Cattleman's Burger And Brew — Restaurant in Algonquin

My family and I have been coming to Cattlemen’s since they’ve opened and every time we came in to eat we’ve always had great service. We had placed an order on the phone on the way so it would be ready once we got there (we have done this before and there’s never been an issue) we came in they sat us down and the waitress with the glasses and dark hair with a nose ring came to our table and made a hostile comment about us placing an order on the phone we let it go and continued to eat our food. We had asked her to bring extra plates since we were going to split the pasta since it’s a big serving size she looked at us with a confused look on her face and a condescending tone and said “you’re splitting…” and proceeded to walk off and bring back plates which she slammed on the table. Again we let it go because we just want to have a meal in peace. She asked if we needed anything and I asked her if I could have red crushed peppers and she said with an attitude “we don’t have that here” mind you I’ve been coming here for years and they’ve always brought me them but I didn’t want to start an argument over chili flakes so I told her it’s okay just bring me any hot sauce and she went to grab hot sauce and again slammed it on the table aggressively and looked at us and with an attitude and tone said “do you guys need anything else!?” We just said no and she walked off. As a different waitress was passing by I told her don’t not send our waitress back over to us because she was rude and obnoxious the waitress said sorry and that it was no problem. Not even 10 seconds goes by and the grumpy waitress came over AGAIN after we specifically asked for a new waitress. She came over demanding a reason why we didn’t want her serving us we explained very briefly and told her to please leave our table she refused and stood there trying to argue with us she then slammed the check and boxes on the table and said we need to box up our food and pay the bill and leave even though we were still in the middle of eating. I told her we’re absolutely not leaving to grab her manager or the owner she said she was the manager and we told her to bring us the owner that we knew was there. She said there’s no point of bringing him because he was going to tell us the same thing. We said we didn’t care we would still like to speak to him, after her crash out moment she finally went back to grab the owner. After a few minutes he came to our table we explained everything to him and he apologized and comped our meal for the treatment we had just received. It is so unfortunate that a place we once loved to go to became somewhere we would never go again just because of a rude grumpy waitress. If you go here try to avoid her as your server unless you want horrible...

I WANT to like this place, but I just can't...

The place: It's not kid friendly. There's decorations all over the walls within easy reach of kids, including a probably live extension cord! (I'm assuming for Christmas decorations) They have high chairs, but there's nowhere to put them. All the tables are high-tops, and all but one of the booths are elevated, so a high chair puts a kid's head even with the top of the table. The one booth that is not elevated is a big family style booth and only has room for one high chair, which then pretty much blocks entry/exit to the booth. The booths themselves are so tight, if you have a belly at all (like me) they will be extremely uncomfortable, if you fit at all.

The food: we've been here twice. Once shortly after it opened, we went for dinner. Can't remember what we had, but we weren't impressed. Been meaning to go back and give it another shot, so when we were out heading to breakfast and saw that they were open, we decided to try theirs. Looking at the menu, the prices weren't bad. We got our food and everything tasted faintly fishy... Eggs, biscuits, potatoes, even pancakes! It worked with the potatoes, but the rest was kinda gross. We also elected to sub fruit for potatoes on one entree. This consisted of some mandarin orange slices, blueberries, and a couple strawberries... Not much at all, tiny bowl. Regarding the prices... Everything was more than listed on the menu. By less than a dollar as far as I remember, but still not right. And we were charged $4 for the fruit bowl! Ridiculous for what we got!

The service: this was OK. We were there with two little kids. After ordering, the waitress brings a bowl of popcorn. Weird thing with breakfast, and also annoying that we weren't asked, since both kids immediately wanted the popcorn. Our kids aren't really ready for that yet, but mini meltdowns ensued because they HAD to have it. Second was her telling my son "if he was good, he could have something from the treasure chest". Cool idea, but let the parents decide whether that's something they want and how to handle it.

Overall: I'm very glad we have some very good kids, otherwise our trip could have been an outright disaster. With everything I've said, I can't see us...

I've dined at Cattleman's three times and this review reflects all three visits. The first two visits, the restaurant was not very busy and we had a party of two. Both times we ordered a burger and a beef sandwich. The food was good and warm but rather pricey.

The third time was an absolute disaster. We arrived shortly after 5 on a Friday night. We sat inside and some tables were occupied, but overall it was not very busy. We had four people in our party and we ordered drinks along with two burgers and two beef sandwiches. The restaurant started to fill up and we noticed our server paying a lot of attention to tables around us but never stopping by to ask us about drink refills, more popcorn or anything else. We sat there for an hour and 15 minutes before a different server finally brought food to our table. When he described the first burger to give it to the right person, we told him that wasn't our order because it wasn't the right type of bun. He looked confused and walked away. A few minutes later our original server came back and told us that was the right order - but it really wasn't because the burger had a different bun than was ordered. At this point the person who ordered it said nothing because we just wanted to eat and not experience any more delay. All of the food was lukewarm at best.

We had to ask other servers who walked by for silverware, drink refills, ketchup and mustard and for a side of mayo to make up for the mayo that was originally requested on one of the burgers but not there. Our original server never once stopped by to ask how our food was or if we needed anything else. Once we were done eating, we sat there for quite a while because our server never stopped by and finally I was able to flag her down and ask for the check and a to-go box.

I don't know what our server's issue was, but when we saw her regularly go to other tables and smile and talk and then barely take care of us, we were pretty upset. This was only the second time in my life I left no tip for horrible service.

Overall, the food is decent but there are plenty of places I can go for a burger or beef sandwich of similar or better quality for a cheaper price. Paired with bad service, I'll have to say that we won't ever be...