Houligans Steak & Seafood Pub — Restaurant in Eau Claire

I'm not a guy that throws around 5 stars left and right. In my opinion reviews should be gauged on the entire experience. I wonder if the 5 star folks have ever been to Mortons, Manny's, Ruth's Chris, ETC. SERVICE: Traveling on business, called ahead to check availability on a Sat night at 6:30 and was greeted by Nick. He was awesome! Saw him when I got there and he remembered talking to me and had a table ready! Server was very knowledgeable, friendly and attentive. 5 stars on that portion of the review. FOOD: great menu, lots of choices and being a first timer I went with bacon wrapped BBQ shrimp, the "King of Kings" New York Strip and finished with strawberry cheesecake. The shrimp were described on the menu as 4 large shrimp and with the bacon and sauce on them they were smaller than a zippo lighter. Like a shrimp cocktail tray you buy when your attending a house gathering. Taste was OK, but was disappointed. The steak was seasoned perfectly, medium rare, I chose broccoli and potatoes as a side. Asked for lemons on the side that never came. The cut could be much better. Your signature steak better be worth writing about. A half inch cut, with a lot of fat is a Cub grocery store piece of meat. I cook a lot and this looked like it came off of my stove. After trimming the steak I lost about 30%. Tender, juicy, tasty, but certainly not worth the $. The cheesecake taste and presentation was excellent. The chocolate dipped spoon was a nice touch. Again the portion was 3 bites. Atmosphere: laid back supper club feel. Nice bar and layout is great. Value: Add 2 glasses of wine to my dinner with tax and tip almost 80.00! Very little value. Parking: NONE, and I say that knowing I parked in the lot behind the restaurant. In the summer it's maybe a 3 minute walk. Other than those 6 weeks out of the year it's a treacherous 15 minutes of scared to death, walking on roller skates, freezing cold journey. The problem is they do not plow it properly. I wish I took pictures of this. Ice covered lot with snow piled in parking spots my SUV was tilted 2 feet. Yes the right side of the truck was up 2 feet in the air. Like I had it jacked up to change the tire. I stepped out and about killed myself on the ice rink they call a parking lot. The ruts from the vehicles were at least 6 inches deep so if you wear heals or dress shoes...

Arrived around 5:50 on a Friday evening. We used the back entrance, and once you enter the establishment there is no one to greet you or direct you at that entrance. We made our way through the bar area to the front entrance and the host stand where we were "greeted" with Do you have a reservation? We did not, and were told it would be at least a one hour wait for a table. As we had show tickets at 7:30, we could not wait an hour, and were told we could sit at one of the high top tables in the bar area which we did. Big mistake. The chairs are extremely uncomfortable, and there was constant traffic past the table to the bar, restrooms, etc. Our server greeted us about 5 min later, and it was another 10 min before she returned with a glass of water and one tap beer. We ordered cheese curds as an appetizer, and received tiny bits of cheese in a dry corn meal breading. They tout using local cheese - how about using bigger pieces of cheese and making a local beer breading? My companion order the Pub burger and I ordered the garlic sauce burger ($2 extra for hash browns!) The food arrived in around 25 minutes. The burgers looked and tasted like mass produced frozen burgers. We waited and waited for our bill. When it finally arrived (almost $50) we again waited for the server to process the credit card. After 15 minutes I finally asked the bartender to process the payment so we wouldn't be late for our show. We had actual contact with our server twice - when we ordered beverages and when we ordered our entrees. She never stopped back to see if we needed anything. The atmosphere was very loud and chaotic. Substandard service, substandard food, high prices - Very disappointed and...

Landed in town and found Houligans by chance. The menu on the website helped us decide to stop in. We didn't have a reservation, but they found us a table. Our server was very polite and attentive...at first. He brought our drinks, salads, water and bread. Our meals came out a few minutes after we were surrounded by 14 people on 4 tables. This is where the service to our table of two ended. We didn't see him but one more time as he quickly asked how the meals were. I didn't even taste it yet! But he was very busy with his 14 people, not us. I teetered my wine and water glass on the edge of the table thinking he would refill something, however he did not. He tended to them and ignored us. He walked by SEVERAL times refilling their waters etc. Since I didn't have any thing to drink with my meal, I couldn't finish it. My husband didn't even have the luxury of a knife to cut his chicken. After my meal was pushed away, he came back several minutes later and asked if I wanted a box. I said, no, but I would have liked a glass of water? I told him you never came back due to all of this, gesturing to the large, insanely loud group, and he said you are right, I apologize. He said I did come back and asked you how your meals were to which I replied, I hadn't even had a bite! I was extremely frustrated and would never recommend this place. The Seafood bake was decent, but the vegetables and potatoes were cold. I honestly have never had such poor service. Especially from a restaurant with prices like Houligans. Extremely loud place. It came down to a tip from 2 people...his loss, we are usually very good tippers, and the tip from 14 people. I would...