Michiels Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Fox Crossing

It was awesome to see a local spot so busy, and I 100% understood that they were going to be busy. I remember having family meals, even my first winter formal dinner date in ‘03 was had here. It was so cool to walk in and see the original fixtures and tables. Drinking culture won out again because it was assumed that we would be okay being sat by the bar. The pricing for the food that was served and it being a high holiday for Christians was understandable. It would have been nice to have had more space to enjoy our family time together, but we had our elbows being ran into by staff, other patrons standing so close we could smell their alcoholic beverages, and at one point my husband had to ask not once, but twice for a huskier patron at a neighboring table to please move out of the way, so he could sit at his chair as she was practically sitting in it herself being that she was not average died, while talking to her family. When we made the reservation, there was no mention of an automatic gratuity charge. (Had there been mention of this at the initial reservation, we would have declined right there and would have opted for a different venue.) The expectation that we tip our server accordingly for the service they give us as patrons was taken away and we were expected to pay 20% gratuity. For what? A child that couldn’t be bothered to smile, build any rapport, or take away the two other refill cups of my spouse’s that were stacking up on the table? What was even more deceiving- was that at the bottom of the receipt was the break down of gratuity that the patron could leave BASED ON THE TOTAL BILL WITH BUILT IN GRATUITY ALREADY CHARGED. Ha! Pay your wait staff better wages if you think they will give excellent service deserving of said wages every single time. But it was for a buffet. Because today- our service was below subpar. When we disputed the gratuity, the server was very professional and stated she would go fetch her manager. The manager came in hot! Right out the gate, attitude and posturing. We weren’t satisfied with our server, and all the manager wanted to do was argue with my spouse and not listen to our concerns. That’s what made him furious. She talked over him, very obviously didn’t take him serious. Then- what took the cake, the manger had the audacity to say that her staff was sacrificing her time away from their families. I lol’d. I personally chose to sacrifice countless birthdays, first words, first steps, numerous holidays, and packer Sundays away from my family serving my country only to be told that today Michiels waitstaff is sacrificing a single holiday in an industry, where it’s expected of them no less, deserves $50 for bringing us cups of water, root beer and soda. Um, no. I put myself through college serving, and that my friends was not service deserving of a $50 tip when she couldn’t even be personable. The manager using the f-word was beyond unprofessional. That may be okay for their bar patrons during evening hours, but not on a high holiday where they expected us to pity tip them for service industry standard. That only compounded my distaste for the overall experience. Don’t like working holidays? Don’t work in...

I can honestly say I will NEVER eat or visit this unprofessional establishment again. I always try to put myself in other people's shoes before I even think of writing a bad review, especially in these times! Tonight my family and I were completely disrespected. We had made a reservation for 5:30pm we were there about 5 minutes early and went to the host and let him know, our party of 4 was present. He sat us at a table for 7 or 8 & we were a little confused as to why we needed that big of a table. Finally our waitress came and we asked her why we were at such a big table when there were plenty of smaller tables available. We let her know that we wouldn't mind moving so a bigger party could use the table we were at. She told us we were fine because the next party that was going to be seated at our table wasn't coming in until 6:15. Mind you that was in 45 minutes! She quickly left and we were left thinking, well we don't want to be rushed! A while later someone different informed us we were seated at the wrong table and moved us to a 4 top. No big deal, we went with it. The restaurant was not busy, but everyone seemed like they were in a huge rush, not a very relaxing atmospher at all. We did not complain. We ordered a drink then our food. Most of the food we ordered was not good, but we did not complain. Some of our party ordered another drink and we were quietly talking at our table. It was about 7:00pm, mind you we didn't get our food until after 6pm, & the Manager(?) came over to our table and asked us to leave or go sit at the bar because they needed to free up some tables!!!! Ok, first of all the reason I made a reservation was because a 9 year old child was with us and we didn't want to sit in the bar area. Second, we were at the table with our food less than an hour, Third there were at least 6 tables open!!!! I really just didn't understand why they needed thee exact table we were at. It was so incredibly rude! We were paying customers!!!! Such an extremly...

Terrible service!! We went at 5:30 (had reservations) on Saturday night. We got seated promptly by Monte (owner) and waited for a bit for our waitress. When she came she noticed we didn't have menus yet, so rolled her eyes and left the table and sent Monte back to give us menus and tell us of the specials. She came back to take our order and didn't even ask us what we wanted to drink, so many of us forgot to request something. Our food came out and was fine, except for a steak that was ordered as medium came out as rare. We politely asked for it to be thrown back on the grill. It came back out a couple minutes later, hardly cooked any further. A couple of us were missing our sides with our meals as well and had to wait for her to come check on us to request those. Our waters never got refilled (and were all empty since we ordered our food as we had no other drinks) until she brought us our bill and we requested it. You have to go up to the bar to pay, which is a joke to try to sift through everyone sitting at the bar just to pay your meal tab. We decided to hang out for an after dinner drink and the two bartenders loudly were complaining about the drinks we ordered as they were not "easy" and that they had a benefit there starting soon and needed to find a way to kick out all of the restaurant people out of the bar area. There were no signs saying it was closed to non-benefit people and no other direction from any other staff we had encourtered while we were there that we needed to stay clear of the bar area (which we needed to pay in there anyways...). We will NOT be going back. We can handle a few things here and there but everything just kept compounding on each other and we felt as if we were in the way...