Lakeside Charlies — Restaurant in Cadillac

I have to say Lakeside Charlie’s is in my top 2 favorite places to eat!! The food is always amazing and never disappoints. Owners are great, very friendly and treat you as old friends every visit! :) the waitstaff is always on top of their game and have great timing when checking in. I have never had to leave there with a single complaint.. until last night. We took our 3 children out for NYE Dinner, about 530pm. I have to say they were pretty steady with tables of all different head counts. However, our waitress was hardly attentive to our table. We sat with empty drinks for 45 minutes. I had to get up and ask just any random employee (twice during our dinner). I understand as a server you can get swamped and behind, but if you cant stay on top of your game ask another staff member to swing by that table, askmanagement, anyone- there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. We ordered our food at the same time as the 13 top beside us and were not served our food until they were putting their coats on to leave. After we were served our food she never bothered to check in to see how the food was or if we needed drinks nor condiments.. following this, i had to track down our server again and had to ask a different server (again) to bring us boxes and our bill. Once OUR waitress came with our bill i was standing up holding my 11 month old picking food off of my plate, (as he was getting restless) she had to have seen me eating off from it, AND SHE PULLED MY PLATE OFF FROM THE TABLE WITH THE EMPTY DISHES SHE WAS TAKING. WITH MY FOOD ON IT!! There goes my 20$ ribs that i barely even touched as i had nothing to drink AGAIN, and I hadn’t had a chance to box up what i had not eaten...Our table had NOT yet been cleared from our appitizers. This is simply unexceptional. We will certainly be back to lakeside Charlie’s as this was a fluke with a staff member and not representation of the restaurant nor the owners, but this did burn us as we spend a lot of money here wether we order take out or dine in at Charlie’s- and our entire family does their Mother’s Day brunch there every! single! year! (AMAZING, should try if you have not yet!!) One more thing, due to her lack of effort we were so stressed out we decided against ordering more bruschetta, chili and chowder to go as planned. She really did lose them a small amount of business due to her carelessness.

We DO recommend Lakeside Charlies to everyone, we were just terribly bothered by this and felt the need to say something as we did not complain to the owners. Assuming next time will *top notch per usual.

MY RECOMMENDATIONS TRY THEIR MOREL CHICKEN OFF FROM THE BAR MENU!! TRY THEIR RIBS!! TRY THEIR FIRE HOUSE CHILLI!! THEY HAVE THE BEST STRAWBERRY...

We stopped here on our way to Traverse City because we saw all of the good reviews. We had a very different and disappointing experience. We waited for at least 20 minutes at the door just to be seated when there were plenty of tables open. We were told it was because the kitchen was backed up.

Once we were seated, our waitress, Ella, came over and asked what we wanted to drink. We asked for a drink menu, and she just said they didn’t have one. Didn’t mention anything they do have or any drink features, so we just opted for waters. Then she came back, quickly threw the waters down and said she’d be back to take our order. We were ready to order at this point. We waited at least 15 minutes for her to come back, and while we waited, we saw several other tables getting rolls.

Ella finally returned to the table to take our order. Two of us ordered burgers and she asked how we would like them done. We both requested medium. I also requested the olive spread. She walked away to put in the order. Another 15 minutes go by, and still no rolls and now all of our drinks are empty. She walks by, and I stopped her to ask for rolls…she just said “sure”. No acknowledgment that she should’ve brought them without us requesting them. We also had to ask for refills after she brought the rolls because she didn’t offer to refill them.

Then our food comes. The burgers were very well done (likely frozen pattys), and my burger was missing the olive spread. I asked her for it, and again, no apology or acknowledgment of error. Just “sure, of course”. Also, the fries were a $3 up charge, which is absurd for frozen fries.

An hour and a half later we were leaving. Idk where these 4/5 star reviews came from, but I wish we had the same experience. We had a horrible experience. I hope someone takes the time to train Ella better in how to be a waitress. I’ve done the job, and checking in and owning mistakes goes such a long ways for good service.

We will...

I have been patronizing Lakeside Charlie's in Cadillac MI. for years. Last night, I made a phone order for take out with a less than 50% favorable outcome. I ordered two seafood alfredo dinners. 1 shrimp pasta with oil and garlic. The other 1 seafood pasta with oil and garlic with a side salad, clam chowder and dinner rolls and mentioned NO ALFREDO SAUCE on the dinners. I have ordered these dinners for years this way. I open dinners at home at realize 1 dinner which had alfredo sauce and dried out dinner rolls. I call the restaurant, speak to a woman explain my concern. She says I can refund the dinner or make a new one, let me get manager. I speak to manager, I explain there was an error with the order/ticket phone order. His response, "I was not a fly on the wall during order" I stated, I am allergic cream sauce and would not order it that way and never have! I said, your in a position to fix the problem, could you put on board a new seafood pasta with oil and garlic next time I come to your restaurant? His response, you want a free dinner? The dinners come with alfredo. I said really? He said have a good night.

My take away from this experience; Did the young employee make an error on the food take out order? YES Would I purposely order dinner wrong to get sick afterwards? NO Why would I call restaurant after arriving home to explain a concern with order ( first time ever) ??? In speaking with both individuals the person who I assume, took order (who tried to make a credit with me with manager approval) and the manager himself.

The manager could of fixed the problem easily to make it a positive outcome and DECIDED NOT TO, even when the customer asked to just simply re-make the dinner for another day (due to distance from restaurant). I am Disappointed with frivolous excuse from the manager at Lakeside Charlies of Cadillac Mi, for not performing in the proper or professional manner in my...