The Sawmill Restaurant — Restaurant in Farmington Township

This weekend was filled with new places, people, and activities! The memory I think we'll always have etched in our heads however has to be the Sawmill Restaurant. Leaving town from a fun filled camping trip and big foot festival we noticed our bellies growling. Mmmmm....small town breakfast before our two hour trip home. Google provided us with only a couple of options. Sawmill it is! Pulling in we get kinda excited. The exterior is quaint and it had a spinning sign! Yes! Good diner breakfast food. Walking in we immediately noticed the angrily hand written sign on the door exclaiming, short staffed, hours are changed! Okay, no problem, we're adults and have high levels of patience. Now inside the diner we are just confused. There's open tables everywhere. Do we sit? Does a waitress take our order? Standing awkwardly we figure out that you place your order at the counter and pay then seat yourself at any table. As we stand in line our eyes start to wander taking in the environment we've stumbled into. I can see the nervous look in my bfs eyes. He asks, do you wanna do this, eat here? Yea, yea, we're here, right? I'm starving! Finally!! Our turn to order. We're greeted by an absolutely miserable red head. I've not come into contact with a person less likely to have a career in customer service than this young lady. Questions were met with eye rolling and a look that said, you're nothing more than an inconvenience to my day. We were given a number and sent into a dining room area that I can only describe as last being decorated I'm the 60's. Wall paper peeling from the walls, old sticky booths, and what felt like a layer of grease under my shoes. Now we wait. Still so hungry so I'm hopeful! Bad decor doesn't make bad food. We share our iced tea while we wait. Oh yea, they only had enough for one iced tea. The indignant red head said she'd be right out with the second we had ordered. She never came. While waiting about 30 minutes for our biscuits and gravy, eggs, and toast I really had some time to look around. Phew. I wish I hadn't. From floor to ceiling this place was filthy. The tables were slowly cleared but not wiped. My seat was sticky and I now was so happy to be not wearing shorts. Our shared tea was gone. Conversation dried up. I took the opportunity to use the rest room. Any glimmer of hope died after exciting my bathroom trip. The baseboards were suppose to be white but the years of no cleaning and hair stuck to them had made them a pale yellow. I'd like to tell you I washed my hands but yep, no soap. Now returning to my sticky booth with my dirty hands and empty shared iced tea I'm feeling not so hungry but guess what? You already paid! Stuck. The scary red head comes towards us. Look at the table, don't make eye contact, I wouldn't want to anger her further. She puts down one order of biscuits and gravy and the eggs. Damn, I have to talk. I say we ordered two and also we're in need of our second iced tea. She almost snarled. The tea just got done brewing! Now this is where things get rough. Upon viewing the biscuits and gravy we are down right worried. They look like no biscuits and gravy we've ever seen. Okay, I mean, open mind. Yay! Our second order is delivered with our second iced tea!! We can eat! Dive on in. Oh no no no, dive right back out. My bf takes a nice big bite and immediately gives me a sideways look. It tastes sour he says. Huh? Sour? Good sport that I am, I take a nice bite. Oh noooooo, it's spoiled. The gravy had a strong taste of almost vinegar. But guess what? You already paid! As to not anger the beast any further we sheepishly eat our order of eggs and rye toast daring not to ask for refills on our tea or possibly food that hadn't gone bad. We spent much of our car ride home queasy debated whether or not we'd become sick. The word traumatic came into our discussion. In closing please get it together Sawmill. The people of your town deserve a friendly place with a clean place to sit and food that doesn't make you debate if you're going to have to take a...

Would give it no stars if it were an option. My family and I have always enjoyed eating at The Sawmill Restaurant for years every time we visit Cook Forest. Today we went and ordered five sandwiches with fries for about $50. Two grilled cheese sandwiches came out after about 15 minutes. We sat at our table for another 45 minutes while the remaining three meals did not arrive. We went up to the counter to inquire when our food would be arriving and they said they were “working on it”. Meanwhile two tables arrived, ordered and were served while we still waited for our remaining food. We ended up asking for a refund for the food not served. They refused and instead brought out two cheeseburgers and a grilled ham and cheese that were soggy and appeared to have been cooked in a microwave. Three of the waitstaff appeared to be inexperienced and incapable of waiting tables or even working in a restaurant. They did not seem have the ability to realize they had provided substandard service so it is hard to hold them accountable. There was however an older more seasoned employee who clearly saw everything that happened and did nothing to resolve the situation. She would not even make eye contact. She really should have helped the younger employee in this situation. This was hugely disappointing. We won’t be going back. There are plenty of other great places to dine at Cook Forest. Don’t waste your time or money at this place. ...

By far the WORST experience I've had in 20 years and I place it ALL on management. If I could give 0 stars I would. 3 teenagers working, 2 adults in the kitchen. Floor was littered with leaves, fries, other food and paper wrappers from straws. Tables were dirty and plates from previous customers were left with no sense of urgency to cleanup. LONG wait for food to be brought out 1 plate at a time with nearly 5 minutes between plates. Turkey melt sandwich, ordered without tomato, came with tomato on it. Fish sandwich came with a black curly hair on it. And cheese for the fries came in a plastic cup with mold on top! The thing that really got me was watching one of the teenage girls, long dark hair with ripped jeans, eating ice cream behind the counter as if there was no other work to be done. Again, I put this on POOR MANAGEMENT. Long story short, after 1 hour we couldn't wait for 2 more fish sandwiches to come out. We approached the male teenager and asked for management. An adult female came out and asked what we wanted her to do. We asked that our money be refunded. Reluctantly she did so and we left. For the record, this was at 2:30 PM and maybe 7 other people in the restaurant. $84 for 5 people.WAY overpriced for the food we ordered. We will NEVER be back. VERY...