The Upper Deck

The food was underwhelming with small
portions relative to what we paid. As an example, my friend had a flat bread pizza which was around 7 or 8 inches in diameter. The cost was around $ 15, which meant almost $ 4 per tiny quarter slice.
The wait staff were nice, though our waitress got weird about either splitting the tab or taking cash off the tab, so we had to do more to work it out ourselves.

I don’t even want to give this place one star but I don’t have a choice. I honestly can’t even comment on the food because I couldn’t get passed the rude and extremely unwelcoming staff. We arrived with 6 people, all aged between 24 – 28, with me being the oldest. We show up and sit outside and we don’t even get a welcome ‘hi how are you’ instead we get a ‘ID’s out now.’ Ok, fine– hi to you too. So we all pull out our ID’s and they take mine and fold it in half and tell me it’s a photo copied ID. Ok, no it is not. I’m from New York and it’s an older ID so I get that it looks weird if you are not used to it but you have a restaurant in a tourist town so get an ID scanner. They literally harassed me with questions and still were telling me it’s a fake ID. I’m 28 years old, really? I even showed them my credit card with my matching name and this lady still gave me a hard time. Finally another server came over and asked me more questions before they were finally ok with it but at that point in time I was so aggravated, as was the rest of the party I was with that we just got up and left. I’ve never felt so embarrassed and harassed at an establishment in my entire life. People actually laughed at us as we left. It was horrifying. Don’t spend a dime in this place. They are not welcoming at all for a place that is in a tourist town.

I got one of the deluxe entrees — crab cakes with a dijon sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and grilled vegetable medley. It sounded great but was just okay — just not done really well. The crab cakes didn’t have a lot of crab in them, and the veggies tasted a little too charred — should have done either bigger pieces or less cooking. I did have a great Bar Harbor microbrew, and the ambience on the deck out back overlooking the harbor from an elevated perspective while the sun was setting, was fantastic. All in all I enjoyed my meal here. Maybe the chef is more at home with the less ambitious dishes that make up most of the menu.

Bad Service. Lobster was overcooked. Don’t get the garlic mashed potatoes – they were simply disgusting. We waited a long time for just water to be served and then we waited even longer to get our bill at the end. There are better places to go on the island. Don’t waste your time or money on this place.

Nice deck and a friendly server, but the food is average and overpriced. Crab cakes were disappointing, shrimp scampi cafeteria-​esque. All sides relied on a lot of butter to taste ok, and virtually all of their local seafood offerings are fried. Skip it!

I give three stars for the view only. The service was just ok, the food was very disappointing, I prefer the fired seafood platter, at 2pm in the afternoon the servers response was oh let me check I think we only had two orders of the available today! Really this is seafood haven. She returned and it was my lucky day they had one preserve left.
Well for $ 25.99 I do have to say is was the worst meal I have had in a very long time. I should have hoped that they did not have it. My husband had the fish and chips and that gets a F-​.
This was our first and last time here.
Now if you want a drink and a view this place is for you, forget the food!

Atmosphere is good, food is bad, and service is horrible! We just drove past this restaurant and saw it has a great view of the harbor so we decided to stop for lunch. Big mistake! The price here is much higher than those other restaurants at bar harbor, and the food is mediocre to bad (very tiny portions). What’s even worse is the service. We waited 20 minutes for just water, then another 45 minutes for our food (just some lobster rolls which has very few lobster meat). The harbor view is good but you get tired of it if you stare at it for 1 hour. There were a few indian people (not american indian but people from the country India) came in after us and left after waiting in their table for 15 minutes without being greeted by a waitor. Come on! this restaurant is not busy at all. There were only 4 tables have customers, and I don’t know where the waitors and waitresses are. Maybe they are transfixed by the great view too? The female co-​owner came over to the next table and talked with the customers for over 10 minutes, and sneezed directly onto their table, spiced up their food with her mouthwater. Great hygiene! In the end we are still hungry after spending over $ 100 for some poor food, and 2 hours of our precious time where we can go to a nearby trail. Then it’s an insult to find out they have the audacity to charge a 18% tip directly on the bill without asking their customer. Maybe they know they won’t be getting much tip so they just go ahead and helped themselves.
My advice: if you really like the view, take a few pictures from the upper deck, then leave. You will be very glad you did so.

Save your money and time, go somewhere else.
I went here with my girlfriends family for a dinner around 7. We were seated after 10 minute wait in a table right next to the door, which was odd because the restaurant had many empty tables, but we were still give the worst seat in the house. The food was okay, but it was way to expensive for what it was. Prices for a lobster here were nearly twice the prices of the islands other restaurants For example, m girlfriend got the Lobster mac for $ 25. It was about a cup and a half of macaroni from a box with 5 small lobster pieces. Even worse, all the food was cold because the service was so slow. We spent nearly two hours there. Perhaps the restaurants only redeeming factor is the view which is quite nice, if you happen to get a table near a window. Otherwise you get a view of a parking lot.

Pro: beautiful scenery. But, Maine is full of places for scenery. We went for the food and unfortunately, we came upon this place.
We arrived at 18:50 and didn’t get out of there until two hours later. The service is extremely slow and the food isn’t all that great.
We had a party of four and ordered «chowdah» and the crab dip as appetizers. The dip was OK and the soup wasn’t all that great.
When the entrees came out at 20:30, we had a crab avocado lettuce tomato sandwich (CALT on the menu). It didn’t come with any avocado at all.
Asked for numerous refills that never came and the rest of the food was just OK.
Skip if you can.

Food was good. View is nice despite the buildings between the reataurant and water. … Too bad the railing can’t be lower! It’s way nicer than when it was a lobster pound under different owners years ago. Service was good until dessert time when the waitress seemed to forget about us and eventually brought out warm pie that was cold and looked like it had been thrown around before landing on the plate, then took forever to get us our check. Luckily we weren’t in a big rush. I’ll be back, and hopefully the service will be better!

I really don’t understand why anyone could give this restaurant a bad review. The view from their balcony is stunning, the service was superb, and the food was among the best we have had while on vacation here.
But the best part of our visit was our server, Jaimie. Whatever the restaurant pays her to work there, it is not enough. She was genuinely interested in where we were from, gave us great advice on what to eat, and even offered to take pictures of us with the beautiful harbor behind us.
I chose the El Diablo burger, and my partner chose the Decker cheeseburger. Both were cooked to perfection, and in conjunction with a Bar Harbor Summer Ale, it made for a perfect meal in a great location.
Don’t believe everything you read, this place is awesome!

The short: sub-​par food, awful service. Great view.
The long: Came here on July 4^th, admittedly a bad time to go anywhere on the island. But after reading other reviews, it seems that our experience was in line with many others’. We stopped by in the morning to make a reservation. When we came back at night, they said we didn’t have one and they couldn’t seat us, that they were booked up solid. Just then a table inside finished and suddenly they had space. Throughout the night, people kept coming in without reservations and were turned away. At one point, we counted 6 open tables (this was 30 minutes after their last reservation) and yet they kept turning people away — one of the would’ve-been customers pointed this out and the matre d finally said the kitchen couldn’t keep up (even though they were winding down…)
The food wasn’t great. We got the mussels for an appetizer — they came steamed and were not fresh. They smelled very fishy. I ordered the stuffed haddock, which was decent. My wife ordered the lobster and it was also not very fresh or delicious. At one point, I tried to order a second beer and it took over 20 minutes to deliver a can of beer. Our waitress was never around because most of her tables were out on the patio. We wanted to order dessert, but we decided we had waited too long, so we paid and left. There are a dozen other restaurants that are better.

In two words — skip it. In more than two words, keep reading.
I didn’t have a chance to Unilocal this place before we arrived and my cell service wasn’t working, so I’ll take part of the blame. We had a great time hiking in Acadia and decided to cruise down to Southwest Harbor, and ended up being hungry for lunch. A few years back there was a great wrap/​sandwich place in town by the Post Office, but it was no longer in business, so we had to look for something new without Unilocal.

The Upper Deck had a nice view of the water and a prominent bar. Both of these features usually point to disaster because it means the restaurant can serve crappy food and make up for it with drink sales.

After looking at the unimaginative menu my suspicions about food quality were confirmed. I changed my game plan from seafood to a burger because I figured going simple was the best approach. My wife decided to stay the course and ordered a Haddock Reuben. The service was painstaking slow. We almost walked out after sitting with our water glasses and menus forever. At least there was a nice view.
My grass fed (not sure about that) bacon cheeseburger was ok. There was nothing really wrong with it — just completely average. The fries were of the pre-​coated Sysco variety, so negative points for that. My wife’s haddock reuben consisted of a thin piece of pre-​breaded, old and previously frozen haddock, bland cole slaw, swiss cheese and no thousand island dressing. It was disgusting.

I would never come here again. If I was forced to come here again I’d order water and eat crackers while enjoying the view and the super slow service. Places like this make me angry. Do yourself a favor and skip it.

One more update. Went back for dinner. I had a beautiful Spanish salad with pine nuts, roasted peppers and chicken with a surprisingly delicious blueberry vinaigrette. I asked for it on the side because I refused to believe it was not going to be fake blueberry flavor and sickly sweet. Guess what? It was real blueberry, balsamic vinegar and some olive oil with just the right amount of sweet. Hit the spot. Chicken was flavorful. The steamers were good, my husbands baked haddock par for Maine baked haddock, not one of my favorites but nice crust.
The night before, we stopped in for a drink and the friendly bartender made me a perfect blueberry martini (yea I’m into blueberries — well it’s Maine). It wasn’t on the menu and he told me he could make whatever I wanted. He’d was def up to the challenge. And $ 8? For a martini? Great!!!
We are happy to see they have taken their restaurant seriously and want to make a difference this year. I commend the owner!

What a fabulous day to enjoy yummy grass fed burgers at the Upper Deck. Best ones of the season! We thoroughly enjoyed sitting on the deck soaking up some lovely Maine sunshine and gazing out over the harbor while being served by a very nice and attentive server. We’ll be back soon!

After an awful experience last year, we gave this restaurant a second chance. Apparently the owner got the message from all the bad reviews and has made vast improvements.
I only had the clam chowder and fried clams but they were as good as any around.
We will go back to try some other dishes.

The burgers are delicious!
I stopped here with my family right at closing time, and the chef was nice enough to throw a few burgers on the grill for us. They were really excellent!
The staff is very nice and accommodating.
I would recommend this to anyone looking for a great lunch or dinner spot overlooking Southwest Harbor.

Stopped in here for drinks one afternoon and had a fantastic experience. The view of Southwest harbor from the bar or deck is amazing, and after seeing all of the other harbors on the island I can safely say Southwest Harbor is the prettiest. Drinks were strong and well priced. The owner was a delight to chat with and the waitstaff as well. I’m actually a little glad my boyfriend and I did not discover this place earlier in our vacation because we would have spent too much time here!
After my visit I checked this place out on Unilocal and wowza, some harsh reviews! As this place is just recently open it is reasonable they may need a little time to iron out some kinks. But I can’t stress enough, that’s not my personal experience; I had a lovely visit. I also noted a lot of the negative reviewers have under 10 or under 30 reviews, which makes me question if all of the bad reviews are legit.
Lastly, I did not eat here, but if I did I’d order a steamed lobster or lobster roll. From my restaurant visits on Mount Desert Island I have learned ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans’. All of the food I had on my vacation disappointed except steamed lobster and lobster rolls. I saw The Upper Deck’s lobster pound and can confirm the lobsters are fresh and delivered daily, and I never had a bad fresh lobster meal anywhere in Maine.

Total tourist trap. One star for the view and another for a beer that was cold. (That’s probably generous.) The rest was bad and over-​priced.
We sat down and ordered with our waitress who seemed nice enough. We ordered a cup of clam chowder, fried clams, and a burger. The place wasn’t all that busy yet the food came out about 40 minutes later, including my clam chowder appetizer. The waitress first tried to pass it off by saying, here’s your «side» soup for your burger. Seriously? I told her I was under the impression it was going to come before my entrée and she made the excuse that they were swamped and ran out so they had to make a new batch. «That’s what happens when it’s homemade,» she claimed. BS! It tasted like Campbell’s and what kind of waterfront restaurant runs out of clam chowder by lunchtime? The proper thing would be for them to comp it, but if they just told me they forgot and apologized, it would have been acceptable. Instead they lied and the whole act really irritated me.
The fried clams were soggy and the tarter sauce was hardly fish-​stick worthy. I don’t know why they bothered to ask me how I wanted my burger cooked (medium) as they seemed determined to cook it more closer to well done.
The bill for the bad food and two beers was $ 50. Wish I would have checked the reviews before. Live and learn.

My wife and I concluded this was one of the worst meals we’ve ever had. The waitress was very nice but we did not see her much. The kitchen needs major help.
We ordered the lobster bites, the portion was small but the batter was good and the lobster fresh.
We then waited nearly an hour for our entrees.
The lobster «mac and cheese» was a barely warm white sauce and pasta shells with some congealed cheddar cheese on top. The side of corn was left in the husk and had not been cooked.
The other dish was a lobster with two sides. The potato side was barely warm and the corn was half cooked. The lobster was cooked and tasty.
There were no cleaning supplies offered for the always messy lobster with exception for a dispenser of napkins. There were no salt or pepper shakers available on any of the tables.
We also ate at dusk (not their fault) on the deck and eventually were chased out by mosquitos.