Karstens Public House — Restaurant in Alaska

Terrible Overall

The Good - the atmosphere seemed fine and the hostess was very nice, though a bit soft-spoken

The Not-So-Good - the noise level in there is very high, which doesn't help with many of the staff, who are very soft-spoken (from the hostess, to the person who brought you water when you sat, to our waitress, and to the person who serves the dinner entree). Tables felt close as well.

The Outright Bad - there are two salmon entrees on their dinner menu: a honey salmon with broccolini, and a salmon in spaghetti. I ordered the salmon in spaghetti.

First, I was served the wrong salmon, and when I let them know, I was served the right salmon a few minutes later.

However, it was served cold and looked disgusting. After trying the bit at the bottom to see if it was warmer on the bottom, I gave up trying to eat it. It was horrible, dry, and all the ingredients were congealed.

Then, the waitress clearly avoided us for the next 10-15 minutes, and waited until my husband had finished his meal (he ordered the brisket sandwich, which was fine except for the giant, overly battered and undercooked onion rings, also not terribly warm).

I sent the salmon back again, and I assured her that I didn't think it was her fault it was served cold, but had lost my appetite, and we asked for the bill.

Next and final huge mistake...she brought us the bill, and charged us for everything we ordered, even the cold entree. So we had to get her attention again to explain what should have been obvious. I have never experienced this, after having to send my meal back twice before, only to still get charged. Knowing one of your patrons in a party of 2 had not eaten hardly at all, she should have comped us our entire meal (we didn't even have drinks), but she was completely unprofessional, and the food was less than mediocre. A real waitress would have handled this better. I don't recall her name but it was something like "Katerina", not exact but similar to it.

I hope Holland improves the quality of the food here, and that the manager teaches the staff not to avoid their customers if anything remotely goes amiss. Mistakes happen, but don't make...

We spent a lot of time at Karsens during our 2 night Denali stay. (Don't get me wrong...we spent a lot a lot of time exploring Denali...but we kept returning to Karstens as a base to fuel up and hang out at later at night.) It's a comfortable, well-designed modern space with loads of seating inside, on the patio outside, and at the bar (where we sat each time we were there.)

We were there for lunch once, and evening drinks twice....the bartenders both times were VERY friendly and attentive. (And in the case of Drew, super fun.)

There are a handful of vegetarian options including the aptly named "Veggie Sandwich" - I tend to shy away from vegetarian options simply named "Veggie" in the menu as that feels a bit "token" but this actually looked and tasted great!) Also available are a Brussels Sprouts Share plate, grilled cheese, tomato soup, and a couple of vegetarian-able pastas for dinner.

We also at one point had their delicious and savory Jalapeño Corn Bread served with honey butter. Yum.

We tried two cocktails - the Whiskey Honey Sour which was good, and the Lavender Fields Forever Cocktail which was really really good.

It's especially fun there at night...the bartenders are a little more saucy and the crowds bring a nice energy around the bar.

You can also have your food and drink served outside on the patio so you can take in the folk duos music every night.

I really...

We dined here twice. Our first visit was so nice we brought friends the 2 nd time. Unfortunately it did not compare to the 1st visit. Our waiter seemed to be there just to collect a paycheck and didn’t care about our dining experience. We were a group of 7. 2 people got appetizers and only one was brought out.we had to ask for he other one. Then the first main course brought out was something no one at our table ordered. Slowly our meals came out….well…6 of them came out. We were seated at a large booth and I was furthest from the waiter. He literally held my meal 3 ft above me and tried to hand it to me.There was no way I could reach it. When the 6 of us were done with our meals the 7th one arrived. The only thing said was “sorry for the wait”. One person ordered dessert and the person bringing it out walked all thru the dining room and then went up to 2 other servers where they all smelled it and then they brought it to the table. Upon leaving I looked around to see if there was someone who seemed to be in charge but all I saw were employees chatting with each other. There didn’t seem to be any one making sure things were flowing smoothly. I know I could have asked for a manager or something but by this time i was annoyed and just wanted to leave. I knew I would never be returning . I do have to say our meals were very good. The...