Plonk Bozeman — Restaurant in Bozeman

My wife and I ate here while visiting from Nashville. Plonk came highly recommended from the hotel where we were staying in Bozeman. The quality and flavor of the one dish we shared certainly held up to its image and pricing. The wagyu beef tartare was truly outstanding. The wine was also excellent, and it was clear the place had a fine appreciation for quality wine. However, the positives we experienced were far outweighed by extremely poor service. Our server was unfriendly and rude to the point that it felt cold. Very harsh, bitter demeanor. I don't recall ever feeling so shunned and unwanted in a restaurant. I realize we all have different personalities, and that's why it's hard to imagine hiring this particular person in a front-facing position. I felt myself, and my wife, consciously going out of our way to be extra friendly to her, as if it was now our job to win over our server, but it felt as though she only got worse. Our plan when we entered Plonk was to have an indulgent evening of appetizers, dinner, dessert, before-and-after-dinner drinks ... the works. After what we experienced with the server, we stopped at one drink each and the tartare appetizer, left Plonk, and went and ordered pizza, because nothing else was open in Bozeman. In fact, at one point we were prepared to order our entrees, but she turned and walked away before I could even get the next words from my mouth. All I got out was the appetizer, and she was like, "Sure" and was gone in an instant. It felt as though the general reception of the place, from the time we walked in, was to make you feel as though you were privileged to be cool enough to be dining at this establishment. I would love to give this place five stars based solely on the food and wine, but the truth is that the only thing that sticks out in our minds is how coldly we were treated. It stung so much that after just returning today from an exciting two-week trip covering five states out west, writing this review felt like a priority. Bozeman seemed like a nice town, and the next time we are in that part of the country, I would go out of my way to go through Bozeman just to stay at the RSVP Hotel, which we were quite impressed with, but I would not go back to Plonk. This restaurant clearly has potential to be great, but if customers are made to feel unwanted, it will not matter how excellent the cuisine. 6/15/21 UPDATE: It has been a week now since my original review, and restaurant management or ownership has not bothered to respond - and it’s clearly a monitored Google ID because I see they have responded to many other comments, both positive and negative - so I have changed my rating from 2 stars to 1. The place is actually ruder than I...

I went in to Plonk tonight for the late night menu and a glass of wine. I LOVE wine. I ordered the Archery Summit 2013 Pinot Noir. Chris was my server... Honestly the wine tasted like it had been opened a week ago... If I am paying $18 for a glass of wine I want it to be fresh. The server was annoyed I wanted food, happy when I ordered a salad and annoyed when I asked about organic. I took the hint and didn't make a fuss. I expressed a few different, in direct ways that I wasn't pleased with the wine and he ignored it. The salad was good and also the radicchio didn't taste like it was washed well at all-- that off taste that is easily fixed by rinsing the food. My tastes are keen and I wasn't pleased. I am traveling and I didn't want to make a big deal out of anything- didn't think he would have done anything about it anyway. Overall the salad ingredients and dressing were good, the cheese was suburb. The wine I didn't care for. The server I didn't care for and I feel he needs to care more about his guests. It's not a cheap place, my bill was $30 and I only tipped $4 cash ( less than half of what I normally would tip). I don't do this ever... being a server for 11+ years. It was a robotic experience and I wouldn't go back or recommend to a friend. I wish I stayed at my hotel and got 2 extra hours of sleep, oh well. I was also the only person alone and he didn't even try to make me feel comfortable, there were so many small comments he could have made with us being around the same age, my out of state license, saying I was traveling, also mentioning I am living in Williamette Valley (where the wine I ordered was from)... nothing, not even one word. It's not hard and I left a bit confused/ annoyed and disappointed. I was there for 35 minutes, would have been shorter if he didn't walk away after my coat was on, salad was boxed and wine was gone. I didn't see him with any other tables, he was...

Plonk used to be one of my favorite places in Bozeman. I’m only sharing this now because I no longer feel comfortable going back, which makes me very sad. To start off, I have already emailed management and got no reply- this happened months ago. I want this review to serve as a warning for anyone with a service dog coming to the plonk- don’t! Our waitress was lovely, very kind and attentive, but I did have to remind her that my service don’t shouldn’t be pet without asking, (she was great about this, and said she had no idea) I’m always happy to educate people about service dogs. It does frustrate me a little bit that restaurants don’t educate their staff though. Not on her, but the management. What happened next was that someone who came through the door nearly stepped on my dog, and she let out a single bark. Service dogs are not robots, and can make mistakes. Per the ADA rules, unless the dog is out of control, they legally cannot be asked to leave. My dog didn’t absolutely nothing before or after this. Out server came up 20 minutes later, said she felt terrible but her manager told her to ask us to sit outside “because of the dog”. I couldn’t believe management didn’t come talk to us themselves to see what the situation was, especially because some service dogs bark to alert (which my dog has done before. Not the case this time, but could have been) Our server was very apologetic, and I let her know it wasn’t her fault but I didn’t want to cause any issues so we took our check and left. I explained ALL of this in my email, but the manager couldn’t be bothered to reply. Seeing as this wasn’t amended, I don’t feel like I can take my service dog back, and I need her to function. I really wish organizations like this respected service dogs and...