White Mountain Tavern - Restaurant Impossible Update

Photo - Robert Irvine Facebook

On this week's episode of Restaurant: Impossible, Robert Irvine and his crew are in Lincoln, New Hampshire to makeover White Mountain Tavern. White Mountain Tavern is located at a mountain resort and is owned by David and Melissa.  They have a volatile relationship and a toxic standing in the community.  Robert will need to fix these two large problems in hopes of turning this restaurant around.

As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about White Mountain Tavern to get an idea of how the restaurant is doing since Robert Irvine visited, and here is what I found (note - all reviews are post Restaurant: Impossible):

Positive Reviews:

• "Great food! Staff was very friendly. Stop by when your in the Lincoln area. Nice fireplace and live music. Will be back!"
• "We went here 3 night in a row staying up in Lincoln for skiing! Everything we ate was super yummy, they had live music each night which is a plus for us and the staff was all really nice! Would definitely go back"
• "Was greeted warmly by the host and the place looks great!! Looks very new and modern. Open and airy floor plan not cramp and loaded with old furniture like other restaurants in and around Lincoln... not saying any names. ;)...Was not disappointed!!! Highly recommend the perogies, baked haddock and steak tips! They were out of cheesecake:( but hey everything else made up for it!!! Check 'em out and take a little ride out of Town and meet the real locals and get some great food"
• "This was amazing! It was our hotel restaurant. The food was spectacular, the waitress was great, it did take a while before the host got her, though. Had my kids and grand kids with me, and they enjoyed it very much as well. Live music on the night we were there. We would eat there again for sure."
• "We came here with several other families for dinner in the middle of January. The food was great and the service was excellent. We will be back!"
• "After years of eating at Woodwards on our annual ski trip from NJ and watching previous new owners run it into the ground, we decided to roll the dice and see if the new owners were able to restore the quality of this one great establishment. We were very pleasantly surprised. The restaurant looks amazing, the food was really good, and the service was great. We met David, the owner, and were happy to see that, thanks to him and his wife, Melissa, this restaurant is back."

Negative Reviews:

• "Nice staff. Mediocre food (very salty) but you get what you pay for especially in the middle of nowhere. My suggestion is to spend the extra money at a lodge and have a really nice meal."
• "When we arrived we were told it would be a 20-30 minute wait. What we weren’t told was it would be another 1.5 hours to get our food. I’m not sure where the breakdown was, poor management for not properly preparing staff, poor waitstaff for not being more transparent of the situation or a combination of the two. When the food finally did arrive it was decent but we had such a bad taste in our mouth from the long wait and poor service it all made for a terribly disappointing experience."

*Reviews from Yelp, Google

Other News and Links:

• The Restaurant Impossible makeover for White Mountain Tavern happened in November 2022.
• Here is the White Mountain Tavern website and Facebook page.
• According to their Facebook page, the restaurant is only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 5pm to 9pm.
• This is another 90-minute episode, so perhaps more drama than usual for this one.
• About a month after the makeover, Melissa posted about their episode being 90 minutes and talking about her sobriety. She wanted to make it clear that referred to opiates only. (Link)
• David posted on Facebook that any locals who mention his post about the upcoming Restaurant Impossible appearance will receive 20% off of their bill through the end of May. (Link)
• Melissa posted on Facebook after seeing their Restaurant Impossible episode description. David commented on that saying, "I was just in it for the free renovations lol. I honestly have no interest in watching."
• Here are the reviews for White Mountain Tavern from Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google.
• The restaurant responds to some of the reviews on Google.

Conclusion:

The reviews for White Mountain Tavern since the Restaurant Impossible makeover are mostly positive with people liking the food, staff and service. It seems that Melissa and Dave aren't looking forward to watching their episode, but they are happy with the renovations done by the show. 

UPDATE - White Mountain Tavern closed in March 2024.  The restaurant posted the following message on their Facebook page. 

"After nearly four years in business, we have made the incredibly difficult decision to close our doors for good. We have been truly blessed over the past four years with the best employees a company could ever ask for, incredibly talented musicians performing live in our bar every weekend, amazing vendors and of course a loyal clientele base that has supported us through thick and thin. We fought for what we knew to be right during the pandemic, and you all stood by us. We made mistakes, learned from them and made even more mistakes. You stuck with us, nonetheless. We will never forget that. God Bless each and every one of you.

This coming Saturday 3/23 will be our final night in operation. Our dear friend Carroll Brown (AKA Solitary Man) will be performing all night. Our other close friend Colin Hart will be performing Friday. We hope to see all of you one last time if you are in the area. 

We never wanted to give up on White Mountain Tavern, but the weather the past couple of seasons, the current state of the restaurant industry and the strain running the place has put on our relationship have left us with only one viable option. We will forever cherish the memories made in our restaurant and bar, and we will miss serving everybody very dearly. We are beyond grateful for the lifelong friends we have made over the past few years. 

Life is full of chapters. Sometimes one chapter has to end for another to begin. We are not sure exactly what comes next, but we both want to help others and create a positive impact on society in some way. As saddened as we are about closing our doors, we are certainly eager to see what the future has in store.

As Dr. Seuss said, "Don't cry because it is over. Smile because it happened." We never in a million years thought we would survive this long having opened in 2020 of all years with no prior business ownership experience. Thank you everybody who made this dream of ours become a reality.

David & Melissa"

*Visit Our Restaurant Impossible Update Page to see all Restaurant: Impossible updates, and which restaurants are open, closed, or have been sold. Also Follow Us on Twitter