Willow Creek Bistro — Restaurant in Aspen

It's the story of Jekyll and Hyde here. Let me preface this by saying this restaurant is part of the Ritz Carlton. That said, you expect a certain level of professionalism and quality. A group of us had brunch here before we left to do a 4 day backpacking trip in Maroon Bells. The brunch overall was delicious and service was excellent and friendly. I'd recommend the Lamb Hash, it's quite tasty and the potatoes are perfectly crispy. They were even super nice to our dog Mason and made him feel special. The manager gave us hand warmers and some other knick knacks, it was awfully kind of her.

We were so thrilled with breakfast that upon finishing our backpacking trip 4 days later, we came back, starving, hungry, and tired. Unfortunately this is where things took a turn for the worse.

We sat there for 20 minutes with no service. Even the manager and previous server at brunch came to say hello, but offerred no menus, no water, nothing. I then had to go ask someone for service. By the way, there was maybe 7 other tables at the time, so not busy and definitely not understaffed. When we finally got service, the burgers were supposed to be medium rare but came out well done. Not even close. Also for $19, the burger tasted like a frozen patty that I can get from the grocery store. We were starving so we just looked past it. However, couldn't eat our meals because no silverware was provided and we had to once again, track someone down. The waiter didn't come by to ask if our food was cooked properly until maybe the last bite anyways. And finally, the last part is probably the most unbelievable. We ordered several rounds of beers and they brought out the wrong beers for the wrong people consistently. They didn't even have orange slices for a Blue Moon initially, they had to go "get it from the basement". You're the Ritz Carlton and you don't know which beer is what off the tap and you don't have orange slices ready? Unbelievable, really. Honestly, that meal sucked. And it was expensive.

I can't stress how nice the staff was, but they were clueless and really soured our experience at the end of a hard 4 day trip in the wild. I hope this helps them improve their service...

Awful service mediocre food. Manager is an absolute jerk. Overheard the table next to us request hot pancakes because they came out cold and the manager just put them in the microwave. For $15 pancakes just re make them fresh. Manager also asked me if i need a blanket to breatfed my baby when he was already under a nursing poncho. Do you sir need a blanket to cover your face while you eat? Server never gave us refills to top of the wonderfully slow 1 and a half hour breakfast for only 4 people. We have a condo here at the elkhorn lodge ritz and wont be spending another penny at willow creek and we come here multiple times a year and have been...

Awesome restaurant at the base of the mountain. We stayed at the Ritz and having this place attached to it was amazing. Shoutout to Josh the manager, Collin was an amazing bartender and awesome dude to chat with, Senya was amazing and super helpful and fun to chat with, Luis was awesome and so helpful. The entire crew was amazing. The food was really good, too. I couldn't get enough of the fried chicken sandwich (ordered 3 times in 6 days), plus the steak sandwich was bomb, and the sweet potato fries were delicious. Everything was very good and the staff was super helpful, hardworking and very fun. Highly...