Heidelberg Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Ann Arbor

Still a great atmosphere for a drinks, and a lively, fun crowd on a Friday evening.

If you're hungry, stick to standard bar food-type options. The fries are really good. Onion rings are freshly battered and dipped and were outstanding. Sliders were tasty, but insultingly too small to even be called sliders. The Texas burger was massive, and quite good. The Rueben was reported to be quite good.

The "German" food is absolutely horrible. It's an insult to German culture. It's barely edible. It should have been thrown out 3 days ago. It doesn't vaguely resemble anything remotely authentic. DO NOT ORDER GERMAN FOOD HERE.

The sauerbraten was overcooked, tough, and was buried in a bland, gravy-like substance. The red cabbage was days past it's serving date, and lacked any flavor at all. The spatzle? Ugh. The spatzle was mushy, leftover pasta with generic "brown gravy" dumped on it. Inedible. The pretzel fondue included burnt pieces of something that may have been pretzel, and a dip which was not bad, but had some at our table wondering what the chunky stuff floating in it was.

The "pub style service" is a disaster. You essentially have to jostle for the attention of the lone bartender-between drunken patrons buying pitchers of beer and pushing their way back to the bar to get more glasses, and whatever else they forgot. Elbowing, tripping, and slurring over those seated at the bar. Over and over. All this to place a food order for 6 people, which you then get to deliver the setups and drinks to the table yourself.

Our food took over an hour to be prepared. Likely due to the need to overcook the sauerbraten and burn the pretzels.

And when it's time to go, you'll have to fight for the attention of the bartender once again. This took another 10 minutes.

If you're looking for a place to drink beer out of a boot, hang with a large group, or fill up on some greasy bar food, then go to the Heidelberg and have a good time.

But do not order any German food here, and if you do, please do not just German cuisine by what you are served...

We had family in from out of town and wanted to take them out for German food. Haven’t been in to the Heidelberg in a few years. The last time we went there, they had a full Herman menu and we had some good food. This time it was a major disaster. We walk in and are each presented with an iPad that we are told lists the food and drinks. The food menu only listed 3 German dishes and no sides. The sign out from said it was happy hour until 10, so we asked what the specials were- the waitress told us it does not matter because it ended at 6. We told her about the sign and she said oh I’m training - I’ll find out when the other staff person gets back. She did find out- we ordered some drinks and picked our meals out on the iPad. She then brought live another tablet and told us to use that one to place the orders. The menu on that tablet WAS NOT THE SAME as the one on the iPads and did not contain the tofu options listed on the iPad version. The out of town guests ordered the rouleden and the locals meat eaters ordered the schnitzel. I tried to order the tofu sandwich but they no longer have tofu. We also ordered two appetizers. The online ordering system sucks and there is no way to make any order modifications. You also have to pay before your order placed. We waited about 20 min after placing our order when the waitress came out and said they are out of rouleden. So folks changed their orders to schnitzel as well. I asked if we could get the appetizers before the meal- she said we just bring things out when they are done but she would check. She then brought out deep fried hard pretzel bites and bacon. The group got the schnitzel a bit later and it was not edible - extremely over cooked and hard. Our out of town guests left disgusted with the food. Extremely disappointed in the service, the lack of German menu, the inconsistent menus on different tablets, and the food quality. Also bathroom smelled...

Pretty disappointing experience. I don’t go out much these days, but after that experience, I won’t be going back and won’t be recommending the Heidelberg. The food was okay, for the price it was nothing special. The service was somewhat slow, which was odd considering how empty it was in there, but there were a few key things really ruined the experience for me:

1. if you go, ask for beer prices beforehand, because the draft list doesn’t have any prices listed and I was shocked to find out I had just spent $9 on an okay pint, nothing worth $9 in my mind, and I only found out when we received the bill.

2. for a German food place, they have only two mustards, Heinz and housemade honey mustard, which is a mediocre selection when it comes to German sausage. I also requested a side of pickles to go with the sausage, I was told it’s not a typical request and that they’d have to charge me like $1, and again I was shocked to see that the tiny cup of sliced pickles actually cost us $3 when we received the bill. That was dishonest and an absurd price for some pickles. German sausage with pickles and mustard is a classic, ruined by this reckless charge and mistaken information from the server.

3. I overheard employees talking ill about customers that had just left pretty loudly, loud enough for me to hear halfway across the restaurant. I will not offer patronage to an establishment where workers talk about customers in front of other customers. I get service workers like to talk, but that’s just super unprofessional.

Overall I was fine with the food and beer until I got the bill, which totally ruined the experience because of the shocking hidden prices. Now I know next time I see an improved draft list to ask beforehand. Same about the pickles....