Seward Family Restaurant & Ice Cream

I tried Seward’s twice for ice cream and won’t be back a third time. The first time the ice cream was fine but the overall building, parking lot, and picnic table area was old and worn down. It also is right off of busy Route 7 so it is not the most ideal place to sit with your family and enjoy ice cream outside. The second time I visited my ice cream was gross. I ordered two flavors, and one of the flavors (black raspberry) had a terrible flavor and kind of made my stomach turn. I went to the window and told the server that it tasted bad. He told me «Yeah, it is probably old, no one really orders that.» He then watched me throw the entire ice cream cone in the trash. Would have been nice if he offered to get me something else, although in all fairness I probably would have declined at that point.

Since around 2000, this place has been going down hill. Used to be a great place, but as of today it is a rundown, falling apart restaurant of the ‘90s. What happened from its glory days of lines out the door? The place smells, the building is crumbling, and they don’t even sell their original ice cream anymore. I mean the Seward family dairy started this restaurant and they have abandoned making ice cream!
It was a high quality place, one where the whole town hung out at, but it have fallen down quite a steep hill from its prime.

Avoid this place if you can!!! I did not expect much when we (a large group of adults and kids) went there to have dinner. You have to be very hungry to eat this food. The «fish and chips» I ordered were pretty much two fish sticks with approximately 15 half way done fries. Even by looking at the «whitish» looking fires you could tell that they were not done.. All of it did not taste like anything. My husband ordered a shake and a burger. The shake came 5 minutes later, and was according to him, good. For the burger he had to wait another 40 minutes and it was miserable. This place is just simply bad. If this is standard New England style I rather go other places. I heard the ice cream has a decent reputation.

Seward Family Restaurant is a long mainstay in Rutland. I can remember seeing their signs at the old fairgrounds ice rink when I played hockey there way back when.
This restaurant is the standard New England style restaurant serving home cooked meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ice cream, pretty similar to eating at Friendly’s including the dining room consisting of rows of booth seating, counter seating, and an open kitchen grill area. For larger groups, the partitions between some of the booths can be removed. There’s also a gift shop and outside takeout windows for ice cream.
The food served here is not very fancy and it is what it is. For breakfast, they serve up eggs, omelettes, pancakes, steak & eggs, sausage biscuit & gravy, sandwiches, and breakfast sides. For lunch/​dinner, they serve up sandwich plates, dinner platters (comfort dishes, fish & chips, steaks, chicken dinners, seafood, prime rib-​Fri & Sat nights), burgers, hot dogs, salad plates, salad bar, soups, and desserts (pies/​ice cream).
The prices are pretty fair, breakfast dishes $ 3.65-$ 8.65, sandwich plates $ 2.60-$ 6.95, salad plates/​all you can eat salad bar $ 6.25-$ 6.75, and dinner entrees $ 6.75-$ 11.95. Daily specials are offered Mon-​Sat for $ 7.99 including Chicken ‘n Biscuits, Spaghetti w/​Meatballs, Veal or Chicken, Meat Lasagna, Meatloaf, Mac & Cheese, and 3 Layer Shepherd’s Pie, served with sides and choice of small beverage.
I stopped in here for Sunday night dinner since I wanted a simple and good dinner. I decided on the Baked Chicken Breast Dinner ($ 9.35) served with choice of starch & choice of cold side and dinner roll. The Baked Chicken Breast was served very hot, a tender chicken breast stuffed with bread stuffing, soft mashed potatoes, both smothered with a thick chicken gravy. The cole slaw (cabbage/​carrot) was very light tasting and cool. The hot dinner roll was hard outside and soft inside. The portion of food was just right, not too little and not too much. Some cranberry dressing would’ve been a nice touch for this dinner. That was enough food for me and I passed on the offer for dessert. Another customer in the next booth ordered the Mud Pie, which looked pretty good. I’ll order it next time.
Overall, the food was good and tasted fine, but it was not the greatest chicken dinner I’ve eaten. This meal was a very standard comfort dish for Sunday dinner. The service was laid back and the atmosphere in the restaurant was pretty relaxed.