MacRay Harbor — Attraction in Harrison Township

Just posting this today but it was written a few hours after the Easter Sunday Buffet.. 3:00PM Easter Sunday Brunch Buffet March 27 2016. I do not usually write reviews but I just do not understand how so many people are willing to spend $28 PLUS for mediocre food, and service. Don’t get me wrong the staff was working very hard; I think some were over worked and probably under paid. It almost seemed as if they were not prepared for the crowd… hmmm?? My advice, stay away until they get their act together. (Unless you enjoy spending your hard earned money on a way overpriced lack luster buffet) I hear that it is under new management. They need to step it up. There are so, so many other better and less expensive options in this area. No, they do not have the water view but are you there for the view or the food and company. Michigan is surrounded by water; there are many options to view our great lakes for free or a park entry fee. First, we were a party of 10. (Big family, could have possibly been 20) Two of us arrived to a crowd at the top of the staircase, unsure how to proceed. Was this some sort of line? Should we pass everyone up and continue to look for our dining companions? But we didn't want to seem like we were attempting to cut in front of anyone. Maybe a host should have been at the bottom or top of the staircase providing some direction on the food layout. The only reason we knew where to go was that we ran into someone in our party. Once we were gathered and seated at our table we waited for wait staff to come over to take a drink order, and possibly provide a little insight on the buffet set up. They did start to serve water. Then waitress came for drink order. No buffet direction given. One in the party went to get the peel and eat shrimp for our table. She filled the rest of us in on the different food stations (food all crowded together, not a good layout, bad flow) Three of us headed to the tiny meat carving station. We noticed everyone had plates, we did not. This was the reason for the above mention of some direction of the buffet layout. We realized the plates were not at the meat carving station. We needed to get them from somewhere else…. Behind the huge mirrored pole. Okay not big deal, just odd. Did they run out of tables? They could have had another table with plates and an alternate carving station. But, I get it. They were trying to jam as many bodies as possible into that room. Mo people Mo money. There were 300 to 500 people, long lines, food ran out quickly. Maybe they misjudged and ran out of some things by the 3pm seating, who knows? Okay, the food… ”Assorted Salad Station” Do you remember Wendy’s salad bar? Wendy’s and Ruby Tuesday salad bar both had/have a huge variety in comparison to this. Where were the salad toppings? Carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, sunflower seeds, shredded cheese, raisins, berries, broccoli, cauliflower, anything???? Unbelievably sad, no creativity, so lacking. There was lettuce, croutons, cucumbers and about 6 bowls of salad dressing that took up most of the space on the table. The tiny bowls of cubed onions, and red pepper were up on the smoked salmon tray. There was a bowl of coleslaw, tray of cantaloupe and honeydew, maybe pineapple. And, a container of cottage cheese dumped in a bowl. Effortless, I could have done this at home. There was no type of relish trays, no pasta salads, potato salads…. Pasta and potatoes are so cheap! Peel and eat shrimp was good. Just a little messy with only one clothe napkin to use for the entire meal.Paper napkins by the shrimp or provided on the table would be nice and possibly another shrimp station. The lamb was good, cooked well. The Horsey sauce was very good! The ham; I would describe the ham as over tenderized, it was complete mooosh. Also, the menu flyer indicates ”Honey Glazed Ham”, this was NOT! Google reviews has length limit, my review was too long but I think I made my point and/or hopefully constructive...

We went there for Thanksgiving dinner that they serve Family Style. We were sat at a long table with another family. The other family had a 1:00 reservation, we had a 2:30, so when we arrived the other family was already done eating and just hanging out. They were complaining to the managers about how bad the service was. The food they said was good but the service was awful and I 100% have to agree with them. The Smoked Salmon was amazing. The Turkey was good. They make their stuffing with pieces of carrot on it which I never had before. I dug it. So after they give us our food and we start eating, our server comes around and asks if we need any thing. We ask for some more turkey. She says ok. 15 minutes later another server comes by with a plate of ham. We say no we wanted turkey. 10 minutes later our original server comes by and says they are out of gravy. We say we didn't get our turkey yet. She says she'll get them moving on it. She leaves, comes back 10 minutes later and says I whipped up some gravy. We ask can you whip up some turkey for us? 10 minutes later our turkey arrives. We were there for an 1:30-1:45 and all the dirty dishes from the previous family were never cleaned off so we ate our dinner next to someone elses mess. Any table that had dishes on it when we arrived were just being cleared when we were leaving. We were wondering if this was the first time they did a holiday dinner because it was not going smoothly and everyone seemed very ill prepared. I can't comment on the desert table because I didn't see what it looked like when we arrived but it was disaster when we left. Half a manhandled apple pie and a couple loose pieces of pumpkin pie. None of the cannoli or pudding or mousse we saw the other guests had. That was just my experience....

When we started our hunt for a venue we were so overwhelmed by all the options. We met with Kelli at MacRay on day 1 of our search, we kept looking just incase, however after at least 15 other tours and meetings with various venues and coordinators, we kept on coming back to MacRay. The venue is amazing, it’s right on the water with a beautiful view of the harbor. The ballroom, outdoor space and even bridal suite were all incredible. The food and drink options were very reasonably priced and the service from bartenders to waitstaff were everything we needed. No other location had as much to offer as MacRay, above everything else MacRay has Kelli. Kelli was so helpful during our process, she was attentive, responsive and incredibly informative. As someone who overthinks and tries to overplan everything, Kelli really made this process so easy. During our month long search she reached out to us many times just to check in where we were at in the process, she answered all of our questions and even helped give us advice when talking to other venues(she could tell she was our first stop lol!). My fiancée and I are on completely different schedules so we only have availability to meet with venues on weekends. Surprisingly a lot of venues do not have weekend visit times(?). Kelli had no problem accommodating us and had us come in on Sundays when she knew we would both be free. Our wedding is This upcoming October and we are so excited for the big day and cannot thank Kelli and the staff at MacRay Harbor enough for making this...