Lake City Taphouse — Restaurant in Caldwell Township

This week's restaurant review. Tonight we visited the, LC Tap House, Not the the other tap house in Chicago. This is a locally owned establishment located here in Lake City Michigan. This is a place Crystal Miller had once again said, I need to get you there. Friday is laundry day, library day, shopping day and DATE DAY🤣🤣 talk about killing two birds with one stone and helping her with all those things, well let's just say I call it a win win for the both of us! Anyways, we finally made it to this great pub and grill. The decor was more UpTo date on the inside than the outside but actually that was part of the initial draw for me and once we walked in it felt like going out on a date after the mundane. The atmosphere had a upscale wearhouse dining experience feel with the local cowboys and contractors sitting at the bar talking about their week. PRO TIP: The menu has a nice variety but not an overwhelming selection WHICH tells me it's probably going to be fresh (fresher) hopefully and wherever cowboys contractors eat is a good place to start. We started with, Calamari. Absolutely delicious! Not over cooked, light crispy batter and well seasoned with a fresh squeeze of lemon and freshly made cocktail sauce was a great way to get things going. Ok, good start let's try one of the salads Crystal has told me were so good and something she hadn't tried here yet but is one of her favorites, The Patty Melt, cooked medium. I chose the Cobb. Both simple, basic, universal enough. Well, though nothing over the top, both were top notch worthy. The burger is locally raised and sourced, I can't speak for the rest of the ingredients other than they were fresh, crispy, plentiful and the way they were prepared and presented made me feel not only like I received what was I was anticipating what I was paying for but the, Chef's cared about preparing it for me even though we never met. I'm looking forward to revisiting this place and seeing what else they have in store and Crystal, well you're 5 for 5 on choosing great places for laundry library date day. Bon appetit and happy...

I’ll start with the positive. Great menu, live music. The garlic fries and the sweet potato fries are awesome. They do offer a gluten free bun which is wonderful. If you have Celiac, I wouldn’t trust that their isn’t cross contamination though. Reason for 2 stars? We went on a Saturday night at 7pm and the place was hoping. Not unusual for a weekend in Lake City. When we walked in, we were not greeted and had to wait, then find a seat on our own when someone leaves. They only had 2 servers that I could see. We got waters quickly but the rest was disaster. Ordered fries first, they were good. Asked for silverware, none clean yet. Got napkins. Ordered drinks- first one came. Second one took forever until we asked the other server and she brought it. Third one was ordered at the bar- after waiting a few minutes snd being ignored, we waited. Second time at the bar, finally got it. Ordered our food. Took forever, only to find out they forgot half our tables orders so they had to make the rest quick. Finally came and the fish was raw. Yes actually raw. The chicken on the salad wasn’t good. The sandwiches were good but one requested chips and got fries instead. Finally got refills on water. Asked for a 3rd time for silverware. None clean yet? Yeah- only forks were clean, hope you don’t need a spoon or knife. Finally one of us could eat while the others were done. Nothing was adjusted on our bill. People kept coming in only to be disappointed. One table actually cleared their dishes away and helped the server themselves. Second time there, first time was for lunch and was fine. Won’t be going back there on a weekend again. Lake City...

Not a good visit this time. The Caesar salad was all chopped into small pieces like a chopped salad. I gave up half way through trying to get it on my fork. I ordered the chicken strips with garlic Parmesan dipping sauce. The sauce was dumped over the tenders and made them soggy. The sauce was not good it didn't taste like garlic or Parmesan, just super salty and oily. If it came as a dip I could have ignored it and used hot sauce. My wife's burger was way over done and her fries were cold. They brought her fresh fries after she finished her burger. But service was good as usual and the soup of the day was good and came out hot.

Second visit as good as the first. Great food, great prices and friendly service. The also have Lexington brewery's bourbon barrel ale, best barrel aged beer I've ever had. The devil's cut bourbon really comes through unlike all the bourbon stouts and porters.

Stopped here on our way back to TC from a wedding in Houghton Lake. What a pleasant surprise. They have a great food menu and a vast array of national and local beer. Service was great and our food came quickly. Our food was fantastic! The garlic waffle fries were a stand out.

The burger/chicken were great. Even the cole slaw and dill pickles were fresh and tasty. The atmosphere is warm and inviting, portions are large, and prices were good. We will be making more trips here...