The Steak House at Silver Reef — Restaurant in Ferndale

This is our family go-to restaurant for all special events. We have been coming here for over a decade and have always left with smiles on our faces.

We recently visited on a Saturday evening for my husband's birthday. Unfortunately, it will be our last visit.

He was excited to order his favorite, the prime rib -- it's been taken off the menu!

We asked about the crab dip -- our server said they can't afford to serve it anymore. This is just after we overheard a group of people being "comped" $700 for dinner.

We are served bread -- but it's not the traditional bread. It's now SUPER GREASY focaccia bread and the flavored butters are gone. Why? The server said they can no longer afford it.

My daugher and I ordered Chateaubriand -- first, my husband's steak arrived before our tableside Chateaubriand. The server pulled the cloche off my husband's steak and then started cutting and plating our Chateaubriand. It took the server an extremely long time to plate our meals because he was sawing through the meat like it was piece of wood. If Jay, the manager, had not been let go, this would have never happened. He was incredibly professional and understood how fine dining is done and trained the serving staff with attention to detail.

Because my husband is polite, he waited for our Chateaubriand to be placed in front of us. By then his steak was cold. His baked potato was also prepared incorrectly -- he asked for no sour cream and ended up with an enormous amount.

The Chateaubriand comes with mushrooms. The new mushrooms are now a grey, slimy sludge of overcooked yuk that look like something that's been sitting out for hours at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The Chateaubriand also comes with carrots that are no longer made with the wonderful mustard sauce. The mashed potatoes are now boring and bland.

For the first time ever, we left food on the plate. When asked if we wanted a box we said no thank you, which is sad because we love The Steakhouse leftovers.

Birthday dessert? We always get the best-selling mud pie. Guess what...it's gone! GONE! It's no longer on the menu.

From our daughter's birthday in May to my husband's birthday in September, The Steakhouse has drastically fallen. They should not claim to be a fine dining steakhouse. What made The Steakhouse special is how special they made us feel. From the second we walked in the door, we felt like a million bucks. Now the front door staff is unfriendly, bored, and clearly does not want to be there. The manager doesn't come around like Jay did, in fact, we weren't aware of a manager. The server was nice but lacked all fine dining serving skills.

It's also the little things--like the crab dip and flavored butters--is what made The Steakhouse stand out.

We never minded spending hundreds of dollars for the food and experience. But now, between firing their amazing manager Jay, taking away the "little things", changing the menu for the worse, not training their servers, and not feeling like we were at a fine dining steakhouse but still paying the fine dining prices, we can't recommend this restaurant to anyone. Gone are the days of going to The Steakhouse for celebrations, client dinners, and treating...

We have made The Steakhouse our celebration station for the last few birthdays & anniversaries but I fear last night will be out final visit. We were here in January for my birthday and Shawn was our server. He was top notch! Very engaging, personable and just on top of every detail. Our dinner and experience was perfect from the Appetizers to Coffee & dessert. Our server, Tim, last night was the polar opposite. He didn't ask if we were celebrating anything special or try to engage in any way. We waited for 25 minutes before he came to tell us someone was going to the cellar for our bottle of wine then we waited another 15 minutes. Once we got the wine, the server did not use the proper uncorking procedure and that was quite off putting to watch. We ordered the Caesar Salad for two and there was no conversation or flair to the table side presentation. I didn't even try to engage at this point as I could tell our experience was going to be awful. It took another 30 minutes for our entrees to appear and I was pleasantly surprised to see Shawn presenting them. He remembered waiting on us before and I told him it was our anniversary and so far we were very disappointed. He apologized knowing that it was not his fault; but he didn't throw his fellow server under the bus with excuses-he just tried to salvage our evening. We passed on dessert when Tim offered, for fear of further disappointment. From the first time we came here, in 2019, we always dressed for a "Fine Dining" steakhouse experience but now, the clientele is super casual and that takes away from the experience. The Cowboy Bone in Ribeye was bland; my Filet was missing the Roquefort topping but was cooked perfectly. My baked potato was almost cold in the middle and the shoestring potatoes were a total disappointment. I mean fried shoestring potatoes with a sprinkling of jarred parmesan at a fine dining steakhouse? The Creamed spinach was not creamy in the least or seasoned. The entire meal was disappointing and sad. Overall, if The Steakhouse wants to be considered a fine dining establishment that charges fine dining prices, then it needs to make some serious changes in Management, changes in the Menu, add proper training for the Staff and consider a Business Casual dress code at the minimum. If it were me, Shawn would lead the Server training as he is an excellent server and is...

You can tell this restaurant is not managed well. Pretty unorganized, under trained staff and under staffed. Here is why I say this and in chronological order of events:

The hostess did not handle a request from another couple for a booth instead of a table well. She looked like a deer in headlights and the poor couple that asked felt bad. After the request it took her 2 solid minutes of saying "ummm" before finally deciding to bus them a booth and cleared the table herself but not before making it awkward for everyone. After the couple stood there for a bit feeling in the way, she asked them to wait in the lobby where we were. I just think she is new and under trained.

We got seated at a table next to a booth that was not happy with their service and /or food. They were nice about it but we are so close together it was hard not to feel how unhappy they were before leaving. We were the only table seated in the middle at the time. Out of 4 to pick from, right next to an unhappy booth.

My Filet Mignon was cooked to perfection. My husband's Tomahawk was undercooked at medium-rare when he had asked for medium. Plus we never actually got the bearnaise sauce we ordered and were charged for. Shortly aftering getting out food, our server just disappeared.

We watched another couple who had our same server wait and wait for the table side salad to be made. I believe their server was looking for something they ordered but could not find. They literally wheeled the salad to them and it just sat there waiting to be made. It wasn't began until we were leaving a good solid 20-25 minutes later.

After being finished with our meal, we waited 15 minutes before we flagged another server down. We just wanted to leave. I felt bad for our server but clearly something was missing and couldn't be found and it was effecting several tables. No manager to pick up the slack.

My husband and I understand customer service is pretty freaking hard and under paid. We are pretty good with rolling with the punches. We kind of felt there were a series of unfortunate events that unfolded on Saturday. That being said, most likely we won't be back to eat there. We actually had much better service at the Red River Cafe...