The Tipper Room — Restaurant in Clark Township

I have been to The Tipper Room three times over the last couple of years. The first time was late June of 2023, and my husband and I got cocktails and an appetizer of Whitefish Dip before heading over to the Les Cheneaux Culinary School in Hessel for our annual anniversary dinner. The cocktails were great along with the Whitefish Dip, which we loved since we can’t get anything like it at home. It was the perfect start to our anniversary evening. Service was great, and you can’t beat the view of the lake from the deck. The next time we came was again for apps with some family, just this past Tuesday afternoon. We had wanted to get ice cream, but they were closed and knowing the experience we had before at Tipper Room had been great, we decided to go there for apps and drinks again. Once again, service was great along with the food and drinks (of course we had to have the Whitefish Dip again!) and we definitely sat on the deck. However, later that night, my husband and I decided to come back for our anniversary dinner, and we had a wildly different experience. Again, usually we’d go to the Les Cheneaux Culinary School to celebrate, but because The Tipper Room has such a great view, drinks and atmosphere, along with the fact that we’d never had entrees there and no prior poor experiences we opted for The Tipper Room to celebrate our anniversary. Sadly and much to our disappointment and frustration, we ended up walking out after about 20 mins of not being acknowledged. We came in, it said to seat yourself, and so we went to do so. As I went to a table, I was approached by a patron who said that the table we were about to sit at was theirs, and that the staff (only two younger girls) had told them to wait at the bar so they could clean it. We then walked to the bar since the only other tables were dirty, and planned to let one of the two ladies working know that we wanted to sit as well, but would have a drink at the bar while we waited for a table to be cleaned. First, we stood by the bar for about 7 mins. No acknowledgement despite both girls walking past us multiple times. Then we decided that maybe we should sit at the bar and see if that led to either of them acknowledging us. It did not. After about 10-15 more minutes of just sitting and both ladies walking past us multiple times, we got up and walked out. It was so disappointing. As far as how busy it was, most of the deck was full, except two 4 tops and one or maybe two 6 tops. Then besides us, there were two women sitting at the bar. I’m honestly not sure anyone acknowledged them either, and a gentleman at the cash register maybe waiting to pay ended up walking out after standing there for almost as long as we were. What bothered us most of all was just the lack of acknowledgment. Honestly, did they seem short staffed or like the two young ladies couldn’t handle it? Yes, but at least say, “Hello, welcome, we’ll be right with you as soon as we’re able.” The fact that they wouldn’t even make eye contact was really upsetting. Ironically, we ended up going to their main restaurant, the Les Cheneaux Distillery, and had a wonderful time enjoying delicious cocktails and dinner despite them ending up just as busy with only two women on staff. I’m truly hoping that this was just a one off experience at The Tipper Room and that hopefully with some feedback, the managers/owners will get staffing sorted and trained a bit better so that this doesn’t continue to happen. There didn’t appear to be a manager on site at all unless it was one of the girls, or I definitely would have asked to speak to someone. We only come up to this area once a year, and our trip is coming to an end. Hopefully next year it will be better, if we decide to go back. Note: this photo was taken during one of our better...

We have a family cottage nearby and are lucky enough to be able to take our boat to Tipper Room when we're in town. The patio is amazing and the food is unique to the area (not the typical bar food). I'm obsessed with the Poke bowl and get that almost every time. My husband, on the other hand, orders something different each time and has yet to get something he does not thoroughly enjoy. The drinks are fun and flavorful.

If you're in a hurry or impatient, try to avoid going during holiday weeks or the boat show. Service will be understandably slow but they do their best. We have our favorite server (Hannah) but all of the servers are friendly and knowledgeable about the menu.

On a beautiful, sunny evening, there is no better restaurant to sit on the patio...

All the food was amazing! The shredded beef tacos, the white fish dip, the strawberry poppy seed salad, ahi tuna bowl were all delicious! I went with 3 people and we shared everything which worked out perfectly since we all got to try it. The ahi tuna bowl was a little spicy for us, but that’s probably just personal preference. The rosemary pear mule mocktail was also great. The atmosphere was perfect, we sat along the water and it was nice, quiet, and relaxing. Nothing bad to say at all. It was a great night, we...