The Half Nelson — Restaurant in Davenport

My friends and I dined at Half Nelson a few weeks ago, and I've been struggling over whether to post an honest review for a restaurant that I'm very thankful to have around. As someone who was in the industry for 18 years in Chicago, I understand the power of reviews and would not post something negative on a whim. I was very frustrated when my party of six, who came in to celebrate a birthday, were asked to leave after 90 minutes because another party was waiting for our table. We weren't just sitting there not spending money. We'd ordered drinks (lots of them) appetizers, entrees and desserts! We'd barely taken a bite of our dessert when the host came to us and said we needed to leave because another party "had been waiting a long time for our table." We had a reservation and it had only been 90 minutes! We were a 6-top so I was SHOCKED that another table was booked at ours at exactly 90 minutes past our time. Industry standards for a 6-top is two hours. I've never in my whole life been asked to leave a restaurant, especially just as I was about to pay a $600 bill. In case you were wondering, we politely obliged, leaving uneaten dessert and refreshed drinks on the table. The whole party felt awkward and uncomfortable after that. I would have been more comfortable if the host (or maybe it was a manager) had been polite about it but she was not. She acted like we did something wrong. Look, I get it, you need to fill tables. Maybe just moving forward be a little more polite or possibly let us know before we sat that we'd only have 90 minutes to enjoy ourselves. Another idea would have been to offer us another table or seats at the empty bar, but none of that was offered. I get it. It’s the QC and you are a big fish in a small pond, but there aren’t a lot of us and...

The ambience was nice and cozy. However on entering the airport we had to wait for 15 minutes at the door before walking in to find someone and ask for us to be seated when the restaurant was almost empty. We ordered a couple of cocktails and a pecan chicken and Korean BBQ cauliflower. It was a dry piece of chicken with a thick layer of breading on a bed of decently cooked cheddar grits, and a side of steamed brocollini. The steamed brocollini was my boyfriend's only favorite part of the dish, that was sad. My steamed cauliflower was bland, no salt or flavor whatsoever on a bed of totally lackluster white bean puree. It was a tasteless disaster in my opinion. The side of sweet corn was dry too. Having read the reviews about this place on internet and many articles quoting it the top restaurant in Davenport, I had high hopes for this place. I drove almost an hour and a half to try it out and was utterly disappointed. I have had bad food before, but this felt like they didn't even make an effort to try and make it a decently edible plate. With the extremely limited menu they have, I would expect high quality on those limited dishes. I personally wouldn't recommend this...

We ate at The Half Nelson last night. We truly enjoyed chatting with our waiter Sam. There are a lot of great looking appetizers, but we used self control and ordered entrees and desserts! I had the Barramundi, white fish, and hubby had the pecan crusted chicken. Both were great and filling! The lemon sauce with my fish was super flavorful. The chicken was crispy on the outside and nice and juicy on the inside. Desserts.....yes please! Even though we were full, we went there. The creme brule was good. The sugar topping was torched to perfection. Then the cake? Oh my..... it should be called a layered brownie! The chocolate was fudgy and moist. It had salted caramel and vanilla(?) buttercream frosting. Wow, that's rich...and addicting. Surprisingly, we brought half of it home! It was my highlight of the meal. This has been our first time back to Half Nelson since Covid. We made a worthwhile choice and are looking forward to going back and trying the appetizers and desserts as...