Tusk & Trotter American Brasserie Bentonville — Restaurant in Bentonville

I'm not exactly sure what's happening with this place, but they need some help. We arrived at 7:43 for our 8pm reservation. We acknowledged that we were early, and the hostess said we would have to wait, even though several tables were clearly empty. The hostess area is right in front of the door, and she just busied herself with other things for a few seconds before we asked her if there was somewhere else we could wait that wasn't in front of the door. She pointed us to the bar and said, "Maybe you can come back to get your table around 8."

I must say that the bartender was very friendly, and the drink selection is very nice. We came back to the hostess table at 8 to find our table not ready still, even though the same tables that were empty when we arrived were still empty, including the one we were eventually sat at.

When we got to our table, we ordered new drinks, appetizers and our entrees altogether. Our new drinks were dropped off without taking our old glasses, then the appetizer was dropped off by (I assume) a runner, who set it on the corner of the table near my husband's elbow and just walked off without saying anything. Good thing I noticed and he didn't knock it over! After he moved the appetizer to the middle of the table, we realized we had no silverware or napkins, and had to find our server to get some. This was not an isolated issue, as I watched every other table have to do so as well upon getting their appetizers. Whose job is it to put silverware and napkins on the table? They were definitely not doing it on a Friday night!

The best part of the night came when, after 30 minutes of sitting with dirty glasses, dirty appetizer plates, and almost empty drinks, we watched our server stop on her way back to the pass, widen her eyes at us, and take off running. This is the last time we saw our server, although she never actually came back to our table after dropping off silverware at 8:15pm, and at this point it was 8:50. Instead, another woman who I assume was the manager came over 5 minutes later and apologized that there was a "mistake" putting in our order, which I assume meant it was never put in. Which was strange, because we ordered everything at once. I thought it was odd our server never came back and left someone else to apologize for her like a child, really weird behavior. Unfortunately we had tickets for something at 9:30, so couldn't really wait an additional who knows how long for our food, so we just asked for our check.

The woman who apologized for our server comped our appetizer and apologized, but something really has to change here. I can't imagine many people are leaving happy if this is the standard service. The only food we got to taste were the "fritters" which really need to be just called rice balls, as they were devoid of three of the ingredients (sausage, ground beef and sun dried tomatoes). Sadly these subpar rice balls, the terrible service, and the awful hostess are all we can judge this place on.

I will say it was a good attempt at resolution, but that doesn't change the fact that we left starving after sitting there for 55 minutes. Not at all impressed with this place. Please invest on proper staff training as well as a hostess that can...

We came out to NWA a year ago to go house hunting and while out here had noticed Tusk and Trotter. We really wanted to visit but didn't have the time. We've now been living here for a year and hadn't made it. Our 9th Anniversary was on Friday so to Celebrate we decided it was finally time to go. We made it on Saturday (12/19) and the place was very clean, very welcoming and the staff was lovely. We really enjoyed the atmosphere.

We tried the pigs ear nacho which was a totally new experience and they were surprisingly wonderful. My husband order the 1/2 rack of ribs and I ordered the Hogzilla both with the Parm Garlic Truffle Fries. I will say, they are the only place that has done Truffle Fries justice. They were very very good and evenly coated rather than have garlic slapped on top like so many other restaurants do. It was making out to be a really great night.

When we were ordering our appetizer, we made it very clear that my husband could not have chives or green onions at all due to a food allergy. We don't usually have to tell the waitresses that between every course so didn't bother reminding the waitress when we ordered his ribs, we also haven never seen anyone put chives on top of ribs either so didn't think to reiterate my husbands allergy. When his ribs came out, they came out with not only chives sprinkled on them but literally an entire handful dropped on top. I have never seen chives used so much for ANYTHING before in my life. We obviously had to have them take it back and appreciated that they refired the ribs rather than scrapping the chives off the top.

I tried to wait a few minutes to eat my burger because I didn't want to eat before my husband. After a bit, he told me to go ahead and eat. By that time, my bun had become so soggy half of it was nearly disintegrated and honestly gross. I got about 2 bites before my entire burger fell apart and I had to eat it with a fork. The waitress said the chef used every single ingredient in such a way to make the dish wonderful and the couple of bites that I got were amazing. After that though, it became "just okay"

When my husband finally got his ribs, to say he was disappointed was an understatement. He eats ribs at nearly every restaurant that he goes to and had very high expectations after the reviews we've seen and what we know about the restaurant. The ribs were not fall off the bone good like he's had at other restaurants including Applebees of all places, but they in general were difficult to get off the bone and the flavor of the bones wasn't good enough to make up for that fact.

To say that we were disappointed we spent our 9th Anniversary at a restaurant that ended up being "just okay" is an understatement. While we still think Tusk and Trotter has a reason for being so popular, we fully believe there are sooo many other restaurants in NWA to choose from and if we are going to spend that much money, we'd rather go somewhere we would enjoy. Which is disappointing because we really wanted to like Tusk and Trotter.

I would like to reiterate that the staff was lovely and literally the only reason we gave a 3 star review, without them the review would...

It's hard to say for sure because we were only there once, but our experience was a bit of a mixed bag.

The atmosphere is nice, and the appetizers we got were very tasty. I liked everything on the charcuterie tray! The pork belly was especially good!

My daughter got a kids steak medium rare, and since they were out of the short ribs, my wife and I shared the ribeye on our waitresses recommendation.

We ordered the ribeye rare and it was closer to medium rare (my wife, who isn't normally picky, asked if the steak was overcooked). Steak doneness varies between restaurants so we decided to keep it, as medium rare is still good usually. But then it also tasted like the steak was completely unseasoned.

The ribeye tasted like steak, but even a good steak needs a little salt at the very least, and this wasn't even a good steak. There wasn't salt or pepper available on the table for a diy fix. We were nonplussed, but not wanting to complain, and extremely hungry, we went ahead and ate it.

Meanwhile my daughter's steak came out, and it was more rare than ours. As my wife cut it up for her juices ran out. After she was about halfway through her steak my daughter declared herself full.

I tried a piece of her steak and it was delicious. Perfectly cooked and seasoned. I had my wife try it too and she agreed. Our $50 ribeye was a two star steak and our daughter's kids sirloin was a for star steak at least.

Maybe we just had a poor experience. But our daughter's kid steak being so good compared to our ribeye felt like adding insult to injury. They know how to cook a steak correctly, they just didn't bother to cook ours correctly.

I don't know that we will be back, but if we do maybe we'll order three kids...