Red Fox Winery & Vineyards — Attraction in Missouri

While looking for a new place to stop and have dinner on a drive home from Springfield Saturday my wife and I saw a number of signs along 7 along with a HUGE banner announcing the Red Fox Winery as well as a bistro open Thur/Fri/Sat. We thought a nice meal at a boutique winery would be the perfect end to a day together. Unfortunately that was not our experience.

We arrived at the winery at approximately 6:30pm. On the outside it appears to be a very charming place. On the inside it's simply ugly. Let me rephrase that - the decor is fine. The people are ugly. Not on the outside - they are ugly on the inside. I have never been treated so rudely at a service business in my life.

We walked in and the first words out of the server's mouth who "greeted" us was "do you have reservations?" Of course we didn't, so we asked if we could sit at the bar (which was empty besides one patron eating dinner) and she indicated that would be fine.

We took a seat at the bar and watched no less than 4 employees completely ignore our presence for 5 minutes. Not even a "hello, we'll be right with you." No smiles. No eye contact whatsoever. One older gentleman (who I assume was the owner) was not working, he was just chatting up the other person at the bar. One person was opening wine and two older ladies appeared to be in a dialogue about what to do about the intruders sitting at the bar.

Finally a very grouchy woman (who I assume was the other owner) approached us and asked if we had reservations. Once again, no "hello, welcome to the Red Fox." No "would you like to try a glass of wine." Only a very curt and somewhat accusing tone about our lack of a reservation. I said no, but we were told we could eat at the bar. She said we could not eat at the bar, but we could eat out on the patio. It had been raining most of the day, was 62 degrees outside, and the sun was going down - there was no way I was going to eat on the patio.

We walked out and will not return. Both my wife and I were flabbergasted at how poorly these people treated us. The upside is we returned to Lees Summit and found Infusions Bar & Grill which was the exact opposite of our experience in Urich. It was an amazing meal served by people who absolutely understand the value of each and every customer.

I hope the owners read this review and take to heart how poorly we were treated. If you don't want people walking in you need to take your signs down off Highway 7. You obviously spent several thousand dollars in signage to attract people off the highway. It's beyond me why you would take that investment and then treat walk-ins like intruders. I commented to my wife that we probably could have stopped at a random house on the way home, asked for something to eat, and been treated as guests.

Congratulations Red Fox - you earned your spot as the worst customer service fail I've ever...

"At least theyre trying to bring a classy sit down restaurant to this beautiful part of the countryside" is the best that can be said for this place. Came in and was seated with warm water with no ice, only 2 other tables occupied in the place, maybe 8 customers including myself. As I was seated I asked for a coke and got a warm 20oz plastic bottle of very flat coke weeks away from the best by date accompanied by a glass of ice. Reading the menu, the prices are all that of a nice sit down restaurant, like an olive garden or red lobster, most things were around $20. As the waiter was dropping my glass off I ordered a 1/2lb burger, which was the cheapest thing on the menu at $13. When asked what I wanted on it, I had replied to just have everything on it, but she insisted on having me read through all the toppings noted to come with it off the menu. However she did not ask how I would like the meat cooked as any resturant of this price caliber would certainly give me the liberty of choosing. I would not see this server again for 40 minutes, which is how long it took for the food to arrive. As for the meal, the burger itself was far from impressive, Im quite sure ive experienced more flavor from deep city school cafeteria burgers, at least they added a tad of salt. But this burger seemed to have no seasoning at all, and on the appearance side, the patty was very uneven in thickness and only stretched across maybe 60% of the bun, seeming quite short of 1/2 of a lb, I still had many bites of bun (which was equally lacking of any sort of flavor) following my completion of the burger. The fries at least had some seasoning, though the seasoning was just salt and pepper, and it seemed as if they were trying to use enough salt on this batch to preserve it enough to serve the following day. Aside from that many of them were very hard and all of them had arrived cold as if theyd been sitting out since I placed my order all that time ago. The server did not come to check on my meal and I ended up paying my bill of $17 at the counter without seeing her again. The idea I got from this restaurant was a mcdonalds shift manager quit his job and decided to start and run a fancy dine in experience restaurant completely alone, even taking the role of a chef on after spending some hours watching Food Network, because no other explanation can excuse the long wait time and poor quality. I dont mind a mediocre independently run resturant, but if your going to create food that makes me wish id choosen burger king instead then at least set your prices lower than them. The beautiful views outside were just about the only positive part of this experience, the rest left a lot to be desired. My advice is to lower the prices to something more fair until they manage to get the hang of the food making industry or stick...

So, I am leaving this review for the general public and for the business themselves. I have seen several comments complaining about the service being slow, as well as the sewage smell. But I want to inform the public of a messed up issue. I live a 20 minute walk from the vinyard, so I thought I would get a part time job waitressing as I have experience. Thought this place would be perfect. So I went in to GET AN APPLICATION. That was it. I asked the host or waitress for one and she had me go speak to the owner. He asked my age and what position I was after. When I said I was 21 and wanted to waitress he (I thought, jokingly) said "You're hired ". Knowing what I do now, he probably wasn't joking. So I grabbed the application that the bartender handed me and was going on my way, when the host snapped her fingers at me and kind of rudely said that the owner wasn't done talking to me. As if I already worked there....First red flag. So I speak to him for a couple of minutes and told him I was going home to fill out the application. I called back the next day because I forgot to ask what the pay was. AND GUESS WHAT. These people do not pay their waitresses a dime. They work for TIPS. Most places don't pay much because obviously, tips are a part of the job. But what are they going to do on days when no one or very few people show up and their servers only make $10 or nothing? (Trust me, it happens even at well off places)

So, for the people mad that their waitress takes forever, keep in mind that not only do they not have people staying with them and are having trouble hiring servers, the reason for that is that they don't pay them and I wouldn't like my job much either of I wasnt being payed by my employer. Their servers work for FREE. They rely soley on the generosity of tips (which plenty of people don't actually tip as rude as that is). So, note to the owner. Pay your servers at least the $2.13 they deserve and you will probably have better luck keeping them and even getting them to work there. How disgusting. Also, maybe have some manners. Just because someone comes and asks for an application doesnt mean you rule over them now. You shouldn't even treat workers like that. Long story short, I didn't even fill out the...