Back Bay Tavern

I am a regular here simply because of the quality you get for the price. If you are looking for lunch or dinner after work without breaking the bank or eating cheap chemical food, I suggest stopping here. $ 7 gets you a really large salad. $ 10 – 12 gets you the traditional fish and chips or burger and fries. And the staff is really flexible. If you want half an order of fries or you want a drink that is not part of the happy hour special; they will always go out of their way to make it happen.

You know, I LOVE Whole Foods Bars, hands down. I frequent them a lot and love to explore new ones. Apparently, I am not alone since they are opening more of them or moving current wine/​beer drinking areas to the front of the stores.
That said, having a great selection of beer in a neat place doesn’t earn you a trophy. Being a place that people like to «just be» requires more and that’s where this location stumbles.
First off — music, geezus — Toto?! Cindy Lauper? John Cougar? Bruce Hornsby? Eddie Money?! Dated crap from old days that isn’t old enough yet to be cool, yuck. Sets a dorky vibe, sorry.
F! They just played Men With Hats. F!
Next — bartender contact. I don’t expect bartenders to converse much with me or anyone else, geez, that has to be a tough job. Give them a break. However, make me welcome more than just a welcome. Offer interaction with me or other patrons, just to set the vibe of a comfortable place to want to be.
I want you guys to succeed, jus sayin.

Great place to take your Whole Foods items in to nosh on. You can pay for them at their register in the restaurant. Service here is so friendly and 5 stars all the way.
3 stars for the food. They are a full restaurant and bar in the very back of the store. They have a separate restaurant menu of appetizers, salads, and main dishes, a lot of pub style food. We started by eating our ahi poke and cucumber and avocado rolls from the grocery side. We should have stopped there but dh was still hungry and we thought we would try a few items from the menu and were not impressed. Sliders were dry and the meat did not taste fresh or high quality, fries were frozen/​salty, fish and chips greasy and salty-didn’t finish them. Sweet potato fries were the best thing and even those were frozen. We obviously ordered the wrong things. I expected much more from this restaurant and from Whole Foods in general. High quality food should taste high quality, so what are they using in the restaurant?

Great selection of local/​area craft beers … and wine that’s offered «on tap.» Try the tofu sticks, with mango chili spice. Amazing; and I’m not a big tofu fan. The meatball is splendid, but far too large for an appetizer. The fish tacos are terrific, and a great value. We eat here a lot, and have never been disappointed. I love the marinara sauce on the calamari. Bartender service is attentive, and everything we’ve tried has been well seasoned and inventively prepared. Kudos to Whole Foods.

Didn’t even get a chance to order. Stopped by on a Sunday around 2pm, maybe two tables sat and a few people at the bar top. Boyfriend and I sat at a tall top table and waited for some kind of acknowledgement. Three employees made eye contact but no one brought over menus, greeted us, nothing. Gave it ten minutes and got up and left.

Back Bay Tavern is great. Awesome food and stellar beers. The employees are knowledgeable, fun, friendly and professional. 24 beers on tap and a great patio. Voo Doo Stout is on tap from Left Coast Brewing and has dark roasted chocolate/​coffee flavors w/​8% ABV. Barrel Aged Asylum w/​Cherries, Barrel Aged «Get in my Belly» Wee Heavy, Almond Cream and Pink Bikini Raspberry Wheat is on tap. Delicious!

Big selection of beers and wide variety of food on the menu. Great appetizers and the food looked good as well. Pretty patio area with comfy couches and a bar inside! It’s located inside of Whole Foods Market, so you can find the entrance through there or go through the back entrance located across from the parking structure.
The service here was good. The host/​server up front always has a great attitude and makes sure the customers are doing okay. We ordered appetizers and beer. Sushi hand rolls, Brussels sprouts and wings! The appetizers contain a good amount of food.
If you’re not content with their 15 beers on tap, they allow you to grab a bottle from Whole Foods. You can pay for it there and they’ll give you glasses to pour it in. They allow any food to be brought in actually. Sit down and enjoy!

The food is good but the service is awful!!! Waited for 15 minutes just to get menus after waiting to get seated when there was no wait. Each time I ordered wine it took about 20 minutes for the one waitress to get it to me. I attached the photo of my wine as I have had enough time to take the picture and post this review before I have received it.

This place is connected to Whole Foods. My bf and I were walking around Fashion Island & were debating on which restaurant to dine at. We wanted to sit at a bar, have a few drinks & munch on some appetizer’s. We first stopped by Yard House but no seats at the bar, so we opted for this spot & thought it was decent.
They were not busy on a Sunday night like all the other restaurants which was great for us because we found a seat right away at the bar. Please note that this place is very SMALL but we enjoyed it. Everyone was friendly & made us feel like home.
The bartender & server were very attentive. The only downside was the food took an unusually long time to come out. We ordered Clam Chowder & Flatbread but for some reason our Flatbread came out before our soup :/​Food was okay & could surely use some work. It seemed like they baked the bread & cheese & just sprinkled mushrooms & spinach on top. It was basic. The Clam Chowder is the same chowder offered in Whole Foods food bar, which i grab for lunch at times when craving soup.
I recommend this place for the beer drinker to lounge & just take it easy after a long day without dealing with the crowd.

Happy hour here is pretty solid. The food options offered in the bar area are just ok but no worries because you can always walk into whole foods and get whatever your heart desires. Then you can pay for it at back bay! There is a good amount of beer on tap but again if you don’t like what’s being offered you can always get something from whole foods and they’ll open and pour it for you. Score! If beer isn’t your thing they do offer cocktails with mostly organic spirits. There are a few large tv’s on the wall to watch whatever sports game is on.
The service is friendly and if you don’t know what to order ask a server they’ll let you taste a beer or suggest a cocktail. Great place! Give it a try!

I guess I should have known better, but we were hungry and nothing is more dangerous than shopping at Whole Foods when you’re hungry. So, we gave Back Bay Tavern a shot.
The restaurant was empty but service was still so slow. We ordered the burger and Brussels sprouts to share. When our food finally came out both dishes were cold, as if they had been sitting in the window for a while, and both were missing some of the condiments/​ingredients they were supposed to come with (burger was missing the bacon jam and mayo and the Brussels sprouts were missing the candied pecan and chili flakes). We told our waitress, and with no apology or explanation (I got the feeling this was a regular occurrence), she brought us a side of mayo and a dish of pecans. By that time the sprouts were pretty much a soggy, vinegary mess and we were over it. We asked our waitress to take them off the bill, and again with no apology, she obliged. The food we did eat was bland and just not good.
I don’t understand why restaurants leave components out of their dishes that are clearly advertised on their menu. I can kind of understand if they run out of something, but just not including key ingredients is pure laziness. I know this is a restaurant inside of a super market, but still…

Any bar or restaurant that sells Rombauer chardonnay for $ 13 a glass is a favorite of mine! That is by far the cheapest I have ever seen it! I will keep coming back just for that reason alone.
Service was excellent and quick. The food was mediocre. I had asian dumplings to start and the wedge pizza for lunch. The pizza was good and topped with fresh veggies, it just didnt wow me. It resembled a boboli pizza that you make it home.
The patio is twice as big as the actual restaurant and overlooks the parking garage and the fashion island traffic. My husband and I sat inside and watched football at the bar. Prices are pretty cheap!

Happy Hour is the best! The Brussels sprouts are amazing, and so is just about everything else. Great beer selection, staff is very nice, love coming here.

Dining at Fashion Island should be much better than it is. There are a few of the big chains, which I usually avoid, and a few higher end options, which are expensive, and then a generic food court. Do you really want to eat in a food court?
But I just stumbled into the Back Bay Tavern, and I am very glad I did. There was ample seating, no waits, reasonable prices, good food, and beer and wine.
I had a burger which was thick and juicy, cooked to my specification, with a side of some of the best sweet potato fries I have had. With a beer. Can’t get that in the food court. My daughter had a nice healthy salad, and we were in and out in a very reasonable time frame for about $ 30 with tax and tip.

3.5 stars
I kinda really like this place. Their happy hour runs later than other places in the area — whatever time until 6:30.
The casual restaurant is located in the back corner of Whole Foods Market and serves up a pretty organic/​healthy menu. This, by no means, guarantees a good value because quite frankly, happy hour here can get pretty pricy.
I’ve been ordered the Irish nachos because I feel like it’s pretty good bang for your buck, except not really because the potatoes suck unless you add in either chicken ($ 4) or steak ($ 5). You end up with a $ 12 or $ 13 appetizer, which is fairly expensive for happy hour.
Calamari is good — $ 7 bucks-​ish.
I had their dried spice wings the other time and they were okay. It lacked flavor, but the wings were tender.
I actually really like their little sushi rolls during happy hour. I especially like their spicy tuna something roll, but unfortunately, it’s rather expensive for what it is. The sushi is fresh but 4 pieces cost 4 buckeroos and so that warrants a no thank you.
This is a cool place is chill if you need a TV and a place to kill, but I definitely wouldn’t make a meal out of coming here.

Big fan of Whole Foods, love the restaurant within the store, need more of these within Whole Foods. Travel a lot and often go to WF for takeout dinner and bring to my room.
With this concept I can hang out have a craft beer or wine with some great healthy food.
Would be great in NYC

Every time we’ve eaten here we’ve had the pleasure of friendly servers and delicious food. My boyfriend loves the extensive beer selection including his favorite, IPAs.
Indoor and outdoor seating in the beautiful Newport weather makes every place a good spot to sit and enjoy your food and drinks
Our favorites:
Tomato soup
Hot wings
Gaucho Steak Sandwich
Allagash White Ale
Philly Sushi Roll
Chipotle Chicken Sandwich
Exposed beams, ambient string lights, exposed brick, and cork floors make for a homey comfy lived-​in feel that makes this tavern hands down one of my favorite taverns I’ve ever visited.
Keep up the excellent service and relaxed vibe :)

I wish this place were better. The food is always decent. Beer selection is strong. Atmosphere is nice. Waitstaff is pleasant.
So why 1 star? It takes for ever to get anything served to you. For a tavern experience you expect much faster service. Drinks come out very slow and often sit on the bar for 5 minutes before they hit your table. Food, that’s even worse. All they need to do is address their service teams support and they could easily be a weekly stop for us and our friends.

I dont know about you guys but I dont come here to eat. This review is strictly on the awesome bartenders and amazing beer selection they have in this little gem inside Whole Foods.
So with that said lets get down to business. They have a killer selection of beers on tap for a fair price. Better than most restaurants you will find in Newport. I came in here and was blown away at all the great stuff they had. I go to the Whole Foods at the District but I think I like this one much better just because they have such a great selection.
If you are a fan of good beers and love IPAs and have not been to this place. I can defiantly recommend checking it out. They also offer full bar if you are into that. But with all that great beer staring at you how could you turn them down? CHEERS!!!

OK guys, the BEST thing about this place is that you can get seated, decide what you want and then have a friend do a beer run LITERALLY at the adjacent Whole Foods market.
You can bring a six pack into the restaurant easily, and they charge you on your bill. How convenient and, um, AMAZING is that?
Nik M. and I just couldn’t believe how much we saved on beer during our outing. It was a pleasant surprise. We opted for a six pack bottle of hefeweizen that was only about $ 9. You’d easily pay around that much for 1 – 2 glasses.
To top this off, the staff and chefs are incredibly kind. I stupidly and accidentally forgot to ask them to hold the bacon on my «Adult Grilled Cheese» because I was just way too excited about adding avocado to the delectable dish.
When it came, my stomach dropped. This rarely happens, but I felt so disappointed. Our server could tell by my facial expression and offered to swap my sandwich for a brand new one sans cheese.
1000X brownie points!
I love this place.
In the spirit of objectiveness, I do feel the seating could be improved upon in doors. It felt a little too squished, but there is plenty of romantic seating outdoors to make up for this – at least on warm nights!
The dish itself was really yum. Nik M. enjoyed his giant chicken, rice and beans dish, though he did have a qualm about the seemingly day old rice.