Lancaster restaurant recommendations for wife's birthday
 

We're spending this weekend celebrating my wife's birthday in Lancaster. Could someone recommend an upscale dinner location for Saturday? We're open to all kinds of food and actually enjoy places with unusual local flair. I'm looking for more of a white tablecloth place rather than a place the buses will stop. (No offense to those places, but we'll likey do Shady Maple or other similar places other times during the weekend.)Is there a nice place that we shouldn't miss?

If you repost with mention of Pennsylvania in your title, you'll be more likely to get an answer.

~Liz

Checker's Bistro has the best food in Lancaster IMO. White tablecloths in the formal dining room. checkersbistro.com
Carr's Restaurant is also very good, white tablecloths. carrsrestaurant.com
Or the Stockyard. But that's a little stuffy and the service is, at best, rather rude. stockyardinn.com
All should have menus online. You may also want to try posting on tripadvisor.com as the PA forum over there is much more active than here. Any of those three should do for great food and the white tablecloth atmosphere though. Absolutely make reservations at any of these places though, as they're all packed on weekends, especially Checkers.
No matter what, have fun, and happy birthday to your wife!

Hi RandyK!

I thought this might help:

http://www.padutchcountry.com/dining/fine.asp

Have a great trip/birthday celebration!

:)

The nicest is probably the Log Cabin but I would also recommend the Old Greenfield Inn. Lancaster gets heavily booked on weekends so make reservations now. Just in case, the Belevedere Inn would be my 3rd selection. The BI is more in-town but you could easily get directions from the Tourist Center. Enjoy.

We like Gibralter, which is across from Franklin and Marshall College. The specialty is seafood -- the divers scallops are the most delicious I've ever had -- with a Mediterranean slant. Nice atmosphere with outdoor seating available if the weather is nice. It's on the website Naturegirl posted.

We did Gibraltar in case anyone is interested. We were dazzled by their Zagat rating (28 out of 30). Unfortunately for us we seemed to hit them on an off night. First we arrived with about 4 other parties and waited about 5 minutes before anyone appeared at the hostess stand to seat us. Despite having a reservation we were placed at the table nearest the kitchen, not a bad table but many tables closer to the windows were open. When I asked about a booth that was open, one hostess told the other that the booth was already reserved. It was never used throughout our 2.5 hour meal. My wife (the birthday girl) ordered the scallops and was disappointed to learn that they were out of their signature dish that evening. We enjoyed soups and then waited for our entree for a very long time. Eventually another waiter (maybe the head waiter) stopped at our table to apologize for the delay and soon after our own waiter (Les) also apologized. Our meal arrived. Not long after this, the party of 6 received their meals and 4 of the 6 enjoyed the scallop dish that had my wife tried to order before them. Does this place do a call-ahead for scallops?

We ordered a dessert to share and coffee. Despite two requests for more coffee we never got more coffee. Our request for the check also seemed to take a long time even though by this time the restaurant had slowed considerably.

As I said we may have just hit Gibraltar on an off night, but at nearly $200 for two people (2 glasses of wine, 2 drinks and one dessert) I was expecting a better experience.

That was kind of my experience at Gibralter too. Service was just ok, but they were out of the first 3 bottles of wine we tried to order, then two appetizers we wanted and two entrees. And it was early on a Tuesday night...not like it was the end of the night on a busy weekend. That combined with an experience with one of the owners at another of their restaurants made me swear I'd never go back.
Sorry you had a bad experience. I hope you won't take it out on all Lancaster restaurants! We really do have some great ones!

Sorry to hear that. I guess we were there on a good night.

I like Strawberry Hill. Nice bar, excellent wine list and “happening” (by Lancaster standards anyway).

I've also heard bad things about Gibraltar.

Good places downtown are the Pressroom (http://www.pressroomrestaurant.com) and the Belvedere Inn(http://www.belvedereinn.biz). The Stockyard Inn is good as well, but can get a bit stuffy as another poster mentioned.

As far as local flair, it's hard for me to think of a place that's upscale and serves local food. There's the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant, any number of diners, Miller's Smorgasbord out on Route 30...?

Hi. Happy birthday trip !
My husband and I have never been to Lancaster before and are planning a trip in the fall. we are antiques dealers and will probably go to an auction in the area. Where should we stay in order to enjoy downtown Lancaster - we like to walk versus drive as much as possible.
Thanks

teambeppo,
There are only two hotels that are actually in downtown Lancaster. The Brunswick...it used to be really awful, but I've heard they recently renovated. Can't say for sure how the rooms are now, but I can say the outside still looks the same as it always did...a little rough.

The other hotel is the Lancaster Arts Hotel. It was just built about a year ago and the rooms are gorgeous, but it's a little pricey.

The Brunswick's probably a little closer to downtown attractions, but the Arts Hotel is certainly not that far from the center of town (maybe a 10-15 min walk) and there are more and more things to do in that particular area of the city, as they're developing around the hotel.

The next closest hotel to the city is the Eden. It's a great hotel, but you'd definitely have to drive into the city.

As antiques dealers, you might enjoy Zap & Co. on the 300 block of N. Queen St. (a really funky block of shops, etc). Certainly not antiques, but he gets some really neat vintage stuff in there sometimes. Also, I'm sure you already know what auctions and markets to hit up for great antiques, but my grandparents used to be antiques dealers. If you'd like, I could ask them for the best spots. The only place that comes to mind at the moment is Renninger's (I was pretty young when they got out of the business, tho they still love to buy).

Hope this helps!!

Just a comment on the driving from the Eden - there is a bus that runs right past the Eden and takes you right into the center of downtown. Check out www.redrosetransit.com for info. Route 11 is the one you'd be interested in.

There are many hotels along Route 30 on the eastern side of Lancaster. You'd have to battle some of the shopping/amish tourist traffic to get from there into the city, but again, there's a bus route that goes out there if you don't want to drive (Route 14).

Oh, and as a public service announcement to anyone interested, it's pronounced LANG-kiss-ter, not LAN-cast-er. :)