West End Tavern — Restaurant in Elmwood Charter Township

Being Short staffed doesn’t justify bad service neither food - It was our first time here, I am not a big fan of writing negative reviews, usually try to give feedback, however this place and employees forced me to write one ! Except Scott- whom I met as the manager to make sure My food would be GF- First I went to wash my hands and there was no soap in ladies bathroom told the hostess she said “sorry we are short staffed” waited and gave up used my sanitizer. I am glad didn’t use the restroom !!

our server was ok- however failed to take my allergies serious enough- I ordered shrimp ceviche from specifically printed Gluten Free Menu, and came with gluten food- she apologized- we sent it back because it wasn’t looked like ceviche at all, more like days old chopped onion tom n cucumber swimming in its juice, couldn’t see any shrimp. When we mentioned we were told that shrimps were chopped very fine that’s why couldn’t see. Next table had same ceviche- it looked completely different from what we got!!!

All Ok, waited one hour, they were short staffed that was ok, although we weren’t notified until 2 min before our food came out, it’s still ok, I ordered Alaskan halibut and due to allergies they were going to double veggies instead of mashed potatoes, which was only asparagus- my asparagus was same amount as other dishes, didn’t mind again, we had ordered two grilled salmon dishes and one came in barely cooked inside was totally raw, the other one was burned and almost half size of the raw one??? Mother in law ate the burned one as much as possible cause we were all very hungry, we requested another dish for the raw salmon…lobster Mac and cheese, because first mac n cheese one looked and tasted good to my daughter so her friend wanted to order same one again hoping it wouldn’t take long and at least she knows what it looks like, the second one was not same amount as the first one and sauce was also way less then the first one???

when you are on vacation and very hungry, go to a 4,6 star restaurant, full and people waiting outside, unconsciously your expectations are set… and you want to leave with pleasant experience or full stomach at least. All this ruined everybody’s mood all felt weird, my guest felt she is the problem not wanting to eat raw salmon, hesitating to say anything negative about your food because servers were full of attitude, God forbid what you would get after.

later someone came by, asked about our experience and apologized that they were short staffed, we said ok, not to complain but just to give feedback mentioned the size n raw salmon, she asked someone about the server of our table- we already paid by that time $170👎, and she grabbed an empty plate from the table and disappeared without saying anything. We were leaving daughter went to wash her hands and said she couldn’t because there is no soap, I wanted to remind hostesses while we were leaving and I was told again that they were short staffed and this time the attitude really disgusted me!!!! Forget about hygiene at your restaurant there is still pandemics and you don’t care about soap in your bathrooms???? I will take this more seriously than the BAD service RUDE HOSTESSES or inconsistent uncooked FOOD!!!!!! Sorry your rude hostesses’ attitude- yelling from the back while I was exiting the door - forced me to share my experience with public! Being Short staffed wasn’t the reason it was your service and rude hostesses, can’t say enough about how they were both yelling on my back with an...

Every time we visit the service gets worse and worse. Sitting out on the patio is so nice, with views of water and sailboats we sat inside recently and our server took 10+ minutes to come to the table, I’m a server so I am extremely patient but there was maybe 5 other tables and at least 3 servers so I felt like she was being a bit pokey. She came to the table and we asked for water and said we needed a minute to decide on dinner, another 10 minutes goes by and she takes our order. I ordered the French onion soup and half of the mixed green salad. She didn’t write anything down which is fine since there was only two of us. I ordered a glass of wine which was 10 dollars (grand traverse reisling) which was crazily overpriced most other places it runs at about $7 a glass and it was a really puny pour. Our food came after a while and was really delicious, so delicious I ate every bite. When the check came I noticed she had charged me for a full salad which is an extra 5 bucks, so I approached her and she claimed when she repeated it back to me I didn’t say half...and that’s right I didn’t I said it when I ordered in the first place. I didn’t care for her trying to blame me and yeah I did eat it all but I didn’t realize it wasn’t a half salad. She said she would have to ask her manager if she could take it off. The way she handled it wasn’t great. It could have been this specific serve that wasn’t top notch, I noticed with another table she took their drink order (again not writing anything down) and came back 5 minutes later to ask what one gentleman ordered again, it was hard to watch, writing stuff down really would have made things easier for her. The manager was kinda just floating around, not engaging with any customers, him coming over asking how things were or something could have made a huge difference. We will return and hopefully things go more smoothly next...

Generally the West End Tavern is quite good. We eat here once every 2-3 weeks. Tonight was a real disappointment, mostly from a service perspective. We were refused very bluntly, the simplest of substitutions. Both my wife and I had the halibut two weeks ago with a lemon buerre blanc caper sauce, which was delicious, and we both came with the idea of repeating that experience. Tonight, however, they changed the preparation on the halibut to something that didn't sound appetizing, but the lemon buerre blanc caper sauce was being served on the walleye. I simply asked if I could have the walleye preparation on the halibut, something any restaurant accommodates, and the waitress bluntly said no. This is the first time I can remember this happening, from restaurants costing half as much, to ones costing three times more. The halibut arrived slightly over cooked and the preparation was nowhere near as good, as the lemon caper sauce. This may sound overly picky, but it was such an easy change and would have made our meal so much better. The halibut is the most expensive item on the menu, and you'd think a little change like this would be greeted with "of course"...very dissappointing.

Update 9/9/2024: We've eaten here 5 times this summer and have very good experiences each time. No further service snafus. The French onion soup is the best in town, as is the sautéed walleye. Keep up the good work! Raising my...