Sweetwater Tavern — Restaurant in Flint

I went and checked out Sweetwater Tavern. Initially really excited for a new restaurant downtown. I’ve never had any of the other ones, so, I don’t have anything to compare. I’ve seen people say this location isn’t as good as the others.

The service was absolutely horrible, I mean they were down right neglectful. I walked into a relatively empty restaurant, no one at tables, and 3 people at the bar.

I walked in and had a seat at the bar, no one greeted me, or even looked my way. Right in front of me, there was a bar tender cutting lemons, and she continued to do so for about ten minutes, walked away and grabbed more lemons and continued to cut those up. Never acknowledged me at all.

After sitting at the bar for 18 mins, a guy who I could only assume was the chef seen me sitting, and asked had we been helped, I responded no, and she finally asked for my drink order. I ordered a coke. It would be the only coke I would get that night.

I ordered their “famous” wings, and the seasoned fries, both were good, just basic buffalo, no other flavors. I didn’t get napkins, I didn’t get the ranch I ordered. I got the bar tender’s attention, and asked for napkins, ranch, and a refill, she brought me napkins, I waited like 6 minutes, and asked for ranch and a refill again, she went tot he back and got the ranch. Upon her return she could tell I was frustrated. She informed me she wasn’t a bar tender she was just filling in. I decided to cut her some slack and ask for my bill, I got tired of begging for a refill.

I asked if they had a military discount, she told me no, she said they do offer a discount for police officers, that was odd to me but whatever. She gave me the bill, I tipped 15 percent, and I left.

It was my plan to never return, because the food while good wasn’t great, and definitely not worth the frustration that comes with bad service. However, seeing that it’s a new restaurant, and the girl behind the bar was admittedly not a server or a bar tender, I decided to give them another shot. I went at 9 PM on Sunday night.

I decided to return around 4 PM on Wednesday. I walk in, and go to my same seat at the bar. Again, no one looked my way. I’m sat for about 10 minutes, and the manger walked up, on her phone, never looked at my, stayed in her phone and said “what you drinking”. I said a coke, still texting she went and got a coke, she kept stopping to text while filling the cup, seriously stoped 5 times, I’m assuming the conversation was really important. I finally get my drink and she says your waitress will be with you in a minute. I inform her I already know what I want; she replies your waitress will be with you in a minute. While sitting, a white man walks in, and to my surprise, 3 different employees as he walks through the door, greeted him enthusiasticly, I’m offended at this point, it isn’t that they have bad service, they were intentionally neglectful of me. Wow.

The waitress finally walks out, she’s really nice and attentive once she’s actually behind the bar. I order the same thing as last time. Their famous wings and seasoned fries.

I get the wings, and everything is different, the presentation, the dishes they come out in, even the size of the ranch. I take a bite of the wings and they actually taste different. The ranch they brought is in a small Dixie cup. Too small to actually dip the wings. I tell my waitress that just a couple nights ago they gave me a bigger ranch, that I’m not even able to dip in this cup. She says I can have a bigger one for 50 cents. I remind her that they gave me the bigger one last time, she said and they got cussed out for it. lol, aight, I’ll purchase the bigger ranch.

I guy who seemed to be in charge came out and starting speaking to me, he was doing everything in his power to make everyone happy. He even brought me more fires, I told him about the inconsistency of the food and presentation. He explained that they were trying to get it together. He salvaged the disappointment I had as mich...

This is a review for the Flint location. I was there Saturday 5/3/25 for a post MSU graduation lunch for my nephew with a party of 22. We reserved this days in advance and had spoken with the manager ahead of time to ensure there was adequate space & staffing. The space was fine, we had the room to the left all to ourselves. Staffing was a huge issue however. They appeared to have only one server working the entire place, both rooms. There’s only so much one person can do when trying to service a large party like ours, plus several other tables. Needless to say the service was not good. The server herself was pleasant, however she was MIA for most of our time there. Food took forever to come out (which isn’t the servers fault). When it did finally starting coming out from the kitchen there was a gap of about 20 minutes from the time the first order of food came out til the last. Some people were completely done while others hadn't received their food yet. My wife never received hers. We kept thinking with how staggered the food was coming out that they’d be bringing out her burger soon, but after everyone had pretty much finished eating we realized it wasn’t coming. The server didn’t even know this until she came to hand out bills later (since she hadn’t followed up on anything prior to this). We cancelled it of course. Drink refills were never followed up on after getting our initial drinks. Most of us went to the bar to have the bartender refill our drinks. We had a napkin & silverware shortage for half the meal. It was comically bad how little service our party received. We saw her servicing the tables in the other room, but for whatever reason she basically ignored our party after the food was delivered. We were there for just short of 3 hours from the time we walked in til the time we walked out. And not because we were enjoying ourselves. No apologies or any type of discount offered for the horrendous service, not that we asked for it. The server is lucky there was a mandatory 15% tip on the bill due to party size. We should be pressing charges for theft for that mandatory tip to be honest. Management should be ashamed. They were given plenty of advance notice for this and the results were...

First off, as we approached the entrance, the windows were so dirty we couldn't even tell if the place was actually open or not. Upon waiting about 5 minutes to be seated, someone yelled from the bar that we could sit anywhere. We sat, we're brought water and waited about 10 minutes for our drink order to be taken. They brought our drinks, then took our order and we waited about 35 minutes for our food to arrive. We ordered appetizers and entrees. One of the entrees arrived before the app arrived. We realized after the server left (we were a little baffled because only one entrees showed and no app) and realized we had no silverware. The employee we asked said they had no rolled and was going to take care of it. We watched them rolling silverware and never brought us any, we finally got some from a table of customers that had been experiencing the same thing, once they decided they were going somewhere else. Mind you, we watched almost 12 people sit, wait, and leave without ordering. About ten minutes later the rest of the food arrived. No one ever checked on us to see if we needed anything, except once, and it seemed to be whoever was in charge. We ate, and then waited another 20 minutes to get our bill. The only thing positive I can say is the food was pretty good. There was a large group there, but most of the employees seemed only focused on them, not the rest of the customers. The place was dirty and greasy, and there was an odd sewage smell. Halfway through the experience they turned some music on, and it was so loud we could barely communicate with ourselves or the staff. They music consisted of modern r$b and rap music, one song that stuck out was "all that I want for my birthday was a big booty hoe" by 2 chainz. Not really the best choice of music for dinner, but probably wouldn't of been so bad if it hadn't been so loud. Like I said, the food is decent, but we will not be...