The Tributary

My family purchased a Groupon that we presented upon arrival, so that there wouldn’t be any problems.
We believe that once the waitress/​server saw the Groupon, that we were «cast aside» and treated us as a non-​priority.
It was so uncomfortable that we didn’t enjoy our dinner and based in this experience, we definitely won’t be returning. We almost felt like second class citizens. If I were a gambler, all bets would be on this woman as being part of the owner’s family.
The quality of the food was «okay,» but I must say that my steak tasted like an Omaha Steak (which aren’t very good). Again, the disrespectful treatment by the staff (only this woman) overshadowed the quality of the food (which was only fair). She didn’t even fill up our water glasses… And the place was NOT busy.
The Groupon was a good deal, but again, the manner in which we were treated led the Tributary to lose us as future customers.
We have been to the Tributary on and off for many years… The salad bar is still very good, but the décor is old and the rooms are dark and uninviting. Add on the fact that the waitress was very unfriendly (as I have already said) you have a business that leads me to believe that they are unappreciative to their customers.
If the Tributary is upset about possibly «losing money,» then they shouldn’t offer the Groupon to begin with.
I overtipped the waitress (paying way above 20% for the full cost of the meal) since I didn’t want her to feel like we were cheating her.
Looking back at it now, she didn’t deserve any of it. For example, I can understand that if some pays $ 50 for a Groupon that gives you $ 100 worth of food, many people probably only tip on the 50.00 they paid… We are not those type of people, and shouldn’t be treated as such.
This is as honest and real as it gets. I hope the owner (s) read this and take the necessary steps to improve experienced of customers such as my family …

I love this place, it is a staple of NW CT and Winsted. It seems to be one of the best kept secrets as well. Our food is always amazing, service is always friendly and competent. One of kids is a Celiac and cannot have any gluten, they have always taken great care not to cross contaminate her food when preparing it.
Any issues I have had have been promptly rectified and beyond satisfyingly so, they are rare. Of course on the busiest days things might run a little slower like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day but they do an amazing job at keeping things running well and quality is never compromised. I would recommend them over and over, I have myself been eating there for 25 years, both in the restaurant and take out. Our youngest daughter’s favorite burger is the Trib burger and has been since she was 5 years old.

This restaurant is a diamond in the rough. It’s hidden a little bit from main street of 44. It’s right behind Dairy Queen. Old-​school classic American food steaks the size of your head, classic American dishes cook to perfection. Been there at least six times now never had an issue. excellent restaurant! The crumb top soul is the bomb!

Dinner at THE TRIB last night. Used a Groupon, and got an appetizer to share, 2 entrees, and dessert to share for 38 dollars. Salad bar was well stocked. Ordered prime rib, which was very tender and flavorful. Came with large pop over, Yum, baby carrots and I requested baked instead of mashed potato. We got the stuffed mushroom appetizer, and chocolate mousse cake for dessert. Our other entrée was fish fillet with rice and asparagus. We arrived around 530, and were lucky, since we had no reservations. I would recommend making one, as there was a waiting line when we left. Pleased with our food and our service. I had a lot left to take home. Still delicious next day.

rustic spot with nice salad bar. portions are presented beautifully and are quite generous. the crumbtop sole was scrumptious and the filet mignon perfectly cooked. shrimp cocktail was fresh and large. the service is attentive. extensive dessert choices. as a nice touch, mints are provided with the bill. most portions are under $ 20, so the groupon does not really save you money unless you want an appetizer and dessert to share as well as the entrée.

My wife and I can confirm several other reviews of a lack of service. This was not due to the effort of the wait staff but by management’s lack of adequate staffing. I had to hunt down my waitress for my check.
We arrived before 6:00 on a Friday. Service was fine when we arrived: menu, bottle of wine, placed our orders, arrival of our appetizer and meal. Then the place went from ¹⁄₃ to every table filled and it went downhill.
Originally 2 waitresses and a guy were attending tables but when it got busy the guy disappeared. Either hired another waitperson or at a minimum get a busboy.
Meal was ok. Portions were appropriately sized for the price.
We will not be going back due to poor staffing.

There are not a lot of restaurant options in Norfolk, so we are lucky the Tributary is there to serve hearty portions of what tastes like delicious home cooking. The salad bar is constantly being refreshed as people pile their plates high with fresh veggies, potato salads, beets, and string beans. Every dish on the menu is then big enough for two and come with tasty sides for a complete meal. I love the clams and shrimp over rice and my family members love the pork chops. You can’t go wrong here if you’re looking for a filling portion of country-​style food.

I am writing this review as I sit at the restaurant. Arrived at 6pm with reservation, we’ve had one drink, one appetizer, and helped ourselves to salad bar. We’ve been here about an hour and maybe made the mistake of presenting our groupon upon arrival… Families of 5 plus around us have been served many drinks, entire meals, and special requests of lemons and hot sauce reliever asap. This is our first experience here and we will never be back. We’re debating leaving but have heard how good the food is. Hardest part is being treated so poorly when with this groupon the only thing we «pay» for is alcohol and service, two things we’ve lacked up to this point, an hour in. We both ordered simple meal items while more people are served gourmet meals around us and arriving after us and leaving before us. We’ve recently moved to Winchester area and we unfortunately will not be back to this now busy restaurant.

Since we have so few options where we live that are closer than 30 minutes, I SO wanted to like this place. I have read the other reviews and have to say the first one, which described Tributary as ‘retirement home’ food, is spot on.
I’ve noticed that for many diners, portion size is the most important factor… the larger the better. Read between the lines at the positive reviews and you will notice a common thread amongst them. They almost all point out that portions are large.
Maybe they are, but if they aren’t prepared well and aren’t always fresh, who cares? Shouldn’t that be what’s most important?
If you feel the same way, stay away from this place.
As for the décor, yes, it’s dated, but it fits right in with the feel of Winsted… dated, tired and in need of a revamp.

Best lobster and filet mignon in NW CT. We’ve been coming here for years on special occasions and for the quality it’s a good value. We especially like the peanut butter cream pie for desert.

We do the Trib a few times/​year, always poultry or beef and always take-​out. The food is classic downtown American and the staple items are where they shine. When work obligations made prepping a holiday dinner for two difficult, we’ve relied on the Tributary for turkey and the trimmings. For this meal, we often have to break out the carving knife ourselves and give the slabs a right and proper carving. They could put a little more thought into that, and I only bring it up because we’ve had the takeout holiday meal several times and the slab’o’turkey thing is a constant. That said, we’ll keep going there for takeout, no problem.

Ok so the décor is a tad dated. If you can get past that aspect The restaurant was clean, salad bar fresh and the sandwich and burger we ordered were delicious. We were there in the middle of a Sunday afternoon so it was quiet but the other customers seemed to be well treated by the staff. Our waitress was attentive but not cloying and we left pretty happy.

I was visting from out of state had a Groupon was told this place was good. I think differently My dish I had was great but the service was extremely slow considering there was only 3 other people in the restaurant. We waited a good 10 minutes from the time we sat down to when our waitress came over to give us menus and then we waited a longer amount of time to get the food. Not one person came over until like the end of out meal to see how every thing was. I don’t think I would ever come there again or really recommend them to someone else.

My family took me here for Father’s Day. We’ve been here a number of times before. However, they were woefully understaffed for the holiday — just the owner and her daughter and son in the main dining room, plus they we served people in the bar as well. We had to wait to be seated, simply because they don’t seem to have enough menus to go around. Once seated, we ordered, got our salads, and waited and waited for our water to arrive. Once we finished our meal, we waited and waited and waited to get our check. We’d still be there if we didn’t get up from our table and hunt down the restaurant. We left, and the party that arrived right after us still hadn’t gotten their food yet. On the plus side, the salad bar is good, and the portions are large and generally good. The service sucked pond water however. Hire more help on holidays!

Please save yourselves. I am currently parked in the bathroom, puking out my nose an hour after eating here. Let me start with the place itself. Wicked, wicked, wicked awful décor and nasty carpets. I am guessing everything is a 1970’s original. But whatever if your food is awesome I don’t give a crap what the place looks like. Had a groupon, sat down ordered 2 bud lights-​warm. Gross. So I switch to diet coke. Ordered the fried clam strips, they were big, and good but clearly not fresh. I had the stuffed shrimp for dinner. The shrimp were cooked to death, the stuffing was made of some kind of bread. The asparagus was basically raw and the rice was slimy. My companion had a ribeye cooked MR. That was not a ribeye. And it was super rare. The salad bar was diner appropriate, not bad. Very disappointed, and now I am pretty sure this may be the end for me.

Very disappointed.
Service is slow and inattentive.
Food is mediocre.
Facility is not clean.
I expected better.

The Tributary has racked up a whopping nine Unilocal reviews over 7 and a half years. I just read all of them and vehemently disagree with the slams on service and the food. We used a Groupon and had a very nice time here tonight.
For $ 70 we had two big appetizers, a very nice salad bar, two big entrees and a glass of wine. No complaints there at all.
We started off with the salad bar, it looks small, but it’s a 4-​sided affair wrapped around a brick column, so when you consider all of it, you realize it has a lot of dishes up there, It also has self serve bread– tonight there were 3 varieties, lemon, pumpkin and zucchini. We thought the salad bar was way above average.
Our appetizers were a $ 9.95 shrimp cocktail (6 good sized shrimps) and an $ 8.95 stuffed mushrooms. The mushrooms were a tremendous value– 4 golf ball sized mounds of bread crumbs and ground sausage over mushroom caps. They were very good.
Entrees were Farfalle with shrimp and scallops for $ 20.95 and Chicken Berkshire ($ 19,95). It was a huge breaded and sauteed chicken breast served with sliced peaches in a peach brandy sauce, along with rice and asparagus.
I had the chicken and it was very good– nice and moist and cooked perfectly.
Service was very good, pleasant and attentive. We interacted with three of 4 folks, pouring water, clearing dishes, delivering the food, and giving us service updates. No problems here.
Yes, its a bit of an old school looking place with brick and dark paneling and wood ceilings. But seriously, who cares? Winsted is an old mill town and not Haight Ashbury. For what it’s worth, the place was jam packed tonight. Every single table in the dining room was taken.
The food was priced right, and the portions were generous; we took home half of the pasta, half of the chicken and sides, and two of the golf ball sized stuffed mushrooms.

Ordered the Rib eye special ($ 24.95). I was brought a Sirloin. When I question ed the waitress she told me that it was Rib eye, but very lean… Really???
I wonder what the prime rib is? All and all I would have to recommend a pass on this place!
It really is too bad because the atmosphere was very comfortable and relaxing, pretty nice if not small salad bar. I guess maybe I’m just unreasonable to expect a ribeye when I order a revised.

On July 27 big disappointment, it was the third time there this year and this was the worst. I noticed that there were no croutons at the salad bar so I asked politely for some and it seamed like a big bother to the waitress to get some. I mentioned to my father in law what’s up with her and he said that she was the owner. Big surprise even when I asked for a refill on the water, I wish I could have just filled it myself. If I’m going to pay $ 25.00 for food I would like to have someone serving me and my 5 guest that what’s to be there especially the owner taking care of us so we would want to come back. For the food the clam strips are frozen and battered, this is supposed to be a seafood restaurant. One of the easiest things to do and not fresh, why ?. I had the veg. Lasagna and the veg. We’re rubbery, like it was frozen and microwaved. What a shame. Can do a lot better.

This spot isn’t terrible in all accounts. What I love here is the salad bar and some of the seafood options. Salad bar is fairly simplistic, but it has some wonderful options like macaroni and potato salads — and just the basics in terms of veggies etc. Make sure to hold onto your plate as they quickly snatch them up so you can’t seemingly get seconds.
Prime rib special is also legit here too. Huge slab of beef. Overall I enjoyed this spot with my family, will likely come back.