The Craftsman American Tavern — Restaurant in Eagle River

This is gonna be a hefty one, so stick with me. I love this place, the decor is super nice, fun games like shuffleboard, pool and ping pong. Good drinks, good bartenders and owners, and a nice atmosphere. Everything was great about this place until I came for dinner the first time. They just opened a few months ago, and recently started serving food, so I can understand some of the mishaps, but some were pretty bad, and that is why I am sharing, because sharing experiences and criticism will help a new restaurant/bar fix their mistakes. First off, the drinks at the bar were great, Lucy did a phenomenal as usual. We then were seated at a table outside, which was nice. We waited for our server, Jack, for about 30 minutes, he finally came up to our table, looked down at his tablet, and looked up and walked away. Never saw him again. 15 min later we asked someone and finally got a different server, Abigail. She was very nice, but the service was still very slow the whole time she served us. We got our food in a reasonable amount of time, but sadly my ribeye was horrible. I am a ribeye and a filet guy, have been always, and being a server in a steakhouse for 5 years, I know a bit about serving and steaks. Sadly my steak tasted like water, and was extremely chewy. Also burnt, and I had it ordered medium rare. The temperature on the inside was correct, a good medium rare, but the outside was burnt, and that was most of what i could taste. Usually that means they cooked it on too high of a temperature, or the grill wasn't clean and picked up all the previous char, either way it was the worst steak I have ever had, nothing else comes close. The mushrooms and onions were good, as were the red potatoes. I understand that these servers are new, and the whole system is as well, but the service being that slow has no excuse. Almost an hour to get a server to us, and then about 20 minutes to come back after we were done eating, and then another 15 minutes before she brought us our bills. Seems like the servers need more training and were not quite ready to open for the serving of food yet. They need a better system that increases the speed of the whole process, whether if they forget about their tables, or technical problems or just not good at the job or understaffed, I do not know, but it has to get figured out because it ruined our night. Now about the steak, I don't know if the chef just didn't season the ribeye or not, but it had no flavor, maybe they don't buy high quality beef, again, I do not know. For the steak being burnt on the outside and medium rare on the inside, you got to turn down the heat of the grill and let it cook at a good pace, rushing it makes it lose its juices and its flavor. When I told her these things, she took it well, saying she was happy for my criticism, but I still had to pay the full $27 for a ribeye that was atrocious. It just didn't sit well with me.

They have nailed the decor, drinks and the friendliness of the place, but they need to improve on the servers for sure, the service was the slowest I have ever seen, and the chefs need to be taught how to cook a steak. I will come back because everything outside the dinner experience is great, but for dining again, I will try one more time. One bad dinner can happen to anyone, but two bad dinner experiences means I won't eat their again. Hopefully next time we go there the problems will be fixed, because if this place gets the service and food nailed down, this will be the hottest spot in...

We thought we'd give it a try dining in, because a family member from out of town made a surprise visit. It was a super busy weekend, so we are giving some leniency due to that. (We had ordered take out during the covid-19 "shut down times" when most restaurants were only offering take out due to their dining room being closed. That meal was spectacular, which is why we decided to try it again. I reviewed back then as well!)

Our meal took a very long time to get to us, well over an hour after appetizers, which we had waited 45 minutes for the table. Originally it was an approximate 25-30 minute wait from the hostess. The apps we ordered took about a half hour, then the waitress took our food order, which took another hour or better to arrive. Others around had complaints also, and we did see one table walk out after a long wait.

When the food arrived, it was "ok". My wife had ordered a flatbread which the crust was way overcooked, yet it was not much more than warm. My burger was requested medium rare, and it was over medium, and my sister asked for a box to put part of her salad in so she could mix it together to eat it. The box came in time for putting leftovers in at the end of the meal.

Again, it WAS a very busy weekend, and I'm certainly giving more stars than I would normally because of this. And yes, we did voice concerns to our waitress, so they could pass things on as well. I'm certain we will go back at some point, but this was definitely a huge difference from our first experience during their...

It was okay, the service wasn't great, I think out waiter only came to the table one time other than to bring us menus, food, or the bill, and the bartenders all but ignored us the whole time we were sitting there, so much that it became a huge effort to order drinks or apps while we waited. The place was very busy, so I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't just horrible employees but its still not great to be treated that way. Food was okay, except one of our party (of 4) got chips instead of fries and we didn't see our waiter until all our food was gone essentially so we didn't even mention it, and both my girlfriend and I (are vegetarians) ordered the impossible burgers, but I believe hers was actually beef (I'm a chef at a restaurant in Madison and so I know food quite well (and I still eat meat when I have to on the job. So I do know what I tastes like) and had a bite of hers). All in all food was okay, nothing outstanding, but nothing to gripe about, but the service was very poor, messed up orders, and the very long wait time where we were ignored lead to the 2 stars, hopefully won't be returning.

[As a note, the reason we didn't ask for a different burger is 1: my girlfriend thought it tasted a little different than impossible meat, but I didn't taste it and notice until it was almost gone, and 2: we are vegetarians for environmental reasons and it defeats the whole purpose of not eating meat if you throw it away - then it's...