Blue Moose Bar & Grill — Restaurant in East Grand Forks

We frequent this local place a lot. It’s usually just my husband and I on date night, sometimes the whole family. Food is usually great, customer service is petty. Two years ago we had a private brunch after the baptism of our 8th child. We invited folks we had never been out with before and we were anxious to be hospitable. The brunch foods (which admittedly I’ve never had before) were ghastly and inedible. Everything was 30 min late, the egg bake was undercooked, the sausages were not the slightest bit browned, The pancakes were pale and gooey. I didn’t realize till we got home later that we never even received our breakfast potatoes. We were all so hungry, and there were 20 children in attendance so we ate what we could. Our new pastor was with us and I was so embarrassed. I wasn’t even going to say anything to the manager, but when I realized the potato thing, I gave him a call. We had a nice chat and he said he was going to send me a gift card. He did, it was for $100. I was underwhelmed, as our bill was almost $500. You could argue that we ate (some of) the food, but even if we had walked away without paying, nobody would have wanted that food even for free.

Last night we were there eating dinner. My child ordered the kids sundae for $2. I pointed at it on the kids menu as we ordered. We’ve never gotten a sundae there, and I was surprised it was so big! When we got the bill, we were charged for an $8 sundae. I didn’t even know there was an $8 sundae. Long story short, the manager refunded us for half the sundae. I had to laugh. We’ve had entire meals refunded at other establishments for much less than a mistake that was 100% the servers. Like just charge us for what we ordered and we’ll be good.

So I’m here writing this review because the difference of a kids sundae (what we ordered) and a regular sundae, compounded with our ghastly brunch experience that left an unpleasant taste in my mouth, is what has led us to permanently resolve to find other restaurants...

I went to the Blue Moose on May 15 2019 at approximately 5:15 pm. I was there with friends to eat before going to watch a movie. We ordered immediately. I ordered a NY Strip with a loaded baked potato and a Caesar salad, My friend ordered an appetizer of stuffed jalapenos. I forget what my friend ordered, but their daughter had mac and cheese. We asked for the appetizer, salad, and kids meal to come out first. We got our drinks, the appetizer, and the kids meal but no salad. I asked for the salad on 2 separate occasions and nothing. Finally the waitress come by at 6:30 to tell us that the kitchen is really backed up. Meanwhile people that got there after us were getting their meals. My friends wanted to leave so I told the waitress it was taking entirely too long and we were going to leave. There was no offer from the waitress (server 1319 Abby S) to cover the meal. We asked for the manager and she said he's busy. She made no offer to cover it and we were going to be late for our movie. I paid it because my friends wanted to just walk out without paying and I didn't want any trouble, so I put it on my credit card so I could dispute the charge with visa later if it come to that. She took long enough that we were late for our movie and ended up not watching it so we could see the full movie later. As we were leaving I decided to check and see if the manager was really busy or if our waitress was lying to us. Sure enough the manager was not busy. He made every excuse (which let me know that there was no need to return) and no offer to cover the tab. Absolutely abhorrent service all the way around. We missed our movie due to your staff's incompetence I ended up eating fast food (which I hate) because I was starving. I thank the Blue Moose for ruining our evening, but I can assure you that you will never have that...

My boyfriend and I just celebrated our 11 year anniversary on New Year's Eve. We tend to celebrate at home because most restaurants are crazy busy and we've learned over the years that the food and service are not great on such a busy night.

That was absolutely not the case when we visited the Blue Moose. We arrived at about 5:45 and were not suprised by the 30 minute wait; we were suprised that the wait was only about 15 minutes. The two hosts were super polite and very efficient with all the people who were waiting in the vestibule.

And then once we were seated, we were greated by our server Wyatt. He was amazing! He took our drink order, and tried to upsell us on appetizers (as someone who's worked in food service before I appreciated the hustle; I even heard him offer them to the table behind us so I knew he was great at his job).

As busy as he must have been, he was back within 5 minutes to take our order, and back again in another few minutes with our French Onion soup; a favorite of ours and something we always order.

Wyatt cleared our soup cups when we were done and topped up our drinks before our food came; I assumed it was because he was so busy he wouldn't be able to check in with us after a very nice woman delivered our order. But he came back a few minutes later to ask how we were doing and if my boyfriend's steak was cooked correctly (it absolutely was).

Super long story short, we had an amazing anniversary dinner and most of that is due to Wyatt. I left a Rave for him in the GF Facebook group, but also wanted to let you know how awesome he made our night. Please let him know how much we appreciate him - and also how much we appreciate all your staff! Our food and our experience was amazing; thank you...