Palmer's Steakhouse — Restaurant in Hartland

My wife took me to the Palmer’s Steakhouse in Hartland for a nice birthday dinner. Didn’t work out so well. Had a 4:30 reservation but arrived early around 4:10. Despite the restaurant being basically empty with staff standing around doing nothing they wouldn't seat us at table; made us sit at the bar for a half hour. We got seated at a high-top table in the bar area, as opposed to a table in the dining room which we had reserved. Was not a good experience. Was much to crowded and noisy in the bar area to try and enjoy a nice (and expensive) meal. Got bumped several times by a waiter trying to make his way past our table to a table behind us. Meals were poor. Salad lettuce was very limp, of poor quality. I was very hungry so I ate mine. My wife picked at hers a bit, but didn't like it and pushed it away. She had also asked for crumpled blue cheese, which arrived more like grated parmesan, almost like a powder as opposed to crumpled bits. Disappointing. The steaks arrived, my porterhouse and her ribeye, along with a baked potato for each of us. I had ordered my steak medium-well, and my wife had ordered hers medium rare. The steaks arrived opposite, as mine was bloody and still very red on the inside. Hers was thoroughly cooked, moreso than she would have liked. Either the waiter wrote down our order wrong, or the kitchen got the steaks mixed up. I ate a couple bites off the edge of my steak that were more thoroughly cooked, and then left the rest; too bloody for my taste. My wife picked at hers a bit, but then also stopped. Disappointed. Waiter checked on us, noting that we weren't eating much. I showed him my blood red steak that was supposed to be medium well. He pulled out a small flashlight from his pocked to illuminate my steak and see for himself. He was apologetic and offered to take the steak back to the kitchen to cook it further, or even to have a new steak made for me. I declined, as I was frustrated enough to begin with, and didn't want to make our experience last even longer. I also have a fear of what kitchen staff might do to a meal when a customer sends it back so I really didn't want to risk it. My porterhouse was decently sized, and moderately thick, however my wife’s ribeye was paper thin. The steaks were to come with mushrooms on them. I got four. They were not full mushrooms, just the caps. One cap was about the size of a nickel, the other three the size of a dime. LOL I decided to take my steak home and cook it further the next day. I did eat my potato as I was still hungry; My wife picked at her potato a bit but didn't eat it. She also didn't like the sour cream and horse radish sauces that were provided. We asked our waiter to box our take-home. The bar was very crowded by this time, and very loud, more traffic constantly walking past our table from the front door / host station to the dining room. The restrooms were also near the front of the establishment, so diners needed to make their way past the bar crowd and past our table to get to them. Not a good experience, especially when you're spending so much on a meal. Before we left, waiter was kind enough to bring a (complimentary) piece of red-velvet cake, a cup of ice-cream, and a brownie with a small sparkler stuck in it. It was a birthday gift for me, as well as a bit of an apology for the poor meal we received. He lit the sparkler which burned for about 10 seconds before going out. It drew the attention of the bar customers who all turned to look; really didn't need that. We ate the dessert, it was good and we were both still hungry. I'd write more, but there's a char...

I’d give less than two stars, except that wouldn’t be fair to the nice hostess, our actual server, the chefs, and two nice bartenders. All scores docked b/c of terrible experience created by management.

Thought we’d give this place a try. My wife & I arrived 5-10 min. early for a special date. We were seated in the annex overlooking the creek by the time of our reservation. Beautiful! Until I realized I was sitting under a small cheap Wal-Mart type plastic table that folds in half and I would use only to serve food at a cookout. “Somewhat” sturdy but absolutely no leg room b/c of the large angular metal braces supporting the folding table’s legs. All with an unwanted and unnecessary space heater taking up more valuable limited space. How many thou$and$ spent for the annex and you have me literally squished under cheap plastic table with ZERO leg room obscured by nice cloth linen? The pillows stuffed in b/t the beams for insulation of the roof’s overhang was an “interesting” touch as well. I’d be proud of my kid if they did that to their college house, I guess.

Before we could even settle our $350 tab (over-priced yet nice dinner for two w/ overpriced wine plus tax & tip), we were literally evicted from our spot so they could keep putting butts in seats. We weren’t dawdling, ate as things as they were brought to us, and then…EVICTED. Yes, evicted. All before settling our tab and finishing up, which would have taken 5-10 more minutes at most.

Food - excellent; “dining experience” - absolutely TERRIBLE. Cheapness of the pillows and folding table aside, “The manager” didn’t have the basic courtesy or courage to talk to us - after CONSTANT peering in our direction while we ate b/c we were clearly “on a clock”. And then sending the server to “suggest” it was time for us to be done (repeatedly had someone else do his dirty work). “Mr. Manager” STILL didn’t bother to talk to us after we were forced to relocate to the bar to finish our drinks and settle our dinner tab.

Never, in 30+ years of dining out, have I ever been treated so poorly and been evicted from a seat/table. The cowardly passive-aggressive manner this manager operated was amazing - wouldn’t even make himself available for a simple conversation. I also certainly never sat under a Wal-Mart type folding table at a nice restaurant looking at pillows used for insulation, either.

Management clearly has more concern in creating the illusion of a nice dining experience (and the next customer), rather than the actual customer and their dining experience. I cannot recommend this place to anyone and will NEVER go back. There are so many better steak houses who truly value their customers, go out of their way to create (and actually provide) an enjoyable dining experience, all while charging less in...

I made reservations for our anniversary. We were in the heated, enclosed deck area. Unfortunately as soon as we walked through the doors onto the deck we were blasted with heat. To make matters worse we were seated directly under a massive radiant heater that was blowing HOT heat directly onto us and our table. We could not even focus on anything other than the fact that we were literally burning up. Another couple across from us agreed it was ridiculously hot in there. Our kids cheeks were bright red and they were complaining. I should note, it was 40 degrees outside that day. Thankfully after kindly pointing out twice how uncomfortable we were, our server got the manager over to us. He basically told us there was nothing he could do about it. He stated they were booked up with reservations. A short time later the manager returned and stated he could move us to a different table in the dining room, but we had to be out by 6:00 for the next reservation. It was 5:00. We moved out of desperation. We felt like such a burden. Our server’s demeanor changed like he was so annoyed.

Lo and behold our food was fantastic. They even brought out a little anniversary desert which was kind. However, after being moved everything seemed rush because we were on the time crunch to be out. We were never offered more drinks or the desert menu. Sadly being our anniversary and seeing other people’s deserts I would have liked to have taken something to go.

Thankfully our food was good and worth the money. Unfortunately the experience was not great. They did make the attempt to fix the situation but they made it very clear it was a nuisance to them. To be honest I think anyone that works there should try to sit in the original spot we were placed. I cannot imagine we were the first people nor will we be the last to have...