Brass Elk Brewing — Restaurant in Elkhart

We walked in at 4:45pm on a Saturday. There were four employees near the front door and all of them were surprised to see customers.

As we were guided to a table, the kitchen staff were standing around listening to a radio and I was greeted by five or six Eff bombs at a really high volume. If the kitchen was slammed and food was flying, I wouldn't notice. However, there was no other noise coming out of the kitchen.

We were provided lunch menus.

The waitress soon arrived with water to let us know they were doing a shift change and she had to do her pre-work. We asked for dinner menus and she commented she would bring them to us. She did not take a drink order, appetizer order, or offer free appetizer (even if it was the cheapest) since we would be sitting there.

While our waitress was doing pre-work, we watched various other employees hang in the bar, drink some beer, and have a good time. If there were other employees available, why were they not waiting on our table?

Twenty minutes later, our waitress returned with the dinner menus, took our drink order, and gave us a moment to review the slightly different menu.

Our drinks came out and my wife's was so wrong, she asked the waitress to bring over simple sugar and club soda. My wife used these to fix her $14 drink.

Eventually, our food came out. It was at least another twenty minutes later. It was the correct food. My wife ordered a steak and the parmesan truffle fries. I ordered the breakfast burger and mac 'n cheeses.

The mac 'n cheeses was room temperature. Everything else was cold. The burger, the egg on the burger, the steak, and especially the fries. We love cooked and still warm truffle fries. However, cold truffle fries are disgusting.

When the waitress returned to check on us, we informed her of the problem with the food. She asked if we wanted it warmed up. I told her we did not, because we didn't want our food spit in. She smiled as if to confirm I was correct in what would happen to our food if she did take it back. We told her we would eat it and we ate at least 50% of the meal.

Our waitress was fine, but was set up to fail by management, the bar staff, and the kitchen staff. She was tipped 20%.

The bill for two drinks and two plates of cold food was $70 plus tip. I wonder how much they charge for warm food?

We left and went to McDonald's on Nappanee Street. I purchased the two cheeseburger meal. Not only was the food warm, but it tasted better and was a lot cheaper.

Receipts are attached for...

Full disclosure that I only ate appetizers here. While everything was good, nothing was excellent. I got The Doe mock tail and it was underwhelming. Not because it was a mock tail, I’ve had great ones, but because it was just meh. It had pineapple juice, blueberry juice, and soda water. For $7 I wouldn’t order again. We split the crispy Brussel sprouts, pretzel sticks, and Parmesan fries for appetizers. Per other reviews, the Brussel sprouts were phenomenal and are why this is a 4 star not 3 star review. The pretzel sticks were good but very greasy. When I pulled them apart you could see the grease/butter slide off. The Parmesan fries are nothing to write home about and I wouldn’t order them again (especially after experiencing the Parm fries at Biebs and Ash in Goshen). My friend ordered the pesto pasta and she liked it so if I had to recommend an entree it would be that. The patio is very nice outside. However, we were getting eaten alive by bugs. That’s not necessarily the restaurants fault but something that I wanted to mention. I did not try the beers or any cocktails so perhaps this place makes up for itself there. Overall, I wouldn’t be opposed to going here again but I won’t go out of my way...

Never again. Poor service can ruin a dinner and that’s exactly what will keep us from going back.

The food was fair. Tasted great and the Apps were good. The food tasted good but the kitchen help actually came to our table and asked if we had the French Dip and Mac and Cheese. They lost the ticket and didn’t know what table to take it to. The food got cold while they were trying to figure it out.

Our server was terrible and gave a new meaning to rude. We ordered a Blueberry Margarita. After we were halfway through our appetizers we still didn’t have the drinks. I found our server. “I’m waiting in him” referring to the bar tender. When she did bring them to the table, instead of an apology we got “I can’t bring them if they’re not made yet”. Then the Blueberry was a regular Margarita. Half way through the meal she finally checked in. We told her about the Margarita. She said she would bring us the right one. We reminded her it was Blueberry. The next one was a mystery. But it wasn’t Blueberry.

I am pretty forgiving but this place won’t be...