Art's Tavern — Restaurant in Glen Arbor Township

We used to love Art's. It was always a place we would visit while visiting Northern Michigan, and we were becoming regulars of late since the purchase of our cottage about 30 minutes away, stopping in each weekend for burgers (and even their pizza!). We even have tee shirts and a coffee mug from Art's and purchased some "art" from their shop that hangs in our cottage.

But that love for this place all came to an abrupt end recently due to a really bad interaction between my wife and the host (I think that is who he was at least - the older guy that works behind the folding table in front of the entrance and seats patrons).

We took some friends that were visiting to Art's on the Sunday prior to Memorial Day, being sure to arrive by 11 AM, so to avoid the crowd and get a table on the patio. While my wife checked in, I took our friends and their kids to Cottage Book Store around the corner. My wife met us there and said it would be 20 minutes and they would text her once the table was ready as they were switching between breakfast and lunch,

About 25 minutes later, I asked if she'd gotten the text, she said no, and went on to check on our table while we waited in the park behind Art's. She came back a few minutes later shaky and almost in tears.

Every table on the patio was filled. When she asked the hostess what happened, she was informed, "I don't know".

My wife asked how much longer the wait would be. "I don't know."

Should we stick around here and wait or go in a few stores to kill some time? "Go shop around, it's going to be a while."

"Do you think it will be like 20 minutes or like an hour?" she asked. "I don't know."

Then, the older guy jumped in the conversation, saying under his breath, "at least an hour".

"At least an hour?" my wife asked.

"Yes. If you have a problem with that you can leave. You don't need to give her (the hostess) the third degree." He said.

"I'm not, I'm just trying to figure out how long the wait will be. It was supposed to be 20 minutes. If we can't get in here, we will go somewhere else" she replied.

Then he leaned over, putting his finger in my wife's face. "I deal with people like you all the time. You can get out of here. Your name is off the list," he shouted loud enough that other customers could hear him.

"I'm not arguing with you. We come here all the time and know how busy you get. I'm just asking" she said.

"Well, I don't care if you ever come here again. Now go."

Aside from this treatment of a customer (a good, loyal one, at that) being totally uncalled for, rude, bullying, and disrespectful, it was downright threatening.

I hope this guy feels tough and satisfied getting in the face of a 120 pound woman. I doubt he would do that to many men and get away with it. But like he said, he doesn't need us. Art's will be fine without our weekly visits, but we are truly heartbroken to lose one of our favorite Northern Michigan establishments because...

Not worth it.

This was my second visit to Art's Tavern. It had been a couple years, so I thought I'd give them another chance, and once again I was disappointed. The food wasn't terrible, it was edible, so I'm not going down to only one star, but neither was it up to par with even my cheap local greasy spoon diner, so I can't give it an average three stars.

They were understaffed and slow, but I don't fault them for that. I know it's hard to find good help these days. The staff wasn't rude, but not friendly either. The beer (Lake Ann No Filter IPA, $6), a local brew, was cold and good, and the best part of everything.

Besides the beer, I also got a Funky Grilled Cheese sandwich ($9.50), and a basket of onion rings ($11.75). I like good food, and I don't mind paying extra for it. And for these kind of prices, I expected great food and great service (even if understandably slow.) The grilled cheese ("Funky" comes with tomato, onion, and mild pepper rings) was edible, but the tomatoes were not the nice, red, flavorful slices I would expect at a high-end restaurant. They were the pale slabs of blandness that I would pick off of a cheap fast food burger. Otherwise, like I said, the sandwich wasn't bad, just nothing special, nothing better than your average $3.95 grilled cheese from a place where I wouldn't expect much.

The onion rings were, well, onion rings, again nothing special, nothing great, but not bad. The ketchup, on the other hand, was some kind of oily pale sweet red water stuff. I've got packets of ketchup that have been sitting in the armrest of my car for a year that taste better than this, and are actually thick enough dip fries or onion rings in. Come on, guys, for this kind of price, can't you even buy decent ketchup? Hoping that maybe there was just something wrong with that bottle, I grabbed another from a nearby empty table, but it was just as bad. Okay, now in their defense, nowhere on the generic squeeze bottle did it actually say "ketchup" (or anything else for that matter.) But it was the only bottle on the table containing anything reddish, so I assumed it was ketchup, and it was next the yellow squeeze bottle which did taste like mustard.

After finishing the not-so-amazing food, I patiently waited a while for my bill, but the waiter never did bring it. Eventually I walked up to the bar to cash out. There was no apology for not bringing my bill, just a surprised look that I was ready to leave. As though I would have a good time staying there longer with empty plates and an empty beer glass???

Overall, this place does not offer food worth what they charge for it, no fantastic service, no beautiful scenic view, nothing to warrant those kind of prices. Total: over $28 (before tip) for a barely average grilled cheese, onion rings, and beer. (The beer was good.) My recommendation: Spend your money...

We just returned home from a great trip in Michigan. Minus a few rude people. We were walking around shopping in Glen Arbor as we came up to Art's Tavern. We saw our daughter and son in law who were sitting outside at a table that seated six people. They had sat down to eat lunch and were sitting with another couple whom they did not know. We stood talking over the fence for a bit and gave the hostess (older man, white beard) our count of 4 and he put us on the list. At that time there was not a line at all to get a table but it looked as it table were full for the moment. The unknown couple were so sweet and offered to get up and move to a table which was now open that was a table for two so that we could join our daughter and son in law. The older hostess man ( I would say gentleman, but he was far from it) butted in and said, "NO, that cannot happen because they already have a waitress and she cannot go to that other table!" We asked politely if if would be okay if she could just service them at the two person table which was not even 10 feet away from where she was serving the couple now. He was completely so rude and would not do that so our family could all sit together. He had horrible customer service skills or lack there of. I was talking to my friend who was with us and I said, "I don't understand why we can't sit here with my daughter since the waitress can just walk over to that other table?" He butted into our conversation and yelled, "It's not about the waitress!" Clearly that's what he had said early that it was about the waitress not being able to walk 10 steps over to a new table. We looked at each other and said, "Let's spend our money elsewhere!" So we left and had lunch at another restaurant who got our money. Clearly sad that we couldn't sit with our daughter and son in law to share lunch on that special outing to Glen Arbor. We will NEVER patronize this establishment until we receive an apology for the person at the patio gate who was so...