Limestone ?

Just back from our first visit to Limestone. In view of all the hype, I must say we were somewhat disappointed. For starters, the smell of sewer gas was prominent in the parking lot and in the bar area when we arrived. Maybe we should have left, but we decided to stay. Probably beyond the control of the restaurant anyway. Secondly, when I made reservations online earlier in the day, I was told there was only availability at 6:30 or 8:30. I preferred 7:30, but settled for 6:30. The entire time we were there from 6:30 to 9:00 the place was nearly empty except for a private party in the back room. In the main dining room, there was never more than 6 tables occupied. (This was a Saturday night.) Why the restrictions on the reservations ? The service was spotty despite the fact there were a couple of servers standing around with nothing to do. The food was in desperate need of some seasoning.....very bland. All four in my party agreed. Bottom line, definitely not worth the price. Oh, and by the way, my credit card receipt had all 16 digits of my credit card number displayed. I thought merchants were not supposed to do that these days ?

Sounds like you did have a bad night. I have been to Limestone 20 or 30 times. I have dined at both peak and non-peak hours for both lunch and dinner. I have found it to be excellent each and every time. I would suggest giving Jim Gerhardt a call and inform him of your experience. He will be very disappointed and I am sure he will make it right. No resturant gets it right 100% of the time, but want to fix it when they misfire. I would hope you would give it a second try and ask for Jim the next time you are in.

I echo Kurt - give Jim a call. I have weeks when I'm there three days in a row for lunch and seem to know most of the servers. Everyone can have an off day, but I've never seen the confluence of issues you had. Do you feel a bit "jinxed?" I think you got all the bad karma for all of us. Do try them again.

We went to Limestone Friday evening with some friends and as usual it was fantastic! Limestone has been a favorite of ours since we moved to Louisville and we have never had a bad experience with food or service. We do miss Robert, but Monte is doing a fine job!

Regarding the Opentable reservation...I tried to make 7:00 or 7:30 dinner reservation on Opentable but could not online. I called to find out their availability and they did have some tables open. When I asked why I could not make a reservation online the gal answering put Jim on the phone since she had no idea. I explained the situation and he said he was going to call Opentable to find out if there was something triggering that time frame blockout (6:30 - 8:30).

Regardless of the 100 points or not the dinner was fantastic!

From someone with experience with Open Table and running restaurants in a B market, Limestone likely blacks out 7:30 in thier system on weekend nights for two reasons. It is almost impossible to get a second seating on a table before or after 7:30. It also helps spread the flow of the customers through the door as most people seem to want to dine around this time in B markets. Spreading it out helps keep the kitchen and floor staff out of the weeds thus providing better food and service to the guests.