The Cottage Pub — Restaurant in Crystal Lake

My fiance and I came here today for lunch on Sunday, July 8th, 2018. Our server was Eric. He was not only inattentive, but was absent for most of our meal. We ordered a half dozen oysters to start as an appetizer, followed by a half turkey sandwich with a salad, and I ordered the half ham sandwich with the cream of crab soup. She had an iced tea for a drink and I had a bottle of beer. She got her tea right away, but it took ten minutes to get my ONE beer. After finally being dropped off, it took another ten minutes to get our food order taken. (Despite the fact that we had our menus closed and ready to order). All of our food came out together 15 minutes later. (I timed it.). This is unacceptable because none of our food actually had to be cooked. The oysters were barely cold (despite being on bowl of Ice). When we placed our order, we ordered extra dressing for her salad. It came with one small plastic ramikin of dressing for her, and no fork for her salad. When I finally was able to flag our server down after several minutes, it took two requests and another 15 minutes to get her dressing because all our server did was walk in the back and tell someone to bring it to us. Unacceptable. When she finally got her dressing and a fork, she found THREE hairs in her salad (two blonde and one black hair. My fiance has reddish brown hair, and I had short brown hair and a reddish/gray beard. Then as she is trying to push through and eat because of her being hungry and pregnant, she finds the bottom of a lettuce head in her salad (the large inedible part). At this point she lost her appetite. When I told the food runner what we found in the food (because naturally, our server was NOWHERE to be found), he just said sorry and took everything away. In regards to my meal, the ham was dried out, and the soup was, at best, lukewarm. I had been looking forward all week to eating here after we had a pleasant experience last time. We will NEVER return here again, and make sure everyone we know never does either. We paid $31.65, and wasted over an hour for a meal that was disgusting and would never be served even in a cafeteria. With food like this, I honestly don't know how they stay...

I went here to order some food to go and drink a beer while I waited. Three hosts at the host stand, all just chatting with each other. They didn't greet me until after I walked all the way up to the stand and said hi. Instead of a "hey, how's your evening," or anything nice like that, one of the hosts just said, "you want a table?" I told them my intentions and said that a seat at the bar should be fine. They then did not seat me or bring menus, just turned back to each other and started chatting again. I went to the bar and sat for about five minutes until I got up to go get a menu from the host stand, they never brought one out. There was a patron at the bar who was obviously very drunk and loudly singing with no intervention from the staff. The bartender was running around all over the place, serving it looked like. Super busy compared to the hosts just standing. I didn't feel bad waiting almost ten minutes to be approached by her for a drink order because of how much she had to do. But it did not make sense to me, her being so busy while so many bodies were just standing around not helping out. Not too many places actually cook burgers to requested temp, so I was excited to see that on the menu. I ordered a burger medium rare. When I got home to eat, my burger was incredibly dark and dry, cooked beyond well done. When I left, there were again multiple people "working" (read: chatting) and the host stand. None of them said goodbye or have a nice night or...

Have patronized The Cottage many times; lunch/dinner. Food and service normally good to very good. Unfortunately when we visited Friday night, it was sub par at best (food and service). Yes it was busy, outside dining packed but seemed like there was no plan. Our server (NB) seemed to be all over rather than a specific area. Pleasant enough, but took awhile to get drinks. Waited for appetizer which would have been better if it wasn't served just before meal. Again, waited for drinks. Meal was ok, had fish fry- Cod, which was mostly heavy breading. Wife had perch, but never received butter/sour cream for baked potato. Perch was better than Cod though. Server apologized, saying kitchen was swamped, but no excuse. This was a Friday, happens every week. Saw plenty of waitstaff so that should not be an issue. Service could be better, and has been. 3/8/23,Thought I'd give it another go; after arriving in town from a trip, thought the wife and would have lunch. A little before 1pm, not busy. Were seated inside as requested. Then we sat there. A couple of gentlemen sitting in bar area were being attended, but we waited, and nothing. A couple women servers chatting at end of bar by kitchen, but apparently not interested in working. After 15 minutes, we left. This is not the positive way to keep a business. Maybe owner should pay attention and quit trying to have multiple businesses. Because word does...