to the owner George for making me feel like a local!

Great food. Got the lobster Roll with a white Zinfandell. Great friendly service. Place not high end but good patio, service and food.

There’s a very poor selection of restaurants in southeastern RI. Maybe this is the best of what’s around, but I have a full country of comparisons against which this place fails. So, I went for a dish of seafood chowder and clam cakes, with a side of hot orange beets.
1) The seafood chowder advertised crab, clam, and something else. It never approached crab at all. It had a few strips of pollock. The soup otherwise tasted okay, but the menu lied. One strike.
2) The clam cakes were not clam cakes. As written on the check, they were clam fritters. I did not want clam fritters. I would not have ordered them. I wanted clam cakes similar to crab cakes. Two strikes.
2a) The clam fritters were all dough. I counted about 12 pieces of clam amongst the three fritters. That’s pretty crappy. Three strikes. Already out.
3) The orange beets were in a goopy sauce and were delivered lukewarm, definitely nowhere close to hot. Four strikes. What kind of game is this?
The service was good enough. The place looks like a standard small-​town dining establishment. It’s not 1 star. I didn’t get sick, I wasn’t cursed at, no one spit in my food. But I’m going to give Commons Lunch a wide berth on any future visits to the area.

Being from new york, we loved little compton and its feel. We stopped at Commons for lunch and the fish and chips were among the best I have had. The service was great and the place is really cosy! We ordered tuna salad roll and clam cakes (which were awesome too!). Overall, a great visit and highly recommended!

If you’re at The Commons then you’re basically in the middle of nowhere so there are some exceptions to be made when reviewing such a place.
Food is basic diner style but they do have some good fresh seafood options in the summer. The grilled swordfish was very fresh and and came with an overwhelming amount of sides. Prices are decent and portions are hearty.
Service is a little laid back but still friendly. The restaurant isn’t the cleanest and has some gnarly wall-​to-​wall carpet which skeeves me out in restaurants and the bathrooms are pretty gross as well.
But faults aside, like I said, you’re in the middle of nowhere so it’s good to be able to use a restroom and fuel yourself up for the journey back to wherever you came from.

A great afternoon with my mother here. There was a superb Shepherds Pie and an astonishingly huge bowl of onion rings which was only $ 5. Great service and superb food.

I can truly say that I had a pleasant experience here. There’s nothing quite like sitting outside on a nice aft ernoon while you eat your meal. Wait service was excellent, I think her name was Sarah? Fast and efficient. Believe it or not, (and this is coming from someone who knows), it is tough to make a veggie burger that doesn’t fall apart when you eat it. I hate that. But here it stayed together. I would not however say that this place was anything to write home about. It is literally located in the middle of nowhere, and there is nothing that stood out as «let’s take the drive out to the middle of nowehere to get that_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​». I live fairly close to here and it still takes me the better part of a half an hour to get here. However, if you have never been to Little Compton, RI, I supposel you shoud take the trip out. Also, from the reviews, I have heard their Johnny Cakes are to die for. I will be back.

As we walked in, we were greeted kind of abruptly by a lady… asking how many… as she placed two menus on a table inside the restaurant… we had to ask… can we sit outside? She quickly pulled the menus off the table and walked us outside (to the patio) and placed the menus on a table outside.
After being seated for about 5 minutes, a waitress asked what we wanted to drink. We ordered drinks as we looked at the menu. She came a bit later for our order. The order came fairly quickly but our drinks had not arrived yet… we had to remind her.
I had the broiled scallops with fries. The scallops were chewy and not very tasty. The fries were crispy.
My BF had the fish melt and he liked it a lot.
Overall OK, but I’ve experienced better.

I’m so glad I stopped in here for lunch in Little Compton before hitting the beach with friends.
Service was fast and friendly — Commons Lunch is a sit-​down place, but our food came within five to ten minutes of ordering. It’s also relatively inexpensive. For a little windy weather, you can get a grilled cheese with fries and a housemade pickle for four or five bucks. Not too shabby.
I ordered the chowder and clam cakes, which really hit the spot. It was my first time having Rhode Island clam chowder, so I was initially a little quizzical about the clear broth, but it turned out to be delicious. The clam cakes were fried up perfectly, with just the right amount of crunch on the outside.
Commons Lunch doesn’t take cash, although there is an ATM inside, as well as a Bank of America right next door.
I noticed they offer a whole selection of cakes for dessert that we might have to come back to try after catching some waves and building our appetites back up!

My family has had a home in LC for years, so I’ve been coming to this place for as long as I can remember. Great breakfast & lunch place. Modest prices. Good service.
I personally love the lobster rolls!

Great place for breakfast. The scrambled eggs are fluffy and the cakes amazing. I do also like the Commons for lunch-​although the fair pretty much seems like it’s out of the fifties. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because I cant get enough Commons’ cheeseburgers!
Sunday at 1 is always dead — everyone has breakfast or brunch at 11ish and then heads for home or the beach.

Yeah, I know. I gave another old classic Tiverton/​Little Compton eatery two stars. Maybe I was just expecting better from what I heard of it for so many years. Maybe it was on «off day» for the waitstaff when I came here for breakfast. Who knows. All I know is, I was very disappointed and will sadly not be going back to the Commons Lunch.
Just to clarify with everyone, although I am a born and raised Rhode-​Islander, I absolutely HATE Johnny Cakes. To me it’s like eating bland sand briquets. So I am fully aware of how many people rave about the Johnny Cakes here, but I don’t like Johnny Cakes, so obviously I was not planning on getting them. I do have to say, this place is very inexpensive. I think I paid six and change for a large OJ and my Belgian waffle combination breakfast. But alas, the positives for me end there. Though that is a very good positive. I currently have a bun in my own oven so I am not a great critic of coffee at the moment, though I have read from another review it is rather weak.
The customer service definitely left something to be desired as the waitress just did not seem to want to be there at all. Yeah, I realize it’s not a great job, I did it briefly years ago myself, but customer service is key. You can hate your job all you want but when you ask me in an exasperated tone «what do you want today?,» don’t bother smiling or checking on me until after my food is already finished, don’t expect a big tip from me.
Also, the menu is very basic and much smaller compared to some of the other places I have had breakfast at in the area. The Belgian waffle I ordered was good, and the eggs were cooked nicely as well. However, the sausage links had the consistency of rubber. Although I had high hopes for this place, I was not impressed at all. The low prices just cannot make up for the poor service and mediocre food I got.

Good, fast, and cheap — exactly as I hoped it would be.
I hadn’t been here in over 20 years and decided to check it out. It is nice and cozy — a combination of spinny stools at the counter, booths and tables in the dining area, and some outdoor seating. Breakfast was hearty; three pancakes, 4 strips of bacon, and a glass of cranberry juice, all for $ 10.
Service was great. The food came out quickly and it was pipin hot.
I picked up a paper copy of the lunch/​dinner menu; I hope to try that out soon.

It’s slim pickings in Little Comptom so we had little choice but to stop here for lunch. It’s essentially a local diner where the neighborhood probably gathers on weekends and everybody knows your name. Johnny cakes end at noon but they were nice enough to serve them up to us at 1PM.
I’ve never had a Johnny Cake. In fact, I didn’t even know what a Johnny cake was and now that I’ve eaten my first Johnny cake, I’m not sure I ever need to eat one again. Johnny cakes are dense, flat, coarse, and lacey. They don’t have the fluffiness of pancakes and the texture is much more grainy. They’re made out of cornmeal and turns out, they’re also entirely flavourless. Its sole purpose is to act as a medium to sop up maple syrup.
I also had the clam chowder with three fritters. The clam chowder is thin and had decent flavour… a little on the salty side. The potatoes are in large al dente chunks and the clams are chewy quahogs. The fritters are doughy with imperceptible bits of quahog inside.
The pluses? Cheap eats and you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.

This place is a classic breakfast joint. Not surprised the place was empty for the last reviewer at 1pm… you go here for breakfast. Johnny Cake breakfast, specifically.
I don’t think there’s a place out there that makes better Johnny Cakes. I mean, the place has been written up in the NY Times for the Johnny Cakes. Really. You get a huge stack for $ 5. The other breakfasts are good too, although someone at your table better get Johnny Cakes.
My only gripe is the coffee is weak.

Lots o’ bland food.
The place was empty on a Sunday at 1 PM. The menu was mostly entrees with a hand full of sandwiches. There was a long list of specials. All of the food ranged from $ 6 – 10.
The plates coming out of the kitchen was were huge (the fish and chips was big enough for any two hungry people). I had the quahog chowder (thin broth) and the Angus burger. The chowder was tasteless (lots of potatoes and quahog bits). The burger was grilled on the flattop but almost tasted streamed.
The service was good: prompt and friendly. The place was cold but it was unseasonable cold (snowed in October). There was an outdoor area that would be great in the warmer months.