Townhouse — Restaurant in Detroit

Okay this is gonna be a bit long review and it will be a $100 worth review as per the bill. It was my 11 years wedding anniversary me and my husband have booked this place a week ahead after lot of research that we did to have a good experience for the dinner date on the anniversary. I have read every review that was on this website good and bad. Most of them said the way the service and they receive was amazing and i was excited because me and my husband is all about the customer service than the food id come back even if the food is okay but just for the good service. We decked up so good for our dinner night and as soon as we have entered we were impressed with the ambience, the decor, the atmosphere. But somehow it dint settle us, the place in the corner booth felt like we were thrown and i understand its a weekday (wednesday) so not much crowd so i get it. Here comes the person who serves us i dont remember her clyde or clara i dont want to blame her but she has no patience to give us a good 1 minute to expain or whats on the table. I felt i had to read 5 subjects for my exam as there were that many menu and being a vegetarian we are very picky but yet wed love to have salads and anything thats vegetarian no complaints. But her service she has hardly have a smile as if she is in a hurry not interested to make us feel comfortable. We have been to 100’s of restaurants and trust me much more expensive than townhouse thinks it is. Ive had expensive Michelin star foods all over detroit, other states for the prices they have the service and food is exceptionally amazing. And the waitress put us off and we struggled to order or to know whats best she would just stand and stare wont like to help as its our first time. My husband was put off then but got confused and ordered drinks from zero cocktails assuming its a cocktail but after tasting the drink it was a mocktail, called the waitress to let her know so that we can order a cocktail she dint even react billed us for that instead of being nice to take it off or just do the modification. If its a great place as all are reviewing youd be nice to help customers to take it back or make it a cocktail if not help us with the menu saying “hey this would be a great choice if you like to try” or these are the best ones here - nope she is least interested but she would just stare at us up and down as if we never had a drink in life. Bro !!!!! I wish i could rate 0 for the horrible service im extremely shocked how did others even rated this 4.0 stars..?? Then comes the food as we dint have many vegetarian options we ordered vegetarian kibbeh - boy it was salty as hell every spoon i put in my mouth was just a spoon of salt and ordered a veggie roll where the chef was so disinterested to roll the sushi properly it was dried out and extremely cold and has no taste or flavour, dried out wasabi i mean what the hell ?? We called our waitress again told her kibbeh is extremely salty can we do anything about it ? She was not even sorry, she said oh okay i can tell chef to take it off- girl you aren’t doing any favour by saying that we are spending hundreds of dollars to get the experience and great service i can cook all of that food at home. She left she did not even help us with any menu properly .. do you even see other michelin level or a 5 diamond hotel services ??? We dint even want to order any kore food, we couldnt finish our sushi either it was frozen cold. Bill was $100 was it worth it ? We had 2 spoons of kibbeh and half sushi from one roll and the drink was okay no alcohol and the mocktail was sugar syrup which we dint finish and the waitress crude face not so interested to help face. Why should i come back to a place like this ?? That ruined our 11th anniversary dinner date we had planned so much until the desert but would i come back?? Never ever will. They need to educate themselves on the foods if they wanna keep it expensive and train their employees a better customer service skills. I wont be paying $100’s or above for that kinda service. Extremely...

I usually don’t leave reviews for restaurants or things in general on the internet, but my experience at Townhouse recently was just strange and honestly one of the most disappointing visits I’ve had at a restaurant.

I booked my party ONE MONTH in advance for 15 people (my birthday) and the first red flag was that when we showed up they told us they didn’t have a table big enough to sit us all together, or even really near each other, so we had to split the party up in 2 different sections where we couldn’t talk, we even had different servers. This felt very deceiving on managements part because you would think this would be mentioned when booking a whole month in advance, with multiple correspondences between me and the restaurant. It became apparent throughout the night there that the reason we didn’t get seated together was because the room with larger tables was rented out for 40 people, which I assume was booked AFTER my reservation, hence why no one told me and they just tried to sweep it under the rug and keep both reservations by only telling us when we literally showed up. This was an extreme let down as we had people driving from all over michigan to meet up for my birthday, people I haven’t seen in a long time, and won’t see before I move out of state.

The food was also very mediocre, I ordered chicken and it tasted like it was pre cooked and reheated. Which wouldn’t surprise me either as the kitchen was nonstop chaos (we were sat next to it lol, like I said the seating was definitely a random afterthought) the entire night as the party of 40 was also there as I mentioned. I only gave the food 2 stars because the presentation was cute but tasted bad. Which again is extremely disappointing for a birthday meal where guests are spending a bit more money to celebrate a night out. It was NOT worth the price.

And finally, the server we had was very sweet but honestly not good. When It came time to pay (like I said we had multiple correspondences between the restaurant, saying they had no spending minimum and could split the bill between guests) she set the bill in front of ME on my BIRTHDAY and said we had to pay on 1 bill, and she couldn’t split it. Then walked away. Didn’t come to elaborate anything. Which I understand if the restaurant is busy and you have things to attend to, but girl! Like I said I was shocked when the bill was set face up in front of me. It was so strange. We were even charged a $50 outside dessert fee for a cake I baked for myself which again, no one stated this was a rule, and was only an additional annoyance. I can understand the outside dessert fee, but at least be upfront about it.

The restaurant itself was also extremely extremely loud, as a 24 year old trust me I don’t mind loud club music, in fact I loved the house music they were playing, but it was SO LOUD we could barely talk to each other across the table or even NEXT to each other. And again, I’m disappointed at where we were seated as it was like randomly next to the kitchen and front door of the restaurant, whereas the party of 40 got a huge room with cool neon lights and a greenhouse club vibe to it.

Overall, I am very disappointed with this birthday experience I had at Townhouse. I expected more from a more upscale restaurant with higher prices, and I wanted to like it so badly. With that being said, maybe it was just a bad night for them, as it was so busy. But then don’t book such big parties and lie to customers about seating! I do think everyone there was trying their best but it was a crap show tbh....

We reserved Townhouse Detroit for our Christmas Eve dinner celebration. We were seated immediately upon arrival and our waiter was very attentive from the start. We ordered drinks and an app and they both arrived very quickly. The Brussel sprouts were a great recommendation! Next, we ordered the grain salad and were also pleasantly surprised. Both were recommended by our waiter. I even stopped by the hostess desk to compliment how much we loved our waiter, Kobi. The restaurant was not very busy yet because it was still early. The start of our Christmas Eve dinner was going very well. However, we soon realized that our entree was taking an excessively long time to arrive. Our waiter stopped by and apologized and said it would be arriving soon. At that point we were still trying to be patient bc we weren’t in a hurry. Finally our food arrived and as suspected it was served very cold. Our steak was cooked to perfection, but it was cold. The carrots and potatoes were also cold. The macaroni and cheese was surprisingly warm so we ate that while we waited for our waiter to check on us. When he arrived we explained our food was cold and he immediately took it back and said he would talk to a manager. At this point my husband had finished his glass of wine and I had almost finished my second. We did not get to drink our wine with our meal. We were promised our entree would come out as quickly as possible. After another twenty minutes my husband and I both agreed it was time to go. We had been there for two hours at this point. I asked to speak to a manager, Niko (spelling?), who then came to our table with our bill. He immediately rushed to say he was doing everything he could as it was Christmas Eve. The restaurant was not any more busy than any other time we have seen it. I calmly responded that I didn’t agree (as there was no apology only an excuse). He promptly stood up and walked away. There was no conversation, no I will make it better, no listening, absolutely nothing, just walking away. As a professional I was shocked he was incapable of hearing the bad news and discussing a solution, but instead, walked away. It was very strange for a meal that would have cost $200. When I looked at the bill I realized we were overcharged and so I went to speak to our waiter again. He once again apologized and acted much more mature than the supervisor. He also explained that was not the correct bill and handed me the updated one. The restaurant only ended up charging us about $16, but what a strange and disappointing experience we had to get to that number. We find the manager very immature and unprofessional, while appreciating the waiter for his patience and kindness. We will only be returning for happy hour around the bar in the future and will discourage our friends to make dinner reservations here in the future. This was not the Christmas Eve celebration we expected. We drove an hour for this...