Lure Lakebar — Restaurant in Alexandria

We had heard great things about this restaurant and recently went after my daughter graduated from college. I made a reservation a week before, we were a larger group of 12, making sure they could accommodate us. They had no problem with that. Three of us arrived early and had drinks and the cheese fondue appetizer at the bar until the rest of our party arrived. That was fantastic and we were so excited to enjoy the meal with the rest of our family. We sat down at 6pm, the waitress came over and took our drink orders. At 6:20 pm we finally received water and she said she told someone in our party the bar was backed up but drinks would come soon. She promptly left without taking food orders. At 6:30 pm I asked the front staff to please have our waitress come take our food orders. She finally came back and took orders. We received our drinks finally at 6:40 pm. At 7:10 pm we did not have appetizers, food or any sight of our waitress. I went out to the front and asked to speak with the manager. I was told they had a larger number of customers come and did not have the staff, there were open tables. This was also fishing opener AND Mother’s Day Weekend, how do you not plan for that??? He assured me our appetizers were on their way and would be free. OK, finally they arrived about 7:20 pm, we ordered onion rings and tator tots, nothing special or difficult. Our food finally arrived about 7:30 pm. The waitress was saying she ordered it as soon as we did, however, we do not believe that happened. My daughter, the graduate, bit into her burger and there was paper with raw burger on it in the middle of her burger. My mom ordered hers without sauce, came with sauce on the burger. I called the GM over to our table to express our extreme displeasure with the entire experience. Over 90 minutes for food, two small children and hungry adults. The paper in the burger was really the final straw and he then comped our entire meal and made the two new meals. By the time we received those we realized another burger was wrong, but didn’t even want to say something at that point. The food was mediocre at best. Service horrendous. The GM did the right thing, but needless to say we will...

We got to the restaurant and were told there was a 15 minute wait, that was reasonable so we decided to walk to the bar to order drinks while we waited. We had a party of 8, 4 were children so we were told we could not stay at the bar while we waited. While we waited the kids picked out shirts and I paid for them. Got our drink and our table was ready, wait time was 15 minutes still within range so I was pleased. Got our table ordered apps, ahi and cauliflower, they were very good. While we were eating ours apps we ordered dinner. This is when it all went downhill. We waited an hour to get our meals... we were sitting at a booth in the bar and there is a glass view of the kitchen. Our food just sat there. The kitchen staff were a mess. There was someone putting plates into a serving tray and they had no flow. I watched them slide back and forth between tickets with a counter of food over flowing with plates waiting to go out, it was a total mess. Wait staff were standing waiting, pacing in and out while this line worker would send them out of the kitchen with nothing. You could see the stress on the faces of the wait staff. It was completely chaos. Food finally came out and it was old from sitting under the warmer for such a long time. I ordered the walley dinner and the potatoes were at this point in the verge of turning to glue. My husband ordered a burger and that was wrong and missing the cheese. I would recommend this place only if it was a weeknight not surrounding a holiday. I think the flaw in the system was in the kitchen plating line. If this was corrected it might stop the delay in food getting out...

Had lunch at Lure while in Alexandria for a visit. Nice location with views of a lake where you can sit either inside or at outdoor patio. Inside is very open and modern looking. Bar in middle of restaurant is surrounded by a number of flat screen TVs to watch various sporting events. We started things off with the tater totchos which everyone enjoyed. Combination of tots drizzled with queso and topped with bacon, onion and jalapenos. Definitely a little kick to start off the meal. We then had entrees ranging from fish and chips to the Buoy burger to the foot long Le Homme hot dog. Six walleye fingers with the fish and chips which were very good. For the Buoy burger it was your basic quarter pounder with cheese, lettuce, tomato and onions that was very tasty and filling. Finally the Le Homme dog was every bit of a grilled beef hot dog on a very large bun topped with chilli, home made mustard sauce, caramelized onions, cheese, bacon and peppers. According to our host he really liked the flavor and obviously the portion. His toughest task was to find a way to tackle eating this gigantic hot dog. All meals came with home made fries that were about the same as most places that have fries. Nothing overwhelming but complimentary to the entrees. Would recommend trying out Lure when up in the Alexandria area during your trip up...