Cherry Public House | Glen Arbor — Restaurant in Glen Arbor Township

I was blown away by the complete and utter disregard for customer service, common decency, and lack of respect by a restaurant. I'll set the scene for you. We showed up midday on a Sunday, and the inside seating was full. There were less than 15 tables, so I get it. It was very chilly, so indoor seating was a necessity. They do not have outdoor warmers, which to me, is completely strange in upper MI. Even the lowest end of bars will have atleast SOME kind of heater/warmer available, but I digress. We show up and it's hopping, the poor bartenders are the only ones greeting customers. We ask the lovely lady at the bar for indoor seating. She tells us there isn't any, but it's self-seat and order from the table. States we are welcome to wait outside for when a table opens up and then we can move inside. Okay, great. I have my younger niece and nephew with me, so we go sit outside, decide and order our food, and sit patiently, waiting for a table to open up. When it does, we move inside, as we were instructed that it would be okay to do. We get comfortable and start warming up, and then were approached by a different woman, who had a extremely abrasive, unnecessary tone. She spoke SO loudly at us (the restaurant was not loud, mind you), that my niece's eyes started watering to cry. She told us there was a wait list for indoor seating, and we needed to move, right now. We calmly and quietly told her that we had asked the lady at the bar and she had stated it was open seating and we were approved to move inside (because we had let that server know we were moving tables so that our order would still come to us, and again, she said great! I'll update it in our system for you.) and she continued to practically yell. Now, I don't know if she (I assume she was the manager, as I only saw her to yell at us and then speak to people on the phone, I unfortunately didn't catch her name) just doesn't understand the volume and tone of her own voice, or if she woke up choosing to be this way, but it was COMPLETELY unnecessary. Listen, I get having a full house, I've worked customer service jobs, I get things happen. We are understanding people! But when we were approached in such a way that made my kid cry? Absolutely not. Everyone in the restaurant turned to look, and even people OUTSIDE (doors shut) on the patio stopped and turned around because that's how loud she was being. She left to "confirm we were on the wait list" (no wait list was EVER mentioned to us, only that it was open seating) and when she came back she continued shouting to get us to move. I got up before she could finish her tirade and took the kids outside to avoid them being embarrassed or feeling harassed and left my husband to it. The kids were so miserable outside in the cold (we had already waited 40 minutes on our food) that my husband went back inside to ask about the wait time for our meals and was told it would be another hour or more before the food came out. Exasperated and beyond livid, we demanded a refund for our meals, and the lady who had shouted at us initially refused to refund the money, but when my husband raised his voice as she did to him, she quickly refunded it and we paid for the two beers we were served and left. All in all, it was an absolutely dismal experience. We frequent the traverse city area numerous times a year and I can attest to the fact that there are SO MANY better, friendlier, more WORTH IT breweries out there than this one. The awful parking, lack of preparedness for the winter, 1.5 hours for food (and it was just a couple of sandwiches and fries at that!) and unprofessional manager makes this...

Since I began planning my family’s vacation to the Traverse City area, I had Sleeping Bear Dunes and Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor as my top 2 places to visit. I was excited that a seat was available on a busy afternoon and was okay with the 1 to 1.5 hr wait once our food order was placed even ordering appetizers, because the menu items had products available for purchase incorporated and based on the number of people eating there and picking up take out, it had to be delicious food and worth the wait, right?! Wrong! All 3 items were not good - the pulled pork sandwich had the flavor and consistency of a sloppy Joe, the cherryaki chicken lettuce wraps were so small to be considered an appetizer and lacked any cherry or teriyaki flavoring, and the cherry chicken salad wrap while okay had no flavor except for the celery giving it a little flavor and a very minimal amount of cherries.

I gave the service 2 stars because the manager offered our dog some water and got him a take out dish to use as a water bowl. Also, we were able to get a good table in a corner. At the end of the meal, a server (ours changed several times) asked how our meals were and I was honest. When customers share honest feedback, it should be acknowledged and some type of service recovery should be done. The server just blamed the disappointing meal on the wait time, which was not the problem. If the food was good/great, we would have been okay with having waited. To have genuine feedback swept under the rug really goes to show the place is fine with attracting crowds and delivering poor service and low quality meals.

The Glen Arbor campus in general is good if you want to shop for Cherry Republic products and visit the winery and pop area, and aren’t there to eat. This place is a tourist trap. Such a disappointing experience on a first time visit...

We stopped in Glen Arbor to eat and do some shopping after going to Sleeping Bear and hiking. We got to sit right away if we sat outside at a picnic table (also, no other tables accommodated our family of 6). So we chose an octagon picnic table near the play area, big mistake. The play things are steel and loud (read: annoying) and our kids kept wanting to play on them, so we kept having to shout at them to get off things they were too big for (because the equipment it really meant more for 3-5 year olds). The system for ordering food/drink was pretty smooth, use a QR code and scan and it brings up a shopping list you can add your order in. You can add to the list any time during your visit and they bring stuff right out to you. We ordered cherry lemonade (yummy), black cherry soda (meh), cherry chicken salad wraps (yummy) and whatever the kids ordered and ate. My husband thought he added a sandwich to the list but he didn’t, so I went back in and ordered him one after our food came out and it was out in less than 4 minutes. He had ordered chili so at least he had something to munch on. If we go back here, we won’t be sitting where we did. But other than that, right in the heart of shopping and cute gardens and grounds. Worth stopping...