Poplar Restaurant

Had the country fried steak. Great eat but took 45 min to get the food at lunch when there was only 3 tables. I will be back though lol

Was our first visit. The service was slow and terrible. We waited forever for everything. I had some sort of «loafer» which was over cooked and even brought to the table with black bread because it was cooked too long. Very hard and tasted like burnt toast, so I can’t tell you if the philly chees is any good or not. I told the waitress she blew it off. My husband had the CLUB sub which was okay but nothing special. I asked for Ranch for the fried pickles and was told they come with Dill. She even verified that I’d rather have Ranch dip but never brought it. $ 30 later we were wishing we had gone to Spangles.

Them charbq wings are good as hell! Get you some of those with a side of ranch and hot sauce! My belly is full, and my wallet aint too dry. Ask for janet if you like some down home service. 5 stars for this cowboy.

This place was above my expectations. The whole staff was very friendly. Zach our waiter was very knowledgeable with the menu and gave us wonderful recommendations. We took his advice and went with a loafer (similar to a calzone) that we probably should’ve shared, it was big enough for two and delicious and the chicken fried chicken that was moist and melted in your mouth. The food was on our table in less than 10 minutes straight from the oven. This visit was very pleasant and we will definitely recommend this place to everyone and I will be making a return visit next time I’m in Andover. Great service Zach!

Before my trip to Wichita to visit family, I looked up the recommended restaurants and Poplar had high ratings. The atmosphere was kind of sports bar and the menu followed that lead. The rest of the family ordered pizza and I chose a «loafer», which was Italian bread sliced and stuffed with a choice of fillings. Sadly, when mine came, it had the wrong filling but it was no big deal so I just decided to eat it. I did enjoy it. The ingredients were good and tasty and it was of ample size. The rest of the family enjoyed their pizza very much, so it was a success in that manner. We all enjoyed the food enough that later in the week we decided to get take out and got it at Poplar. This time I got the right loafer and wasn’t disappointed. The best place in Andover? That might be stretching it but it was good. Don’t know if I’d ask to return there on my next visit but only because there are other places to try.

Hands down the best Philly in town. I order from there 2 – 3 times a month. It is fantastic. Be sure to add some jalapeño to you philly. You will not be disappointed.

Killer gluten free pizza AND they have gluten free beer oh my gawd. Ambience is warm and comfortable, staff are super friendly, and menu is expansive. The homemade cole slaw is what you want with that pizza. Um, I only gave them 4 stars because I didn’t see anything local on the menu… need to double-​check this. We will be back on the regular!

The food was great. The service wasn’t. We waited 15 to be seated at a table that was open and clean when we arrived. Our order was promptly taken as another family was seated next to us. We never got our appetizer and the family next to us ordered, ate, left and their table was bused well before we even got our food. We didn’t order anything special or out of the ordinary that should take 1:15 to make it to the table. We would have left long before but we didn’t notice how long it was taking until the family next to us finished and left. We’ll probably give it another shot because the food was very good, it was probably just our server that was bad.

This place is always packed & I have no idea why. EVERY SINGLE TIME my family has eaten there the service has been very poor & at least one person’s order has been wrong. The last time we went everyone was freezing (we had a party of 8). My husband asked our waitress to turn the AC down. She laughed & told him no because she was hot. That was the last straw in our poor dining experience here.
Took a year break from it to see if things would improve. We went back last night. We had to ask for drink refills every time. Our waitress seemed to be wondering around a lot not doing anything. It took 45 min to get our food. My son did not get the pizza he ordered, my husbands meal was wrong, my pizza was burnt on the edges & not even warm (I waited to eat when I got home & could put it in the oven). My daughters pizza was warm, but not hot. This was all in 1 evening. We will not be back.
The ONLY good thing about this place is the pizza (not the gluten free, it’s pre-​made & just not very good. Go to take & bake pizza place for GF pizza). So if you really want to eat here, just order it to go & plan on reheating your food.

Great restaurant right up the road. Would have given them five stars, but sometimes service is a bit slow. Good help, good area, great pizza and wings. Try the white pizza.

My wife and I had lunch here today out of convenience of location. We were both content with the service and impressed with the quality. We will try the loafers next time.

Poplar is a good place to get decent food for decent prices. The food is not amazing and dishes are not extravagant but it is consistently good. Atmosphere is comfortable and they have a nice outdoor seating area as well. Pizzas and sandwiches seem to be their specialties.

We’ve been here lots of times the past few years, 5 – 8 years at least. I’ve uploaded photos before on @Urbanspoon, so they may be available on @Zomato. Tonight, I forgot to take a photo of the Fried Fish (Haddock) with fries (the 50′-60’s vintage wavy long frozen fries) and coleslaw. It’s their not-​on-​the-​menu Friday Night Special. Will have to take one next time I am here on a Friday.
Unfortunately, these are not the authentic «Fish and Chips» like we enjoyed all over Ireland our last two trips there — the «Chips» aren’t hand-​cut, and I guess the coleslaw is instead of the «smashed garden peas» (or squished, whipped blended — we saw the garden peas labeled a variety of ways while in Ireland.).
I made a pleasant discovery today — I’ve never enjoyed their coleslaw as it is much too sweet. Today I spiked it with about a teaspoon or two of the malted vinegar (optional to eat with the fish, to cut the greasiness and head off heartburn), and gave it a righteous stir. The coleslaw was improved immensely, in my opinion.
Teenager loved his NY style pizza and hubby loves his Philly style «loafer». A loafer? This would be roughly equivalent to a calzone, only made in dough formed in a folded rectangular shape, rather than a traditional half-​moon shape of a calzone. It’s good — I have had them before, as well as regular sub sandwiches, the chicken dinner, the salad (not their long suit, but oh well.). This is one of those «something for everyone» family dining, for when one family is dieting and wants a grilled chicken with broccoli or some such, and the other family wants pizza or fried chicken or the fish like I had, or steak. They have a website and a menu. It’s not «Haute Cuisine» but it isn’t «Golden Arches Supper Club» either.

Great place in Andover to take family and friends for a good meal. We go maybe once a month or so.
Recommend any of the the pizzas offerings, charbq wings, ribs (when on special), but the absolute must try is the fried chicken dinner which is just like homemade — similar to Strouds pan fried.

Best overall restaurant in Andover. Thursday evening rib night is a must. I have also tried Loafers, hamburger steak, wingdings, and pizza.
Service is awesome, prices are great.

Food was alright, the wait to get to the table on a Saturday night wasn’t too bad. However, we had waited over an hour to receive our food after ordering. We even saw two couples come in after us leave before us and one family of 7 receive there food before we did.

The waitress was rude, and refused to service with a smile. She waited 20mins to bring us extra sauce for our bread and lemons for our water. And she said and I quote «I only service people who are going to tip me.» Obviously referring to the fact we are teenagers, and most likely don’t have money to tip her… But after her comment we made sure to leave her with a tip that’s hopefully her last. Not that hard to do your job… If you can’t I’m sure a teenage would more then happily take your job, which you most likely stole from one in the first place.
But the calzones are great!

Great pizza, good fried chicken, service is fine and they stay very busy at times. Their so called pizza delivery is pretty much non existent. A shame cause I’d order from them more but about 8 out of 10 times they «don’t have a driver» they shouldn’t advertise deliver in my opinion. The pizza is the best in Andover I just wish their delivery was consistent.

You arrive at the Poplar Restaurant after having driven way out of town, far from any other restaurant. Should this not work out, you’re left pretty high and dry. After some confusion you figured out that it’s on the backside of a beer store. You walk in, you can’t believe you drove here for this. Everything in this place is aesthetically unappealing, from the lighting to the «décor» to the tshirts the servers wear to the, well, even to the clientele. This is worth your time? You may ask yourself, a la David Byrne, My God, what have I done?
Then you order some char bq wings, a pepperoni pizza, and an Italian «Loafer.» Maybe you get some fried chicken. The Loafer™ – come on, it’s a stromboli (you wanna trademark that? You godda be kidding) is by far the most beautiful thing you will see in this restaurant. And it tastes as good as it looks. The pizza is arguably the best in town now that Bartelli’s is closed and Picasso’s can’t make a decent crust (yes, it’s better than Knolla’s). Most of the wings are run of the mill, but the char bq wings, those are great. Let’s leave it at this – you’ve now ordered pretty much the only things on the absurdly hulking menu that they make freshly. And those four or five things are so beautiful that the rest of the experience is worth the trouble, visual or otherwise.

While Poplar was on my radar for while, I didn’t really consider it a priority until the foofarah from Picasso started last month. Then one boring Saturday afternoon I was sitting around contemplating possible dinner options and saw the proprietors were from Buffalo. If there’s one thing Buffalo, NY knows, it’s wings. If there’s another thing, it might be pizza. I jumped in my car and drove out of town.
The biggest thing you should know is that image that you have in your head when you think pizza and wings restaurant? Forget it. The population that packed the place even on a Saturday night was largely older folks and families. And no one was eating pizza nor wings. Rather, they seemed focused on the fried chicken. Okay, it’s still chicken and it’s still fried, so we’re still in wings territory, so I ordered ten of THE HOTTEST WINGS THEY HAVE. Also, a slice of pizza.
Given the crowd, I wasn’t expecting the wings to be particularly hot even at their maximum, and it turned out to be a good guess, amounting to a flavor that is overall very consistent with traditional buffalo sauce. It paired well with the big, whole wings, which at ten pieces was enough to serve as a meal. Rest assured, the Buffalo (place) continues to live through those buffalo (wings). Buffalo buffalo Bufallo buffalo.
Less impressive was the pizza, which — though the dough was made fresh, the sauce was blahdy blah — a style best categorized as ‘generic’, and not really worth my time.
I noticed Poplar offered ‘Texas toothpicks’ on the menu, which is a dead giveaway of their reliance on Sysco products — so much so that I was not the first person to actually bring it up in my party. Still, it’s not like I expect Poplar to go out and slaughter the chickens themselves, so it’s not a particularly big deal depending on what’s ordered. What’s more important is that, despite their heritage, they’re a restaurant frequented by Andoverans who are looking more for comfort food than anything else.