Little Joe's Tavern — Restaurant in Grand Blanc

We were sat and not greeted by wait staff (to greet us and take a drink order) for a 15 solid minutes. We stayed because the reviews were good and they were at the tail end of a rush. Unfortunately, we should have left.

There were 5 of us in our party and not one of us had good food. Although I could detail everyone's issues, I'll stick to just what I had at this moment. The appetizer of pretzel bread was burnt on the bottom and that flavor carried into every bite. My salad was a bowl of lettuce with ONE grape tomato and ONE slice of cucumber. So, a bowl of lettuce - sucked. Then my entrée came. I ordered the 'Joe's Mama's Pasta'. The description said "Spicy!" And included the description of "chicken, Italian Sausage, green peppers, banana peppers and red pepper flakes" over pasta. It had ZERO spice and the only flavor was BUTTER. Absolutely no spice, no heat, not even salt & pepper. It tasted like a bowl of butter (maybe olive oil...) with banana peppers and noodles. The chicken tasted like it wasn't seasoned at all and possibly came from the prepackaged, chunked chicken you buy for salads, but they heated it up, and it was sparse. There were more banana peppers than anything, even more than number of noodles. The sausage was sparse and hard/overcooked. I actually tipped my bowl and used my fork to strain the butter/oil (whatever that giant puddle was) onto the plate leftover from the appetizer.

Aside from that, it took 45 minutes from the time we ordered until our food arrived. One of us had ordered a Turkey wrap with fries and her food tasted like it sat under a heat light the entire time they prepped the other 4 dishes for our table. Her fries were limp and visibly old.

None of us had been here before and we all agreed nothing occurred which makes us want to...

Excellent atmosphere, interesting selection of beers, and especially amazing onion rings that were so flavorful even without dipping them in any sauces.

Our server was delightful, down to earth and super helpful. She answered all my questions on if any meat products aside from poultry or fish (I'm a pollotarian so I don't eat any red meat) went into their soup and even suggested some beers for my boyfriend to try based on his preferences.

The food came out almost too quickly and people stayed on top of busing our table of empty plates so it didn't clutter. We did go on an icy day so it was a little dead in there, but the people seemed so wonderful that I imagine they always try their best to get their customers the things they need as soon as possible.

As main courses, we tried their baked mac and cheese and blackened chicken alfredo. Both were delicious, which was especially surprising on the alfredo as I'm so used to finding most restaurant alfredo sauces to be flavorless, but their's offered a delightful taste that paired well with the spicy kick of the blackened chicken.

We ended our meal with the fried brownie ice cream, which was something I had never had before. Admittedly, I'm not much of a brownie person, eating them only on the rare occasion, but I really dug the fried brownies, which gave it a little something extra flavor wise when mixed with the vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.

Definitely will be going back and looking forward to trying more from...

I have to say that I was not impressed at all the last couple times my wife and I have visited.

This time we came in about 8:30pm on a Thursday to less than 10 tables with people at them. The reason this is important is because we waited at the front desk for about 5 minutes before even being greeted. Important to note that there were 3 waitresses standing at the carryout window just talking and one was on their phone until I finally flagged someone down so we could be sat.

Ordered drinks, talked for a little bit, and then ordered an appetizer. Waitress left, came back took our order, we waited another 6-7 minutes or so, and the appetizer AND the meal came out at the same time. A little irritating to say the least.

Looking over our meals, my chicken was undercooked, and my wife's sandwich she ordered it without a couple items of course came out with it on them. So had to send it back, have it remade, and wait again.

Asked for a manager, only to be told the manager already went home for the night and wasn't available.

So now, I get to call tomorrow, on my time, to let the manager know about the issues we had.

Not pleased to say the least, and a nice date night scarred by a restaurant I grew up going to on a regular basis.

Here's hoping they turn things around as it definitely isn't what it...