Mather Lodge Restaurant — Restaurant in Atkins

Waste your 2 hours it takes to get your food, after you complain, somewhere else. First, the sodas tasted like rust. We ordered a beer with salt, the waitress comes out with a beer in a mug that's overflowing all over the floor, while standing at the table. Half of the beer was on the floor. We order fairly quickly, and after an hour of waiting (and seeing other patrons that have walked in after us all get served and leave, we ask how much longer. The waitress doesn't come back until I ask for the manager. Lo, and behold, she is the manager. She says that she's busy, but I'd just seen her and other wait staff in the private dining area chatting it up. Our food comes out, most of it cold, we just want to get out of there because we've already been at the place for 2 hours now (between waiting for seating and food). We finally get another manager and she gives us money off. The waitress, I find, is in the front bad mouthing us because she sucks as a waitress. Never would I recommend this place.

We get back to our cabin to eat the food, most of the order wasn't right. The palisade steak sandwich was dry, over cooked, and the bread was hard. The slider burgers were premade patties and not at all fresh made.

Thanks Melissa. You should learn a thing or two from your coworker. He turned over 5 tops faster than you could and was way more nice. Learn some humility. Because that was terrible. The way you acted as if everything were perfect, made you look foolish. You had 3 servers at your table and we can take a mistake or two, but you totally screwed yourself out of...

WORST EXPERIENCE EVER! Me and my friends decided to have breakfast there. We waited for a long time to start ordering drinks (where the restaurant wasn't busy at all). Our dog was outside with my boyfriend so I decided to order food to-go that we can eat outside (while all of my friends stayed inside). I went outside to wait for another 20 mins and my friend texted me saying the food was ready. I went back, saw nothing on the table. My friend said the server took the food probably back in the kitchen. I asked the server to help bring the food over, waited for another 5-10 mins, he went back to the kitchen, and ONLY brought the check. I asked for the food again, he brought the food after about 5 mins and immediately walked away which didn't give me a chance to provide my card. I didn't want to wait anymore, so I left my credit card to my friends asked them to help me pay and I took the food outside. Not long after that, the server came out, asked me to pay in front of a bunch of people (and he sounded like why you didn't pay and left with the food). I told him I left my credit card with one of my friends (I had like 10 other friends sitting inside) and joking about why he thought I wouldn't pay. He said, it's just people come and go and not pay for their food. Like WTH? You could've asked my friends sitting inside first right? Even though you don't trust me, you can always ask them to find me or something. WORST experience ever! And the food wasn't worth it! It was already cold and the water...

This was my 4th trip to Petit Jean State Park and I noticed a distinct decrease in both the quality of food and the service at Mather Lodge Restaurant. The wait staff are not attentive and the wait for the food was incredibly excessive even when there were very few people in the restaurant. The first evening I ordered fried catfish with a baked potato. The catfish was good but the baked potato was inedible (hard and dried up). The menu said it came with hush puppies but it didn’t mention that they were jalapeño hush puppies. This was new, in the past this wasn’t the case. They were okay but not my preference. For breakfast one day I ordered an omelette which was okay but the hash browns were severely overcooked and inedible. The bacon was pretty much burned yet not really crispy which was odd. Another day I ordered the Swiss Mushroom burger. It wasn’t as good as in years’ past but average. At every single meal the server didn’t check to see if I needed anything and took forever to bring the check. At one of the meals I had to hunt someone down to pay my ticket because I didn’t go there to spend half my time waiting on my server. I hope they get some decent management and return to the good restaurant it used to be. The view remains incredible. You’ll get to see it for an extended period of time if...