The Red Raven Gastropub

Ordered the chicken, it came to me completely raw. By the time I got my next meal, my friends had already finished eating. The bear was great… until they kicked us out because they wanted to shut the bar down an hour early.

Great food! Great service… We did several apps and each was amazing! Can’t wait to try more!!!

Saturday at 7pm.
I can’t say enough good things about the red Raven.
Seated Promptly — check. Edgar Allan Poe theme — check check check. Craft beer — check. Friendly staff — check. Ribs that fall off the bone — check. Best mussels around — check.
Our waiter and the manager even remember us from when we booked our wedding rehearsal MONTHS ago.

This place is awesome. Fantastic bartenders and great, unique and also classic cocktails. Unique, and HUGE food menu. Never had a bad sip, bite, or experience. The décor and atmosphere work very well together, its cozy yet funky! A perfect date night spot or for meeting friends for dinner and drinks. During the summer months the patio is beautiful day or night, seated just over the beautiful pond. You’ll quickly become a regular if you’re a foodie!

We have been to the Red Raven several times while visiting friends in the area. We couldn’t be happier with the atmosphere, the service, and most impotrantly the food! Almost everything they serve is made in-​house. A great example is the charcuterie. It takes no small amount of time and skill to cure your own meats, pickles, fish, etc. One trip there was salmon cured «pastrami style» on the board, it literally melts in your mouth. The mussels are perfectly prepared and very flavorful. We happened to meet the owners and the executive chef and they were charming. The chef clearly takes care to use classic techniques while also putting innovative twists on the food and presentations. The Raven burger topped with an egg and fois gras is something to behold. We will be back!

I really want to like this place. It’s a nice atmosphere and there aren’t many options around here. My husband and I have tried it on 3 separate occasions and won’t be returning. Every time we go we spend most of our 90-​minute dinner feeling deserted and trapped, wondering when/​if our waiter will return.
We are the kind of people who never complain, who never send food back. The only 2 times we’ve ever sent food back was here. The first time was raw marrow. The second time was steamed mussels that had clearly been sitting under a warmer for awhile — and weren’t warm (never mind hot). The waiter oddly took the dish away, took the entrée off the bill and didn’t ask my husband if he wanted a substitute. We didn’t bother complaining about our undercooked brussels sprout appetizer. The drinks were good when we could get our hands on them.
Don’t bother going here unless you’re willing to put up with slow, inattentive service and inconsistent quality.

A delightful dinner with team. We enjoyed the cioppini, short ribs and salmon were excellent. Potato soup was 5. Pasta dish was average. We had a nice wine and service was good. They should expand there wine selection. Overall good experience

Great charcuterie plates, delicious burgers. Red Raven is a trendy, hipster vibe-​y place with a knack for incorporating history into its menu – the whole place is Edgar Allen Poe inspired! It has a cozy, wood-​and-​leather feel, with small tables and low lighting. I don’t mind this aspect of the venue, but I know it can be a deal-​breaker for some. Give it a try if you find yourself in Acton looking for some good, eclectic local fare!

Stopped by here again and again was not disappointed! None of us were.
Started out with a nice snack of fresh made chips and dip. Gotta love a great chip!
I had a delightful flat bread pizza that would have cured the roughest hangover… Maybe even a bangover! (The 2 – 3 day hangover as you get older)
It had prosciutto, roasted potatoes, cheese, some
Kind of goodness drizzle for sauce and an egg on top. I’m sure I’m missing some of the goodness that was on there. Just trust me. You must have this one Sunday when you are looking for something different to try.
The other two people I can’t recall what they had but their plates were licked clean so need I say more?!
The owner then made us all a mad Moscow Mule! Hand made to perfection!
This is a great laid back place that over looks water and has great craft beers on tap and a wonderfully different menu.
Cheers!

I had been here once before, and it must have been good enough for me to come back. However, last night was a complete disaster.
We went in at 7:30 without reservations and was brought to a table at 7:45 after being told a 15 minute wait. Not bad. Except for the fact there were multiple empty tables around us. We placed our order within 10 minutes of sitting down. 25 minutes later, our appetizers were still not out. How long does it take to scoop soup into a bowl? My French onion soup was barely soup, it was SO dense with onions. Our waiter apologized for our long wait and told us we could get our entrees whenever we wanted because it was ready to go. Surely enough, our entrees must have been ready to go for a long long time because my steak frites were completely cold. My fries weren’t even room temperature and my steak was not cooked the way I asked, medium well. I understand a small pink strip, but medium well doesn’t mean red meat in the middle. I took two bites and left the rest there. They did give me a lot of fries though, which is a plus.
At first I thought it was the cook staff that was being slow, but then I decided it was the waiter who was not being attentive. Other tables that came after us finished their meals before we got our entrees. I guess this place is a real hit or miss.
Their bathrooms can be confusing. There’s no «women’s» or «men’s» sign, only pictures of figures you really have to stare at to realize it’s supposed to symbolize genders.
Chose this place since its in Acton, but probably won’t come back again.

Okay, so «Gastropub» is probably a generous description, especially since this is formerly the Rusty Scupper. That it looks virtually unchanged since I was last there nearly 20 years ago is both good and bad — the soft lights and dark wooden ceilings give it a certain coziness, but there’s very little sign of innovation in the décor. As it turns out, the same could be said of the food we ordered.
It’s telling that the best thing on the menu is the charcuterie. This should have tipped me off to stick to small plates, but we came to the restaurant hungry, so we ordered an entrée after the generous helping of meats and cheeses. My wife ordered the fish and chips as an entrée. It was massive, and a little bit greasy, overwhelming the taste of the fish. I ordered a salmon burger, which was a little juicier than it should have been. An overly generous dollop of mustard on top of the salmon caused the bun to nearly slide off. Sadly, there’s nothing «gastro» about this pub — what we had could be more accurately described as standard pub grub.

This place cannot get it together. We live locally and have come here probably about 10 times and each time something has always gone wrong. For example some of the things that have happened: ordering something like an appetizer or a cocktail and it never comes, getting the wrong thing or getting what we ordered and it’s terrible. Each time we usually have one thing that makes up for the bad but today when we went for brunch it was a particularly terrible experience. We will not be coming back after this shit show. Here was our experience:
Walk in 12:45 ish. There is a seat yourself sign so we sat down. We waited about 10 min before anyone came over. There was about 10 parties in the entire restaurant by the way so I wasn’t like it was busy at all. The confused waitress comes over looks like she just rolled out of bed from a late night and gives us water, menus, and tells us about the drink menu then disappears. We pick out what we want for both drinks and food. She doesn’t come over for another 10 – 15 min. Now we have been at red Raven for 25 and don’t even have drinks. During this time I witnessed other people sit down after us and get food and a cocktail before we got our food. I am growing increasingly annoyed, I’m hungry and hung over and just want food without having to work for a good dining experience. We order our food and drinks at the same time because we know if we don’t we didn’t we will be there for another hour waiting for her to come back over. Then we order, I get eggs bene and my boyfriend gets a Bloody Mary and the stuffed French toast. Another 15 min go by before he gets his drink and it comes without a straw so he had to wait for her to come over another 5 min to get a straw. It was also terrible, he said it tasted like tomato juice. He’s not a picky person at all, so for him to say that… it has to be BAD. The food comes… But of course the waitress doesn’t notice we don’t have any utensils so we have to ask for them. His stuffed French toast was bomb! buttery sweet and utterly dreamy! My eggs bene was beyond terrible! Over toasted bread, the poached eggs which are usually the best part when the runny yokes mix with everything else, were almost hard boiled and no yoke ran out. The «house ground» sausage tasted like it had gone bad and one of the parties was still pink in the middle. I ate one and felt pretty grossed out and disappointed… for $ 14 this is inexcusable. Next time we saw her, we got the check because she kept disappearing for long periods of time and we were so disappointed we just wanted to leave. I even threw down cash so we could get the hell out of there.
Other observations: during the time we were there I heard the man behind us get coffee and she forgot the milk, so he asked her for it. She disappeared into the back for a long period of time (shocking I know) and he had to get up and get it by asking the bartender. Also the large party at the other end of the room got the check and it took so long for her to come back (enough time where about 10 people figured out how to split up the bill and we’re waiting for her to come back over for a little while) they got sick of waiting and brought the bill up to another staff member.
All in all I’m pissed. You had one job… This girl had about 3 tables and couldn’t get it together. I’m actually feeling sick right now. Probably due to that gross sausage. The service was horrible, the food was bad and we are NEVER coming back or recommending that place to anyone.

I had been enjoying this restaurant for several years, and have frequently brought friends along who hadn’t yet discovered it. On a recent Saturday night, we brought along three other couples who had never been there. We had terrible problems that night.
Allergy issue:
Three of us ordered a special entrée for the night. All three plates looked completely different. A friend who ordered it asked if it contained dairy as she has a dairy allergy. She was told no. After the entrée came, it looked and tasted cheesy. She inquired again and was again told that it did not contain dairy. She didn’t eat that part of the dish and asked a third time and was again told there was no dairy in it, but it did have cheese in it.
Burger issue:
I told my friend to order his burger «murdered» as it is so good with foie gras and fried egg. He did order that and it came without the toppings. He sent it back and they returned it to him with just the egg. When we called the waitress back to let her know the foie gras was not included, she told us that it would take to long so they decided not to include it.
Service problems:
Everything took forever, especaiily drinks. The waitrdess was never around when we needed her. She said she was busy with a wedding upstairs.
MANAGEMENT ISSUE:
Everything took so long and we were dying to get out of the restaurant by the time we finished. I also didn’t want to make an issue of anything in front of the 6 new people I bought with me to introduce them to Red Raven. I also knew (assumed?) that they were buys with a wedding, so instead of asking for the manager that night,
I called 2 days later. The manager said the entrée we ate definitely contained dairy and the waitress was very wrong to tell us three times that it did not. She also said the wedding was no big deal at all and was a very small group and it should not have affected our food or service at all that night. She never apologized about any of the issues we had, nor did she offer any concession nor incentive to return.
I will not go here again. We had always enjoyed it here in the past. My friend could have had a serious medical problem and I was so embarrassed that I brought my group here. I can’t believe that the manager didn’t even apologize or care about our future business.
Visited October 2015

Sunday Funday was one of those days where we were seeking a place that had outdoor seating, good food and a love for craft cocktails! We always say «just one drink!?“and guess what? Bam!!! In comes out of the Unilocal archives this phenomenal, awesome spot that soothed that inner desire we all had. This spot takes great pleasure and a deep passion for craft cocktails! If your a Edgar Allen Poe fan or fanatic then this place is for you. to much to describe as the menu was in point! I went with the burger and it was phenomenal! Only downfall of this place was the rotation of brews! I think Mr. Poe would be OK to keep it all local crafts…

Overall– best gastropub near 495. Charcuterie and cheeses always delight. Consistency needs work, but overall very pleasant meals. Kid-​friendly, too. My daughters write:
D1– the quail egg sliders are very innovative. One of my favorites.
D2– Very good service, great view of the pond (it sets a relaxed, comfortable tone) I love the thin fries and the brunch is good too.

Brought my daughter and my S.O. and my 22 & 24 year old sons for a brunch birthday party, on a Sunday with a 11:30 reservation made about a week prior. Specifically asked for window seating, were seated in an awkward corner booth in a basically empty restaurant next to the only other party in the place. While the woman at the desk was nice, the remainder of the staff were either on work release or had just been hired on an after school program.
After a while the waiter came over, and then another ten minutes later TINY cups of coffee showed up — one at a time… I ordered one of their Bloody Mary’s… it was fairly bland — not expected as it was called the Mask of Red Death or some silly thing like that. meh… We ordered our food and it took about ½ hour to get served — I can’t fault the food terribly, the benedict was a really odd orange color and the combination of sweet rolls and hollandiase sauce was not the wisest choice by the chef… although the bacon was good.
Overall, I chose the Red Raven as it was close to my son’s new home in Littleton — but I certainly will not be returning — I think this place is basically an after-​work techie hang — years ago I believe it was scupperjacks — and this is just another not very good place that will probably have a run and go under.

So the Food is Solid. Really good actually. The service leaves something to be desired. Granted they probably make everything fresh and to order, but on a Sunday with virtually no one else there, why does it take 45 –60 mins to make some eggs and potatoes? Did you have to pick the eggs from the chickens? I think we were like 1 of 7 sit down brunch people. There was a marathon group that finished the race in the shopping center, but they had a burger bar or something…
Anywho, everyone was really nice, service was pleasant. I can’t say they were inattentive, I mean the food takes a long time to cook, I don’t want the poor waitress to have to tell me it’s going to take minutes more… so anyway good enough, but the kitchen needs to get their shit together and function professionally. I don’t know how they can possibly operate when they are busy…

The food is good, pricey but competitive. The atmosphere is promising but a slave better experienced filled them quiet as I experienced it on my weekday visit. Service was referent and friendly if somewhat novice. In all I was satisfied with my visit to the red raven. I seek out self proclaimed gastropubs to see what the definition of becoming, expectations suspended. I had s generous and flavorful salmon burger, my companion a daily catch of salmon and shrimp, also a large fresh portion, well prepared — simple but elegant. I enjoyed the long draft list as a custom flight. I’d have preferred a more diverse draft list but the number of distinct breweries made up for a lack of styles.
I would happily revisit the Raven. Quoth it, evermore.

Great service, great décor, great location, great menu, great drinks, great food.
Pricey so minus 1 star. By pricey I don’t mean expensive, I mean overpriced for what you’re getting. Even so, worth the trip!
French onion soup is piled with onion strings, thick, and piping hot
Burger is cooked perfect. Aka medium rare means medium rare. Yum!
Bangers and mash are addictive. Sausage is spicy but a delicate blend and not too overpowering. Potato salad is yummy and somehow crispy and really good dipped in the mustard!
Def recommend and will be back. Happy to have a restaurant that might actually stay on this location (fingers crossed for you raven)!

The most interesting aspect of this unique restaurant is that the entire theme is based on Edgar Allan Poe. I loved it! To start, the décor is wonderful. Beautiful couches, modern accessories, and two totally opposite feeling between the dining room and bar area. We chose a high top in the bar area which I would highly recommend.
Next, the service. Our waitress was nice, knowledgable and kept the experience flowing wonderfully. Her name was Carolyn and we appreciated not only her waitressing skills, but her welcoming and friendly personality.
The draught beer menu was extensive and broad; any beer lovers fantasy. We stuck with cocktails which didn’t disappoint. The food though is the true specialty. The French onion soup was AMAZING! $ 9 which is quite pricey, but totally worth it. For entrees, we had the mussels frites, fish and chips, and the burger (murder it style). This burger came topped with housemade maple bacon, an egg, and foie gras. Almost $ 30 for a burger but I didn’t regret it.
We all agreed that this was one of the best restaurant experiences we have had in a while. We’ll be back!