Tavern on the Hill — Restaurant in Duluth

Our softball team made reservations here for dinner on Friday 7/12/24 Very large party, 13 girls, some siblings and at least 1 parents per kid. Our party was well over 30 people.that being said we expected a few hiccups as we always do...however this restaurant is by far the worst experience I've ever had with a big group of people. The two young men that were servers seemed to be incredibly new or they were just really terrible servers. Our reservation was for 6pm with some arriving right at 6 and some staggering in around 615, 620ish by the time the last people were coming in the 1st people had ordered their drinks 20 minutes prior and still didn't have their drinks that should've been the 1st sign to leave. They were not capable of handling this size of a group sadly. Food came out very slow in no kind of order, 3 of us sitting together decided to order the same thing (Tavern Cioppino) $19 to hopefully help things move along quicker, 2 of us got our bowls of what was described as Bay scallops, blue mussels, shrimp, salmon, clams and flash fried baby reds slow cooked with fennel, onions carrots celery and a dollop of smoky-spicy chipotle aioli. This was a stew...it was not described that way and quite frankly was probably worth about $5 in my opinion it did come with some tasty bread. My husband's never came out until an hour later... AN HOUR! Also he did not get bread like me and the other person who ordered. Lots of kids food came out super late the kids were getting antsy my hubby's food still was not there so I left to get some of the kids back to the hotel to swim. Finally when our check arrived we had other people's items on our check and since my hubby's food was last to come out they promised to comp his meal after reviewing the check he brought it up to the server and they brought him a new check only to find that they didn't take anything off. He was so upset at this point and it was 9pm, their credit card machine went down during all of this and he just wanted to get it out there. Fast forward I get my credit card statement in the mail and found the charges were $147 For 2 adults and 1 child that had an appetizer at that. This is NOT the place to bring a big party and food was not great. Please when someone calls for a big party in the future just tell them you can not handle this kind of volume. We went to the Streetcar kitchen and pub the next day with more people and no reservation, food was phenomenal and we were in and out in less then 2 hours with 1 phenomenal server. No errors on our checks and total bill there was $150...

I made a reservation over the phone at least a month ahead of time to use their private indoor room in mid-July for a dinner party of 15 guests. The woman I spoke to said we could use the private room free of charge as we had less than fifty guests and since it would be on a Thursday evening during the week which she didn’t think would be very busy anyways. I recall her even putting me on hold to verify all of this with her manager. And I received a text confirming my reservation. On the evening of our reservation, some of our guests arrived before us and told the staff what name our reservation was under. They were ushered to outdoor seating at a regular table. When we arrived we were very confused why our family was not seated in the private room we had reserved. Allegedly they did not have staff monitoring the private room that evening so they were not willing to seat our party of guests in there. My elderly mother who has extremely limited mobility and uses a walker had to navigate through tons of tables and other people on the patio to the outdoor area as far away from the front entrance as possible where they had seated the rest of our guests. It was also too warm outside for my elderly guests which is another reason I had reserved the private indoor room for a cooler environment. The entire experience was very frustrating and disappointing. It was difficult to hear guests at the other end of our tables due to noise of other patrons. The service was okay and the food was edible but nothing spectacular. I don’t feel like returning or recommending anymore. It is not good practice to tell someone with 15 guests that they can use the private room a month or more ahead of time and then basically say “just kidding” once they arrive (from as far away as Oregon, Iowa,...

I took another trip to Duluth to visit my daughter Next-door at Bluestone and gave this place a go. Here’s my 2 scents - I love the modern look and the outlets in our booth for usb charge, that’s awesome! Our server Sam was on point and we never had a empty glass on the table. We never did get checked on by management like we did at their sister locations. Bathroom was very clean and staff was very friendly.

Now the food......

We had started our evening with an App. Sweet Thia Chili wings and that sauce was perfect sweet/spicy and copious amounts of sauce on them. My wife had a pizza called the Blue Stone and she thought it was “very good” she followed that up with a lavender lemonade that was also “fabulous”. I went with a (make your own pizza) I did Alfredo sauce, chicken, feta, blue cheese and a BBQ sauce drizzle. This people was an intense punch you in you mouth of amazing flavors and messed with your taste buds in a great way. I would highly advise giving the pizza a shot. Their pizza is a cross breed between Napoli / thin crust / traditional. It was good though. Also, just a FYI , they have the gluten free option crust if desired.

My only hang up....... I come from the Midwest where beer cheese soup reigns supreme and this beer cheese soup was anything but. I would consider that a cheese dip with waaaaaay too much corn starch and maaaaaaybe ok for dipping bread into. It confused me and our table. It wasn’t a soup or a dipping sauce. If they could perfect a decent beer cheese soup, this place would have no flaws!

All in all, I would advise this place again and again, but I will be back to give another go on a different soup...