Union Woodshop — Restaurant in Clarkston

Place is easy to find on the downtown strip with the other Union Joints being not too far from it. I like the decor, but the floor were gross. They make the restaurant seem dirty. They used plywood that I thought they had done a burnt effect to. NOPE that is dirt build up you are looking at. This could have worked but they should have put some clear coats on top of it to make it easier to clean. Starter - Woodsticks were good alone. Could have used a lot more garlic butter for it was barely noticeable. The Pazzo dip was soft cream cheese (that was good alone) with a huge clump of what appeared to be spinach. Pazzo dip is not hard to make at home. Softened cream cheese and a packet of dry Italian dressing is all you need to make a bomb Pazzo dip. Theirs was very bland. I like where they were going with it and if they don't it right it would have been great. Meal Pulled pork alone was good. Was not dry. Tasted like they may brine their butts or shoulders. Which, I am not mad if they do. For sauce on it, I recommend mixing two sauces from opposite ends of their heat scale, Memphis, TN and Hell,MI. I love heat, but I am married to someone that thinks pepper is too spicy. With this sauce blend, he loved it and was not getting a case of the heat sweats and spicy coughing fit. The TN sauce neutralizes the heat in the MI sauce, but you get all the favor the two can offer. Spare ribs were not fall off the bone quality. Meat near the bone was slightly dry. The smoke ring meat was on the cusp of being dry, but luckily wasn't. The other park had a decent bark. Seemed like it was misted with ACV and gave the meat a nice standalone flavor. I used the Koreantown,LA sauce on these. I love that they had this option, but it is not a true BBQ sauce to me. This is more of a stir fry base for me. Ginger, garlic, tad of soy and sesame seed oil is what I was detecting. I was looking more for a Korean BBQ so getting this put me a tad off kilt. You could achieve that by mixing with the TN sauce. That combo was quite delicious. Texas Hot Link didn't have as much heat as I was hoping for. My husband had a bite and didn't say anything about there even being heat. He did say that he had one on his Porker sandwich and it by itself had a totally different profile. This comes with "jazzy" pickle chips, which, I love pickles. The pickle brine is nice. I found flakes of red crushed Chili peppers and I swear I detected taste of some mustard seed. Crunch level was perfect. Could definitely eat more than the 5 you get in a small sauce cup. The corn muffin was pretty decent. They used whole corn and honey. You still need butter to add moisture to it. Mine had some pulled pork drippings on it which was sublime. You, also, get their old school slaw. First bite, I didn't care for it. However, I added the Bama sauce to it and it was the best I ever had. My husband's friend was reluctant on trying it because he hates slaw. It won't him over and he finished the whole thing along with me. I love that they use the red cabbage it really makes your plate colorful and the chopped green onions really won me over. I don't care for onions all that much, but onion is a key player in many good dishes. The Bama sauce gave this below mediocre slaw a smidgen of sweetness that was being cut by the horseradish and complimented by the pepper. It was not spicy nor sweet. It was just perfect. I couldn't help myself when I saw greens and sweet potato mash on the menu, but I wish I did. We wasted a whole 11-12 bucks on them. The Collard greens, Baby, they were salty as hell. I tried to take the Holly Hill,SC sauce, but NOPE. It made matters worse. The sweet potato mash was supposed to have charred jalapenos in it. Which it did and that is all you got out of that side. I really wanted the normal sweetness of the sweet potatoes. It was lost. I think they could do a better job with this. Less jalapenos add some of the "MI maple syrup" to hone in on that sweetness that is already existing. Kids Mac n cheese was terrible. Neither ate it. Pepperoni...

We lived in Grand Blanc for 13 years (2009-2022) and we loved this restaurant and would come to it at least once a month. During/after Covid, they did away with shop tots (very disappointed but didn't stop our patronage). In 2022, we moved about 55 minutes away so unfortunately, we've only been able to make it there twice in the last 3 years. My daughter is a Senior in high school this year and we were going out to eat for her "last supper" before school started for her the next day (Aug 18th). I didn't tell anyone (wife, son, daughter) where we were going, it was a surprise and no one could guess because they never thought I'd drive us over there on this particular night.

As soon as we got outside of downtown, my daughter realized where we were going and was extremely excited and was so pumped to get the mac n cheese, which she considers to be the best she's ever had. We were shocked there was no wait and we got right in and got seated and even got a parking spot right in front. From there, everything quite honestly was a huge disappointment...

1. I ordered a beer, waitress came back to say they were out of it.
2. My daughter ordered mac and cheese and the waitress came back and told us they were out of mac n cheese????
3. I ordered butterscotch pudding and the waitress came back and told us they were out of it????

The 2 biggest things the Union Woodshop is known for beyond the smoked meats and sauces is their mac and cheese and butterscotch pudding and given how excited we were to have both of these items, you can imagine how disappointing it was to learn that these items were not available at that time. BTW, my wife and I were both going to order mac and cheese for our sides. Our waitress was great and I felt so bad for her because she had to deal with our disappointment and the operations failure to set her up for success! We were told that it is not uncommon for UW to run out of these items by Sunday afternoon/evening, how is that possible? I am sure the busiest days are Friday/Saturday/Sunday and I understand the mentioned items are very popular but the management has to do better at ensuring they don't let their customers down by not having these items available. Suggestion: inform your hostess of the items you are out of so she can inform people before seating them or have a board that is posted that says what items you are out of up front so people can make the decision if they want to stay and dine with you or not. At minimum, your wait staff should be informed so when they come to take drink orders they can say right up front what you are out of so again, the customer can make the choice. I understand the restaurant business is a tough business but you've got to consistently have your top offerings available at all times (especially the busiest times) to serve the customer and if you don't, we should be informed up front.

This whole experience was such a grand disappointment for my entire family that I'm not sure if we'll ever return. My 20 year old son (someone that grew up coming to your establishment) said he'll never be back again on his own.

Not acceptable, need to...

We went there today and I was looking forward to a nice ribeye steak like I've had before. To my disappointment, there is no longer a steak (or any chops for that matter) on the menu. Burgers, pizza and BBQ is what you have to choose from. I ordered my bourbon old fashioned and carefull read the menu. My drink arrived and was served with a paper straw. SERIOUSLY? You think I want anything paper in my bourbon. I'm all about saving the planet but I'm not sure one less plastic cocktail straw is going to do it. That's ok, I only use the straws to stab the fancy cocktail cherry at the bottom. Oh wait...there was no cherry or orange peal to poke at in my $13 drink. I'm still trying to get used to $13 Cocktails so if your going to serve them, don't leave the fun stuff out. Anyway, back to dinner. Ok, I'll do BBQ. All the usuals to chose from...brisket, pulled pork, chicken and sausage. I like them all so where's the combo platter? There is none, you get the choice of ONE and only one. I decided that I still wanted two so I basically had to order two dinners, Brisket and pulled chicken. It was VERY loud in there so our waiter must have heard Brisket and pulled pork, which is what i received. Everything is ala carte. In a world of BBQ and smoke shops, who doesn't serve a BBQ meal with a choice of sides? BTW, you can get a loaded potato pizza but not a loaded potato as a side. It does come with a thick slice of plain dry white bread (It would good as Texas toast but it is just very plain, very dry bread), a small cup of coleslaw and some spicy pickle chips. My girlfriend ordered the BLT pizza, her son got the Union Mac and Cheese (always a solid choice) and her mother got the margherita pizza. The BLT pizza came with a green and very spicy aoli sauce. My girl does not do spicy but OUR BAD for not reading the fine print on that. With everyone else serving the BLT pizzas with a mayo sauce, I'm OK with this place stepping outside the box to go spicy. Try however, putting that (spicy) in the name so it doesn't catch everyone else looking for a standard BLT off guard. Our waiter Sam was very accommodating and had the pizza remade with what we thought would be the normal white mayo sauce but instead, it had no sauce at all. I ordered a second drink, the honey ginger sour. It sounded pretty bougie with a nice bourbon, honey, ginger and egg whites. Instead I was served Jim beam with sour mix and ginger ale (also with a paper straw which are absolutely disgusting) Apparently the bougie drinks are only available "Up stairs". Who knew? The good...the Mac and cheese and margherita pizza satisfied the 16 year old kid and his 84 year old grandmother. Sam our waiter was very patient and accommodating. Overall a very disappointing experience at a place that used to be...