Opened since mid-August in the old Boomerang’s location in Dartmouth is Porters Steakhouse and Sports Bar (590 Portland Street, 407-8787). General manager Barb Matthews reports that the place—it’s big, with 135 seats in the dining room, another 80 at the bar, plus a patio—stresses the local: “Porters owners, Chris Boyd and Scott Mitchell, are both from Dartmouth. Our coffee, tea and sugar is exclusively Just Us! fair trade, organic. We use local service providers and suppliers as much as possible. We are really trying to create a community-focused establishment.”
They do their best to serve food from local suppliers and order all their wine from Bishop’s Cellar. They’re in the midst of planning their grand opening, aiming for Thursday, October 22.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.
Cripes, yet another restaurant with a mediocre formula wine list from Bishop’s. Overpriced, underwhelming wines at inflated prices. If I have to drink another glass of McManis crap I’ll scream.
We went there last night and we’ll never return. Silverware was cheap and dirty. Glasses were still wet and they actually had the nerve to put wine it a wet glass. Served us Spanish Coffees with no whipped cream. Didn’t have any in the whole restaurant.
Not well organized. One of the owners went to every table but ours to see if things were ok. Food was ok. Ordered muscles for appetizer and they didn’t even give any bread or anything with it. Had the artichoke dip and it actually was smothered in Cheddar cheese and the nachos were fatty.
Not a great start for a new restaurant.
I loved Porters. I went there with a few girl friends and we had a fantastic time. The food was excellent, as was the service. I’m sure all new restaurants have issues to work out when they open, but I think Porters is on the right track!
I went to Porter`s a week after they opened, as I think may be typical in the restaurant business which I know nothing about, it was clear there were kinks to iron out. It looks really nice inside, much brighter than Boomerangs, the prices were very fair, the wine list is somewhat standard but really, this is not fine dining and it offers the generic choices you would expect of a casual dining restaurant. Very friendly staff, knowledgeable waiter (at least we had one??don`t know what the rest are like).
I agree with Buffy, it would be nice if bread was served (I`ll get to that in a minute) with the mussels.
Went there 2 nights ago, the place was nice and busy, the service was still very good, the food……….much better, I don`t know if they changed staff or what, the first time we had a good meal, this time we had an excellent one. The bread, or lack thereof, will be part of a regular rotation at the restaurant soon. They will be baking fresh bread on hand. I had issues with the coffee cups/water glasses (need to be cleaner) and the sideplates, all seem like holdovers from the Boomerang days and needs to change. But overall, this still new restaurant is doing what my Wife and I had hoped, keep improving with time. I am sure the issues of cups/glasses/plates will happen over time, but truly, were there for the food, and the food was really good, so much so, we booked our office Christmas party for December.
Good Luck Porter`s
If someone were to ask me what my worst dining experience was, it would be a no brainer. Porters Steakhouse in Dartmouth. Four of us laid down some serious cash for the worst food imaginable. My lamb shank which was promised to have meat falling off the bone was dry hard and shrunken on the bone, just awful. The roasted potatoes were overdone and overseasoned with rosemary. My husband’s rib eye steak, which is normally a beautiful tender cut, was a sad thin slice of shoe leather. Even my cocktail tasted like a watery lime slushy. The wait staff was inexperienced and no one came by our table to see if our food was ok. When you charge these kind of prices, you had better deliver what your menu promices or you won’t be around for long.