Batson River Brewing & Distilling - Kennebunk

Great spot. Beer was good. Food was excellent

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Exceptional poutine, cozy fireplace, friendly staff. Definitely worth a visit!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Duck Poutine

What a cool brewery! They have several outdoor dining options, as well as a nice indoor bar. Parking is a bit tricky, though, as you probably have to park up the hill to the right of the brewery and walk about 1 block back. Unless you get lucky and can find some street parking. Well worth it, though.

Atmosphere: 5

Service: 5

Fantastic Atmosphere and smooth beer. Highly recommend!!

Atmosphere: 5

Service: 5

Fun atmosphere for cocktails and food, food service was slow but overall good experience.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 4

Service: 4

Male bartender knew nothing about the bourbon and only catered/showed attention to the women. Whatever question I had would irritate him. Real sad cause I liked coming here before today.

Service: 1

I apologize for interrupting the social interactions of the staff.

We were not greeted by our server, and despite raising this issue, it wasn't rectified and we never had a chance to eat there.

We moved to the bar where we were served attitude.

We left. Consider other options. There are many.

Atmosphere: 5

Service: 1

Stopped in for lunch on a Friday afternoon. It wasn’t too crowded - seated right away. All the old school pictures of local (presumably) fishermen and their catches were awesome to look at. We really liked the decor/set up inside.

Beers were good. My husband got a flight and I got the season German Lager - Post Road - which was a perfect lager IMO.

Food - lobster roll and haddock tacos. I would skip the lobster roll, nothing special. But the haddock tacos…WOW. Honestly I think the tacos was the best meal I had all weekend. Also the fries that came with both were great.

Service was quick and friendly.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 4

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: blk Haddock Tacos

Dined in the cute little ice fishing shacks. Staff was excellent.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Burger, Duck Fat Cornbread

Now eating in a Fish Shack .... Well why wouldn't you? (it's a modified fish shack just so you know). I completely enjoyed my evening. It was nice and warm, loved the atmosphere and the staff were just wonderful. I had the salmon plate, perfect! Stop and give them a visit and enjoy this unique experience in Kennebunkport.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Great drinks, service and food here!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Batson River Brewing and Distilling is a location both me and my friend Ben have passed by many times, but never gone into until it was recommended to me by a list of the best restaurants in the Kennebunkport area. The place is famous for going all-out with decorations for the holidays - both Halloween and Christmas, as we discovered in October when greeted with a brewery spectacularly covered in spiders, ghosts and body parts.

Batson River is a two-story building with indoor and outdoor seating on both levels. Service is wonderful, with the front desk being willing to guide you to the right seat for you, and the waiters letting you know their names first thing and having good recommendations and answers to your questions.

I started with the duck fat cornbread, which met my cornbread standards: tender, moist, and sweet, albeit this one had a kick of spice due to being made with hot honey. The maple butter on the side was served in an attractive swirl, but cold and hard to spread on the cornbread. In addition, the serving tray had no edges and quite the potential for mess-making… at least the way I eat things.

The highlight was the burger, a fairly standard smash burger (single or double) with the surprise implementation of Boursin cream cheese, which stood out well when I took a bite. While smashed, the patties were nice and juicy, enough for me to have to wash my hands afterward. Curiously, both buns on the burger seemed to be “tops” - presumably for their superior texture. Clearly, the cooks have an eye for detail.

Finally, dessert is a chocolate peanut butter cake. It’s chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, with some whole peanuts on top. The peanut butter is very sweet, very Reese’s-like, and the peanuts provide a surprisingly good crunch in contrast to the soft cake. It reminds me of something I’d order after lunch at a diner, which is absolutely a compliment coming from me.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 4

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Burger, Duck Fat Cornbread, Truffle Fries

We have visited Batson River for years when we are visiting the area and always enjoyed the vibe and drinks/food. We ate in the Fish Shacks during COVID 2021, and thought it was such a great, unique experience.

Today was an extremely opposite affair. When we arrived to our Fish Shack reservation, our waitress told us that they were short staffed today. Totally fine and understandable. We expected a bit of a delay based on this statement. Our drinks all came out right away and together. Then we waited about twenty minutes before anyone came back to take our food order. Next, we waited another 40 minutes for our food, during which, no one ever came back to offer more water or drinks. Then when the food came out, one burger order, and a side of fries, were completely missing. We waited 15 minutes for it to hopefully come out to us and it never did and once again, no one ever came to check on our shack. Our entire party finished their meals and still zero sign of a server to check us on us or bring the missing meal. So a member of our party had to go inside to the bartender, who took the missing items off our bill since there was no sign of them ever having been cooked. Their "solution" was to offer us two ten dollar coupons to be used between January 1-February 28. We are not from the area and will not be back to use these in such a short time period. NO one ever apologized , but rather, kept blaming other people. "We're short staffed on servers today." "Our kitchen is all backed up, not sure what they have going on in there," were the excuses we were given on the two occasions we saw a server. An apology seriously would have made all the difference. We understand people call out , and we're all only human, but this service was completely unacceptable. We are severely disappointed.

We’ve been to Batson several times and to several of their locations (Portland, Kennebunkport, Biddeford, Fish Camp at The Claremont). We keep coming back for the decor/ambiance and really want it to be good….but it just isn’t. We love their Christmas camp and vintage hunting decor and vibes. Their interior design is top notch - tough to get a themed decor right and they win for that. Post up for a drink and you’re golden.

The food and service however, leave much to be desired. We went today to their seasonal Fish Shacks today with a group of 6 of us total. We have been wanting to go for a couple of years and honestly we were very underwhelmed and disappointed. It was 20 degrees today and the shacks have only a simple and cheap space heater that they seemed to turn on 2 minutes before we entered. The space was quite cold and we all ate in our winter gear. They had 2 (for a room for 6) cheap felt blankets . The space was too small for 6 guests (2 of which for us were 4 year olds so I can’t even imagine 6 adults). They servers can’t even fit in the space when they bring f+b in so any “heat” you might have captured leaves immediately while they hang with the door open. The heater never read about 43 degrees.

Food is rough. Even the burger is borderline inedible. Gluten free options are severely lacking. The pickle on my plate literally made me gag. Not sure if it was old or moldy or I don’t know. 😬 Fries and brussels sprouts are good. We were told no less than 6 times we only had 90 minutes to be in the shack at the start of our meal and at check in which didn’t exactly set the relaxing holiday lunch vibe - especially considering most of our 90 minutes were waiting for drinks, service, food, etc. Overall - we have typically dealt with the mediocre food and annoyed service because we like the space but this experience at the fish shacks I think finally pushed us over the edge of not needing to come back. Hopefully their hospitality and food program can improve because they have a lot of potential in their space and fan base.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 3

Service: 3

It looks so fun decorated for Christmas. We just went in for a drink and an app, but service was quick, food and drinks were even quicker, and everything was really enjoyable. We had a nice server, and enjoyed the Brussels sprouts and their ube drink.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 4