Park Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Columbia Township

The building: Open layout, modern feel, high top tables on one side normal tables on the other. High ceilings. The AC was constantly blowing cool air onto us. It gets loud with everyone talking in the background.

The service: Whenever we asked a question starting with "How is the______?" She always answered "Good." Finally I asked "What isn't good. Eventually, we persuaded her that we weren't going to report her for her for offering her honest opinion, and she made an excellent recommendation; Chicken Genovese. She cleared dirty dishes and brought refills without being asked, and didn't take it personally when we found a hair cooked onto one of the park pops (chicken wing drum stick). The drinks and food took too long arrive, and most of the food was barely warm. The AC blowing on it didn't help.

The food: Onion Rings - not bad, but too few. You get about 10. Parm Frites - were hot and fresh just seemed to be missing something we couldn't quite put our fingers on.

Park Pops - a fan favorite. 4 small chicken drumsticks cooked to perfection, drizzled with Korean BBQ, and sprinkled with sesame seeds and green onions, served on a comically large plate. After finding a hair on one, the waitress offered to take them all back, but I only let her take the one. She brought out 2 more that were hotter and fresher than the first serving with extra sauce, but no sesame seeds or green onions. We preferred the fresher saucier ones to the former.

Korean Beef Nachos - My friend remarked that it was cold, and that they were okay. That means he won't order them again. They looked dry to me, but he ate them anyway.

Coconut Salmon - very good, but also seemed to be lacking something, a side of rice or veggies. My brother said he couldn't taste the coconut that it was encrusted with.

Patchwork Stack - the cheese, aioli, bacon, Korean BBQ sauce, caramelized onions, and thin pork loin slices all blended well to make it delicious. Next time I'll stack all the ingredients on one side of the sandwich or eat it open faced. The filling to bread ratio was a little heavy on the bread side. I'll also trim off the fat from the sides of the pork ahead of time. It will be worth it though, because the taste was amazing.

Chicken Genovese - My friend said it had the best basil pesto he'd ever tasted, and also noted that the chicken was moist and tender. He's a world traveller and very picky about his food.

Other thoughts: The prices were low, and matched the small portion sizes. The steaks are really good, or so I've been told, but more than I can afford at 19.75 - 27.95 each. The cocktails are served in small glasses with a lot of ice. The waitress swips your credit card and is standing right next to you when you enter her tip. The device defaults to 25%, so you may have to lower the amount while she's right there which is awkward. We will be be back, despite the wait for food and drink and the temperature of the food. The service was great, we liked the atmosphere, and some of the food was excellent. I will drop in some time just to try the...

We came for some bites and live music on Thursday night. It's a spot with a very modern aesthetic. We sat at a high top in what appeared to be the main dining section. There is also quite a bit of outdoor seating. It wasn't very busy at the time, but I appreciated that the sound design of the space meant made it easy to have a comfortable conversation even with the music and other folks having their conversations.

We got the pork belly ramen with extra crispy brussel sprouts and then white chocolate raspberry cheesecake for dessert. The pork belly was delicious, but the ramen was disappointing. The broth was light and simple, without the rich depth of traditional ramen. Also, they used udon noodles rather than ramen noodles. Honestly, if they'd made a fried rice, or a rice platter, it'd be perfect for the pork belly, but I wouldn't recommend the ramen. The brussel sprouts were super crispy, but bland. There was no seasoning whatsoever, not even salt. The perfect crispyness would have gone well with a dip, or a balsamic drizzle, or even just some parmesian cheese. Maybe these were just the worst things on the menu, but regardless, the food was disappointing. The cheesecake was yummy.

There was a charming jazzy trio, but we happened to come right as they were taking a break (around 8:30pm) and only caught the last half of their set. They played until 9:30.

We had a good experience, and our server was attentive and nice, but we probably...

We were given a $100 gift card as a thank you for my fiancée changing a guys blown trailer tires on Hwy 63, so decided to go out on a rare date night. We were seated right next to the kitchen which was noisy (lots of screaming at several points), even though the restaurant was wide open. The food and service were average and certainly not in line with the prices.

When we went to pay with our gift card (tip in cash), we were told the card was never activated. We even had the sleeve with the dollar amount written on it. The manager said she’d give us a free appetizer but we didn’t order one (our whole bill was $61…surely if we were trying to scam them we would have ordered $100 worth of food and drink). They ended up giving us our drinks (which were not very good) for free, leaving us with a $38 bill for a meal that should have been free…and we didn’t get the $40 that should have still been on the card.

Either their IT systems suck and can’t keep track of things, or the guy we helped paid in cash and the person pocketed it and gave him an empty gift card, or the person selling the card was incompetent and never loaded it. We were given another gift card to Orschelen’s by the gentleman we helped and it worked fine and was loaded.

TLDR; average food, drinks, service, and environment at an above average price. Poor customer service. Would not recommend and certainly beware in buying or using a gift card from there! We will...