Toonie's Fish & Steak House — Local services in Kearney Township

My wife and I visited Toonie's on a Friday evening for the fish fry special. The place was packed sp we took the last 2 seats at the bar. Although packed, we reived decent service from the bar tenders. We found out the fish fry special was a saltwater white fish. My wife chose to order that but I chose to order the freshwater perch dinner (I'm in Northern Michigan). The portion of perch was good and, as others have stated, the fries were good. The issue was that the perch were very greasy. I should have known that those fryers were being used extensively and weren't keeping the temperature needed for crisp fish.

The dinners were good enough to take our son and his girlfriend back for breakfast the next morning. Toonie's had won a 2023 award for best breakfast in the area. That Saturday morning the restaurant was not busy, but for some reason service was slow. The Regulars definitely got preferential service. I ordered the cornedbeef hash. The hash was tasty but the portion size was just adequate for the price. I didn't understand the hashbrowns. They seemed to be minced. If the weren't crusted together, they tended to fall through the tines of the fork. My over-easy eggs tasted good but they were Just done (some clear whites remained).My wife ordered the Skillet and that was a large portion of food. My son ordered the eggs benedict and he was not happy with the portion size. They were small. For comparison, we ate breakfast at a newer restaurant in an adjacent town the next day. Portion sizes were bigger and taste was just as good or a...

Toonies near Torch Lake gave us the kind of service you’d expect if you accidentally wandered into your ex’s family reunion uninvited. We showed up around 6:30, stood there like awkward middle-schoolers waiting to be picked for dodgeball, and finally someone emerged from the back to seat us. From there, it only went downhill.

Every table around us was treated like royalty—bread baskets flying left and right—while we sat bone-dry, watching our server (an older lady who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else) sprint past our empty glasses like we were invisible. At one point, she literally gave our bread to another table, then came back and took it off their table to hand to us. Nothing says “five-star dining” like secondhand carbs.

I ordered the 8oz sizzler. What I got looked like a breakfast steak on a diet—quarter-inch thin, drowning in a salt lick of seasoning. Medium rare, sure, but only because it was impossible to cook something that thin wrong. My wife’s perch dinner arrived lukewarm, with breading so soft it felt like chewing a damp oven mitt. Throughout it all, our drinks never once got refilled, and our server never asked how we were doing—not even a fake “everything okay here?” drive-by.

Food: meh. Service: aggressively bad. I left zero tip and wrote “HORRIBLE SERVICE” on the receipt so there’s no confusion. If you’re into salty disappointment, warm fish, and the thrill of being ghosted by your server while sitting three feet away from her, Toonies...

One of the worst overall experiences we've had while out traveling. Ignored all the warning signs when we got there and decided to give it a shot. Most times the hole in the wall spots are the best, not the case here.

We were greeted promptly and seated quickly. That was great. We ordered a lemon drop martini and a strawberry daiquiri, drinks were overly strong and not mixed well. The lemon drop was mainly liquor and had no citrus taste at all. Surprisingly the daiquiri was quite blah.

We ordered a burger meal and ribeye meal. The burger was cooked well but had a very bland taste to it. I was overly disappointed with my ribeye. It was cooked the way I asked but I could tell it was frozen and had been for some time. If I'm going to pay $35 for a steak dinner I would at least expect it not to taste freezer burned. I also got the perch as an add on. Worst $7 ever spent in a lake side restaurant. It had no flavor and came to the table soggy right out of the fryer.

Not a happy customer and will not ever be back. It may be great for the locals cuz they are used to it but how this place has an overall great rating is beyond us....