Tavern in the Square

Whether going to Tavern in the square in Porter Square, Cambridge, or in Salem center MA, we have always enjoyed their Sunday brunches a lot with relatives and friends.
We loved the fresh haddock dishes in Cambridge on Sundays. The fish dishes don’t seem as lavish or abundant in Salem at the Sunday brunch.
We love haddock. We’ve only seen a shrimp dish and another nondescript fish of small pieces. Not fresh thick haddock pieces displayed in Cambridge. It is fantastic!
The fresh omelet with ingredients you add on the card you fill in is great at both places.
We haven’t given up! We hope the fish dishes improve. With the many fish restaurants in the area, I would think they’d want to be more competitive.
We always like the wait staff and managers who go out of their way to make sure everyone is happy at our table. Kudos to them! Really, their graciousness is some of the best around Salem center!

This meal was impressive and I was surprised to find out this was a chain. The restaurant has a prime location, easily accessible by car or walking. The décor is simple, bar style, with nothing over the top. The service was incredible, accommodating, friendly, and efficient. Ambiance was lively, which elevated the experience. The menu was interesting: bar food with a more upscale interpretation. Prices aren’t bad either, which was great considering the high prices of neighboring places. I had the buffalo chicken pizza which I really enjoyed. There were so many flavors that all seemed to go together. The portion was huge as well. Their burgers are quite good, cooked exactly to your liking. Their chicken and waffles with bacon was amazing. The waffles were nice and light, while the chicken was crispy and really tasty. The bacon instantly made the dishs better, but the flavor combination was surprisingly successful. If in the Boston area, make sure to stop at one of their few locations for a delicious meal.

I only had drinks here but they were great! Love the ambiance of the place and Becky is a great bartender!

Came here for the brunch it was well worth it. All you can eat delicious food and a chocolate fountain!

I go to tavern in the square every year with my family around halloween as its my husbands birthday. I was very disapointed in the food hamburger wasn t good ordered nachos which we always have liked there dish was not full not impresssive all all and not how we remembered it. may have to check out other bars in this area next year food was dissappointing! up side drinks were good and place looked great ! I was really surprised food was not as good as past times.

Always a fun bar to visit around Halloween. The place is all decked out in Halloween décor and all of the employees are in costumes. The bar area is pretty big, so you can almost always find a place to grab a drink. The food is pretty good, but nothing to go crazy about. It gets a little nutty at night.

Very impressed by the drinks, creative and well done. Hard to judge service and food as we only had an appetizer during a rather busy special brunch event.

I loved the food nice atmosphere. Ate outside on there heated patio. The fish n chips gluten free was a great portion for the price and enjoyed my drink as well

Food was incredibly mediocre. The party I was in got Big Dig Fries, the Chicken Bacon Waffle, and Chipotle Chicken Quesadilla. Aside from that, the Queen of Hearts waitress was incredibly rude when she started to give my plate to my friend and I let her know it was mine, muttering, «it could go anywhere…» She also rolled her eyes at me upon making eye contact later on. A little unnecessary and quite honestly, pretty confusing bc I don’t see the point. I get it’s busy around the holiday, but there’s little excuse.

Second time being here. Was seated within 15 mins each time. I had their special martini called pumpkin tini. Very good! The rim with sugar and cinnamon. And I’m not a huge fan of martini but they did a fabulous job on it. Food is always good never disappoints. I will be back next year :)

This place was packed on an October weekend. 1 hr+ wait to be seated. I suspect that it takes awhile to turn over tables because many were empty for quite a while before people were seated there. The whole place was decked out for Halloween. Food was good overall. Spinach and Artichoke Dip was excellent. My spicy chicken pasta dish was a little on the greasy side. The burgers and salads looked delicious and were enjoyed by the friends I was dining with. A decent place to eat if you don’t mind the wait.

Awesome decorations! Very helpful staff. I have a soy and dairy allergy and my girlfriend has celiac, and they were very polite and accommodating. They even caught an allergen I missed! Allergies can be a pain and a lot of waiters get snippy with us. The manager assured our meal were made separate and he was incredibly polite and helpful. Would go here many times over thanks to this experience.

Great service and atmosphere. Love the open air feel. Great beer and even better clam chowder. We weren’t really hungry but all the food coming put was huge portions and looked awesome.

Was running an errand in Salem with my teenaged son… Have been wanting to try this place for some time… It was a nice Sunday afternoon so we wanted to sit outside. We were greeted by a very nice hostess… she asked if we wanted brunch or regular menu; to which I replied «we are her for lunch, regular menu please». She said great. left us with out menus and said… I’ll send (Anne — Marie or Amy, I forget which) right over.
We waited for a while, maybe 5 — 7 minutes before I started looking at mu watch… We continued to wait another 12 minutes, menus lying down on the table and looking for someone to acknowledge us; at which point we got up and left. Told the hostess on the way out.
It was a nice day during tourist season… I get that. I expected a wait. But the place was not that busy. I counted 4 servers for maybe 20 tables… and at least ¹⁄₃ of those tables were having the brunch buffet… not exactly taxing from a service perspective. And to not even be acknowledged is unforgivable.
Walked less than 50 yards up the street and had a very nice lunch at O’neils… Same outside experience… better people watching
I talk to a hundred people a day. Guess what I’ll be talking about tomorrow.

I Love Tavern! Good food and good people. Their Sunday brunch Rocks too! Happy to come back again and again.

My phone would not show me their menu, so I called and asked what their price range was for dinner entres. Dinner main dishes. Yes, I know it depends on what else is ordered, but I’m only asking about the range of prices for main dishes. Eventually she said $ 14 — 20. Okay.
Three of us went and asked to sit on the patio. Only three other tables on the patio were occupied at the time. A few tables inside had customers, and a number of people were at the bar. It was dinner time on Memorial Day.
As we were seated, I asked for water for all of us. The response was, «I’m not your waiter! Didn’t I tell you that?» (Well, that’s a snotty girl. FYI, in some parts of this country one must ask for water at restaurants.)
We waited. And waited. When the waiter finally came, he didn’t have water. We asked for water first because we had been walking around Salem for several hours. That was a mistake. He vanished. .. and eventually returned with water, then took our orders.
Our food arrived. The presentation looked delicious and the portions were large. We asked for extra plates to eat family style, and received the plates promptly.
I spilled my nearly full drink on my lap. My friends quickly gave their cloth napkins to me so I could absorb the fluid as much as possible and as quickly as possible. Each of us attempted to get the attention of servers in the area, but to no avail. One of my guests got up and explained the circumstance to a server who came to our table with three small paper napkins. Really? I asked her if we could have cloth napkins or at least more than three napkins. She responded that there were only three of us, so why should we need more than three napkins. Twit. She begrudgingly brought us three more paper napkins.
Knowing that my drink was gone, nobody came to top it off. Nobody cleared the pile of wet napkins from the table. Nobody cleared the empty dishes. Nobody asked how we liked the food, if we needed catsup with the fries, or what we would like for dessert.
Nobody brought our check when we were clearly done eating for about 15 minutes. We asked everyone who walked by for the check. It finally came! I put my card in it and turned to hand it right back to the server, but he was gone already. I went inside to pay the bill, but they would not take my payment. They said that our server had to do it. I asked them to get my server. They would not. Eventually he wandered by and rang us up. Why did I give him a tip?!? I was on autopilot.
To top it off, the food made me very sick. (You don’t want a description of that!)
Zero stars would be more appropriate. Nobody was the best employee of the night.

I’m not a fan of this place. The restaurant is convenient to those who visit that particular area or go to SSU. The biggest turn off for me about TITS is the noise level. I’m in my 20’s but damn was I annoyed by the sport fans that night. I sat outside with my friend… far from the bar/​TVs and could still hear people barking like dogs.
We went during Halloween week and for dinner — so it was extremely busy. Our waitress barely came by our table. We ordered Surf and Turf dishes and drinks. It was disgusting. My steak was overcooked. My shrimp and fries tasted greasy. It appears all they did was pour cheap barbecue sauce on everything. We ordered some type of Halloween drink to share — it had very little alcohol with frozen gummy candy that was inedible.
I cringe every time I pass by the restaurant and see how busy it is. Please spend your time and money elsewhere! Never again.

I enjoy hanging out here on the weekends. It’s a great place to see and interact with college kids like myself. However, my friends and I ate here once. The food was good, but the waitress we had sucked! We waited for 20 minutes before she came to «check on us». The whole 20 minutes, we watched her walk back and forth from our table not acknowledging us ONCE. She was too busy flirting with guys around our table.
I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure that if you basically get paid off by tips you should pay more attention to your customers. I’m never eating here again. Such bad service!

Visited Tavern in the Square for the first time for its New Year’s Day brunch buffet ($ 17pp /​$ 9 kids). The place was positively overrun with runners from the Frosty Five race that morning, apparently being a sponsor or hq for the race — a fact we wish had been mentioned when we made email inquiries about the buffet itself. It was a sketchy prospect, but as it turned out, most runners stayed at the bar’s bloody mary buffet area and were not there for the food buffet in the dining area. We were seated within ten minutes. Service was average across the board, but the dining area was fine and the buffet set-​up flowed well.
The buffet consisted of an omelette station and a carving station of Jamaican Jerk Pork Tenderloin. There were breakfast staples of eggs, pancakes, french toast, sausages, toast, muffins, danish, croissant, taters, and bacon. Creative additions included Strawberry Chocolate Pancakes, PB&J French Toast, Blackened Tuna, Sweet Pepper Hash, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Southwest Chicken Pasta, Green Beans with Pearl Onions, Tavern Home Fries, and a Butternut Squash & Colcannon Egg Scramble.
The Jamaican pork was moist and tender, well-​seasoned without burning your face off. Most of the other savory foods were just average.
A build-​your-​own sundae bar offered vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice creams with several toppings including cherries, marshmallows, sauces, jimmies and sprinkles.
Several sweets were offered, including brownie, raisin and lemon squares, mini cream puffs, pumpkin pie, cookies, turtle cheesecake, blueberry pound cake with blueberry drizzle, and a blueberry bread pudding. Half the sweets seemed like they came from a box at the local wholesale club, and were dry and uninteresting. The standout was the homemade blueberry bread pudding, moist and flavorful enough to delay any new year’s resolution.
Overall, this was an affordable all-​you-​can-​eat buffet with average offerings demonstrating the «you get what you pay for» adage. It was hit or miss with the flavors (or hot and cold, as the case may be…) We would give it another shot, on a quieter day, if we happened to be in town, but not as a destination eatery.

A glorified sports bar, loads of TVs, and some booths have their own TVs where you can switch it to whatever channel you want. Problem with this is that if you don’t use your own personal TV, you are still paying for it… overhead.
Service was a little slow, even to just us water when our drink order was taken. Service was a little slow to bring out the food as well. All of is considering it was 2PM and the restaurant was very quiet, and has few people.
The food, when it did some out, was hot and fresh. There are two house made dressings they have, one is a ghost-​chili ketchup (not very spicy) and a ranch-​y one. Both were quite good, they let me have both of them with my order for free, even though they were not included. What I had in fact ordered was a Cowboy burger cooked medium. Nothing special, meat was underseasoned, and has no juice, like it was cooked well done.
Fries and rings are good. The person with me has a grown-​up BLT, which she said is also good, but nothing super-​duper special.
Menu is basically a glorified bar menu.
Location itself is very clean.