Todd H.
Yelp
I'm in Marquette, MI on business for several months, so I've been sampling the food scene just about every other day. Let me tell you, the restaurants I've been to so far are pretty damn good. Iron Bay and Lagniappe have been phenomenal each and every time (I'll review them later this week). However, there is no possible way to explain just how bad this restaurant is. From the attitude and poor training of the staff, which when you meet the Manager you'll see why, to the food. A 4.6 rating-how? My restaurant, yes mine, has a 4.6 rating and let me tell you, we earn it each and every day.
The ambience of the place is rather nice and located in an historic building. The draw is that it's an old movie theatre and has a big screen playing flicks while you dine. Tonights feature- Shrek. Ummmhmmm-this most likely explains the high reviews as it's probably packed with moms who simply want the tikes entertained as they toss sub par food at you. I first sat at the bar and ordered a bottle of wine; the bartender places the bottle on the bar and never opened it. No, I'm not kidding. As they have no wine cooler the Shiraz I picked had a nice 85 degree temp to it, but the real charmer was that the glass he sat next to it had just come from the dishwasher, so it was about 90-95 degrees F. This is of course was a good thing because if you wanted to disinfect your silverware, you could just use the straight alcohol, corked, superheated wine to do it with (wine when under constant heat turns to an almost straight alcohol with a nice copper penny finish to it) and that's precisely what it tasted like. At this point I moved from the bar to a table (hostess was sweet) in order to start my experience all over again; new slate if you will. The good news is one of my employees called and ended up joining me. And so I carried my bottle and water to the table, no one offered, and then asked my server if she'd please ask the bartender to transfer the tab- he refused. Strike two! My server approached me and didn't introduce herself, didn't ask why I moved, didn't really care about much honestly. I asked to return the Shiraz and thought to myself, I'll just do a nice chilled white to go with a series of appetizers in several courses. This seems simple enough right, wrong! Out comes the wine, opened and boom on the middle of the table- warm! These folks have something against wine. Perhaps the owner was forced to consume wine as a child and hated it so much that he/she now has this pent up rage that they must destroy, every single bottle they can. Anyway, I ordered the Scallop and Burrata to start. The scallop dish was interesting and very good with a purée of pea. The Burrata, wait, I mean the ball of mozzarella they bought at the 7-11 on the way to work, tossed into a tiny mason jar and covered in Chimichurri or something similar. Burrata folks, is an incredibly rich, velvety mouth feel of heaven and if you've never tried it, you must. Just not here. Theirs is an insult to Burrata- a perfectly handmade, buffalo milk mozzarella with a rich cream piped into the middle of it. Served with fresh sliced, vine ripened tomatoes, a hint of chopped basil and a 25 year balsamic vinegar and......... sorry I drifted off, where was I? Oh, back to the white racquetball covered in chopped parsley. It was just about this time that the Manager showed up and without an apology or any concern says "I've never had anyone complain about this wine, what's wrong". 'It's corked', I said. My response seemed to confuse him as if I'd asked him the square root of something. He simply sauntered off, never to return. I guess I'll have to wait to look at my app for pending charges to see if he actually returned it. Well guys, you get the point. This place is too busy telling you how awesomely cool and hip they are with the pink hair and 15 mouth and eyebrow rings to actually get down to the business of serving good food with a pleasant demeanor. It's not hard, but so many underachievers make it so. I would venture a guess that the owner barely visits their own establishment and is most likely retired and couldn't be bothered. Here's some advice whoever you are. Take some pride in yourself, terminate the manager instantly and find someone to come in and clean house. Have this person train your staff to be pleasant and to find some respect and manners. You have a beautiful place, it's a shame it's being wasted. Oh and hey, Troy's burger was so well done, he thought he was eating his own shoe. Take care now, bye bye!