Community Restaurant

Food was horrible and overpriced. My Gyro was definitely lacking in filling. The place looks like it should be a diner (unfinished walls, poor bathrooms). Priced like a good restaurant (but is a fair diner). If I want to pay $ 25 a plate I’ll drive and get a better dinner.

Whenever I am in town I make a point to eat at The Community. The place is one of the few historic restaurants left in Cortland. A year or two ago they updated the interior, keeping the original wooden booths and bar. The space is really lovely. The menu offers a wide range of of traditional CNY favorites including rubens, chicken parm and turkey dinner.

So my husband and I have been long time goers of the Community Restaurant before the remodel. We don’t go out as much as we used to but decided to have a date night which brought us back to the Community for the first time in a long time. WOW! We were definitely pleasantly surprised. As we sat down we were brought water and a loaf of warm bread with olive oil and balsamic reduction, which was a nice touch. We decided to get three appetizers to share, which was way too much for two. They were delicious, full of flavor, and a nice change for the Cortland area. Though it is a Greek restaurant they offer a nice variety to suite any pallet and they do it well. I had the Cajan Shrimp Salad for dinner because I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat much more and I was right. The salad was crisp and the shrimp were seasoned just right. My husband had the Seafood Pescatori (sp?) and that was excellent. The seafood was fresh and it the spot. Our waitress was very kind and accommodating and had a smile during our entire meal. And, although we did not stay for drinks the bar is a trendy quaint bar that the average professional would be happy to enjoy a drink after work. All in all I say give them a try, if it was anything like my husbands and my experience you will leave happy!

Stopped in here for dinner on the advice of a colleague. It was mid-​week and not crowded. They have bar seating, including tables in the front, a dining room in the rear. The place was clean, my waitress friendly. I ordered the turkey dinner (real turkey). It arrived hot, in a reasonable amount of time and was very good. I’m not sure why the other reviews are so poor, my visit was pleasant. Some may consider this place pricey, but I believe the amount of food on my plate certainly off-​set the few dollars more. I will return.

We stopped on our way to Niagara Falls at The Community Restaurant. While the tavern was nice and cozy, the sandwiches were way overpriced. $ 12 for a chicken Gyro in rural NY? Come on. I don’t mind paying for good food but the gyro was dry and not very good. My vegetarian wife’s salad was also expensive $ 13 with no meat. Again, if it was a fabulous salad maybe. But it was a normal, nothing special Greek salad. All in all, we left feeling gouged and not really satisfied. Definitely wouldn’t go back. $ 75 for a few gyros and a salad? Manhattan comes to Cortland I suppose.

Had delicious turkey dinner which was REAL turkey, dressing REAL mashed potatoes and REAL butternut squash. So much food, took some food home. Liver was cooked perfectly and delicious as well. Waitress was pleasant and service of food was very good. Definitely worth the price!

I do not usually review restaurants, but this was so over the top, I had to. We went to this restaurant last Saturday with a group of 5 people. We had 7:30 reservations. We arrived and were seated promptly. After about 10 minutes, a waitress walked by and said she would be right with us. 10 more minutes and a second waitress walked by and said she would be right with us. After an additional 5 minutes, we went to hostess and told them we had been waiting for ½ hour and asked if we could at least get water. A few minutes later a 3^rd waitress came over and said she would be right with us and would bring us water, which she did a few minutes later. We started to order and she told us if we ordered appetizers it would take over an hour to get our meals, so that we should just order entrees and they would be ready in 20 minutes. We ordered just entrées. Another table of 5 came in about this time. 40 minutes later the waitress came back and told us they were out of one of the entrees we ordered 40 minutes ago. Why it took 40 minutes for her to realize this I do not know. We decided to leave. It had been over an hour and we still did not have food. The table that came in a ½ hour after us was now being served their appetizers (we were told we could not order appetizers). They assured us our food would be out in minutes, so we sat back down. We waited an additional 10 minutes. The staff was so inattentive, that a napkin on the empty table next to us, that had been left uncleared since we arrived actually had time to smolder and ignite, due to being left near the candle. Nobody even noticed. My daughter got up and put out the flames. At this point the table that came in ½ hour after us had finished their appetizers and was now being served their entrees. We again decided to leave. It has now been an hour and ½ since we had arrived, and we were pretty much fed up. They came out and assured us the food was coming right now. We stayed (I really do not know why). They brought the food. My meal was a seafood platter with 3 items, but only 2 were there (guess they though we wouldn’t notice). I asked about it and was told they were out of stuffed shrimp. I ordered this over an hour ago. If they were out of part of the dish, I would have expected to have been told. When they brought us the bill, they charged us for the entrée they didn’t have. The next day my son went to eat the leftover Gyro he had ordered and when he went to bite into it he realized it was full of pieces of plastic. The Gyro meat must have been purchased wrapped in plastic and they didn’t bother to unwrap it before they sliced it. We will of course never eat here again. There was only 1 other table in the room we were in while we were there, and the other room was ½ empty as well.

Had dinner tonight and it was wonderful. The friendly atmospher, ambiance, courteous service, and delicious meal made for a memorable evening. Will definitely return soon.

Breakfast is good. Service is good. They have chicken pot pie that we are going to try tonight. The restaurant has been renovated and is nice.

One of the few full-​service downtown restaurants but unfortunately the service is sometimes not very good and the food is only so-​so. I’ve been there several times because others want us to go there but it’s not a place I would choose myself. It’s too bad, too, because it’s in a prime downtown location and has plenty of space. It could be a major attraction in Cortland, but isn’t.

Restaurant impossible needs to come here! Help save this place. Waitresses rather be doning something else other then serving customers. Not very friendly, almost like we were bothering them. Food very overcooked. Gyro meat crispy.

We picked this place during our skiing trip to Cortland in spite of not great reviews mainly because we miss European food here. And we were not disappointed with food — it was very tasty and nicely prepared. I had Greek style shrimps backed with feta cheese, olives, etc. and mushroom tortellini — huge portion that I even had to take away and enjoyed next day too. Service was friendly. So if you want smth different than burgers and do not care about fancy interior, this is a place to come and enjoy cooking.

We went there for dinner on a Sunday recently. It’s a pleasnt though dated room, but the carpet could use a major scrubbing or better yet, should be changed. The maroon tablecloth, whose corners peaked out from behind a plastic tablecloth, had food stains on it. Nevertheless, we were hungry and the waitstaff seemed pleasant enough.
My wife ordered a gyro platter, while I had the moussaka dinner. Our server was a very nice young woman who served us efficiently, checked on us often, and seemed to be eager to please us. Unfortunately for her, the kitchen lagged way behind her. They started out decently with a big salad, although the lettuce wasn’t fresh. My moussaka was dry as a bone (ground beef, sliced potates and eggplant, topped with a usually semi-​solid creamy bechamel sauce). Well, the bottom of the dish was hard as a rock, with pieces of something resembling wood (potato slice? eggplant piece) on the bottom along with cement-​like ground beef. I tried to moisten it up with some butter, as I was quite hungry, but no go– it was inedible; even the sauce was dry. My wife’s gyro contained 4 slices of chopped and formed mystery meat, but the meat was waaaay overcooked so that the edges were dry and could be banged on the plate (which we did when the waitress arrived). The pita bread was burned. To her credit, the waitress removed the charge for the moussaka (I only ate one tiny forkful, as I didn’t have a chainsaw handy) from the bill. My wife ate the woody gyro because she was even hungrier than me.
I gave the place two stars instead of one only because the pleasant waitress tried to make things better. After seeing TWO burned dishes, however, we had no intention of trying for third and fourth ones.
We would not return to this restaurant unless we started seeing some good reviews. The place was not very clean, the tablecloths were dirty, and the rest rooms looked like they could have been in an old Texaco station on old route 1.

Well first off the owners and waiters gave us attitudes. Our water had dead flies in it. The food was cold and we felt rushed. This place is terrible. Don’t ever ever ever come here!

Went there with a table of 12. It took over one hour for the food to be served. The waitress brought out all the food at once… the salad, apps, and main courses at once. Most of the food was really cold. Couldn’t be bothered to send it back… it would have taken way to long to wait again. Never again

This was one of our regular rotation stops for Sunday breakfast. Decent morning grub at decent prices. The morning servers were good. No problem getting a table if we beat the St. Mary’s parishoners in.

I’ve been to this place a couple times over the years but hadn’t been in quite awhile. Each time though, there has been some type of «snafu». The most recent time however was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
We were seated at a table in the middle of the main dining room. Shortly thereafter, we were subjected to an argument amongst all of the waitstaff about who gets what table, and what tips, etc. It was quite distracting and unprofessional, but nothing to leave over.
Our waitress was extrememly pushy from the beginning, and seemed annoyed by everything we said or asked for, including additional time to review the menu. She returned after about 2 minutes tops. She gave my iced tea to someone else at the table, and upon being told «oops actually that’s mine», she replied «yep» and walked away. During the meal, someone asked for a water re-​fill and she walked a few steps across the room to get the pitcher and gave the water to the wrong person… AGAIN.
Finally at the end of the meal my girlfriend asked for separate checks and was told no you have to ask for that BEFORE you order. So I commented that I thought she was kidding and said that the service is hit or miss, and that’s why we never come here anymore. Apparently the hostess overheard that and went back to tell the waitress that I said we never come here because she wouldn’t separate our checks.
So she came marching out and started saying that we should’ve asked at the beginning but started hurriedly adding them up separately right at our table, and told me «the hostess heard what you said». So I responded «the check ISN’T why we don’t come here anymore», but she wasnt interested in hearing the rest which was going to be «but it IS why we’ll never be back»!
*EDIT* I realized I hadn’t said much about the food. The vast majority of their menu is overpriced, and underwhelming in both portion size, and quality. The only thing I can recommend is their Chicken Parm. It’s the best I’ve ever had anywhere. But one good dish isn’t enough to make up for having to suffer through the rest of their flaws. STAY AWAY!