school house restaurant & tavern

school house restaurant and tavern is pricey, especially their appetizers, but if you like quality food, and you stick to their lunch/dinner menu, you are likely to get your money's worth. don't waste your money on their exorbitantly-priced appetizers! their crab cakes come in 2 little bite-size pieces at $14.75. their large sweet potato fries which would be a normal single serving anywhere else was $14.50. old school burger and salmon blt were good but not exceptional.

we went as a family of 10 for my moms 70th birthday. by far the best experience we have ever had any where. from the appetizers to the main course and deserts the food was amazing. our server, holly, was on point. chef ryan is in a class of his own. it's nice to see that a privately owned business knows how to focus on the customer, and this will be a definite comeback. this is a definite 5 star.

experienced was how to say out of this world it started off find an hour later the waitress comes and ask if we had our appetizer that's when we said we'd had enough after our tab dipping at 1 dinner for two people for drinks and a very small appetizer by the time we left $150 later i had after the manager never seeing him had a waitress asked if she could help he said no we wanted to manager but never saw him so we paid and left nobody even ask that we're going to get a free meal because we didn't eat will never return to this hell hole@

steamed artichokes. thinking of typing this dish

what an awesome school house burger. the hint of blue cheese and bacon was a great blend of flavors. really good garlic fries that you must try them.


-----15 feb, 2015-----

good valentine's day dinner. we can see why they condensed the menu for the patrons. but, after five drinks, dinner (3 course) a bill of $190 was to expensive. poor bar service, careful they will take your drink and plate before your finished.

we were told 1 hour wait. hour 1/2 later we were finally seated. another 30 minutes a waitress finally came. dinner was average. faster and better food in fresno. comparable to black angus.

over priced and over rated. mediocre across the board. salad was boring and lacked flavor. the braised short rib burger has potential but was really dry. good fries though. staff was very friendly but service was extremely slow. the whole visit was almost 2 hours for a party of 3. the cheesecake was so small it was almost funny, if it didn't cost $5. it wasn't a bad experience necessarily but i struggle to find something good to say. with all of the hype surround this place, i'm thinking maybe we all ordered the wrong thing. ??? it's a nice old building, i was just hoping for a better meal. 6/10

food is pretty good. homemade sauces are impressive and delicious. price is too high for quality of food especially in dining area. tavern food is also overpriced especially for the portions being so small. i agree with another review that hostess says one thing and waitress/waiter say otherwise. things seem unorganized. with some price changes and/or portion changes also organization within management the place has potential. screen the bands too. music gets irritating fast!!

service was fantastic. food was great and enjoyed the warm atmosphere was warm. staff friendly. i had the mahi mahi - spectacular! would highly recommend for fine dining and a enjoyable night out .

amazing food. great atmosphere. we'll be back soon! :)

giving up. chaotic. music in the bar is so loud that you can't have a conversation with the person next to you without a struggle. the greeter told us that we could order from the restaurant menu in the bar, the bar waitress then told us that we could not. we were told that to eat the food from the main menu, we had to have "the entire experience" of eating in the main restaurant. (which we wanted to avoid as the last time we tried that, it took 20 minutes for a waitress to come to our table). in our group of 10, 3 orders were wrong and had to be sent back to the kitchen. several items never came (a salad and 2 orders of fries) which we had to have discounted from our bill. this place is disorganized- some food is good, some is not. a frustrating experience.


-----24 may, 2012-----

can't decide. we have eaten here 3 times.
they have done a marvelous job in renovating-used to be dismal and now is tasteful and comfortable. food and service is a different story. the first time we ate in the dining room. the food was mediocre. 2 people in our party ordered steak- steak # 1 was large- steak # 2 was 1/2 of the size of steak #1... waitress just giggled. the fries were cold. the waitress had to keep going back to the kitchen to get answers to our food questions.
the second time we tried the bar. disorganized! we ended up having 3 different waiters/waitresses attending to our table. the food took 45 minutes to get to the table and the orders were wrong. the sweet potato fries were delicious. some of the home-made dipping sauces are bland and others are good.
try # 3- we decided to try the dining room again. waited 15 minutes before getting up and asking someone if there was a waitress assigned to our table. a flustered gal came over and apologized and said that our table had been added to her section but she wasn't told. the shrimp appetizer came with 4 shrimp with a high price.
the "roasted beet" salad came with slices of canned pickled beets. when we pointed the canned beets out to our waitress she again apologized and made a comment about a banquet in a back room and the kitchen running out of things. we ended up cancelling the rest of our dinner and leaving.
in spite of the short comings, we will probably give the school house 1 more try. the menu reads well, but what comes out of the kitchen does not always match. better training for wait staff is also needed. this place could be a diamond in the rough but may end up being a bar/hangout if things don't improve. that would be a shame as much thought and expense has gone into this place. come on school house, you can do it!

originally built in 1921 as the frankwood school, and for many years the sherwood inn restaurant, it is now positioned as an upper-end eatery under the leadership of partner and executive chef ryan jackson, who grew up in the reedley area. trained in san francisco and with experience in the napa valley area, he has a commitment to local, fresh, and seasonal ingredients, to the point of having a restaurant garden out back.

love it. they had a rough start but they are great now. we live out in the clovis /sanger area and it is nice to have one of the beat restarunts in fresno just down the road. specials are great and they have the best creme i have ever had. my husband and i have eaten here at least 8-10 times. love the bar menu and had a party of 18 in the dining room one time.

horrible experience!. went there for a special occasion with 10 other family members and were immediately told they could not accomodate us after i had talked to them twice during the day to tell them we had a large party. we wanted to be in the tavern because we felt the dining room was too expensive. after we put enough odd ball tables together to be able to sit, things went worse. it was not the waitress fault but no food no condiments, and no silverware for over an hour. by the end 2 of our family members had not gotten their food at all. a celebration turned into a nightmare. i think the worst part was the horrible accordian player. that was enough to send me over the edge! the manager wandered around and did nothing to accomadate us or help the waitresses. the only good thing was that the food was not bad, (not all anyway) just had no apppetite by the time we got it. i think if the manager had pitched in to help or acted like she wanted our business, things would have gone a lot smoother!

my favorite restaurant in our neighborhood (reedley/sanger). food is so fresh. love that all sauces down to the mayo and ketchup are just made rather than store bought. beautiful old sherwood inn re-done ;)