MacKenzie River Pizza Co. — Restaurant in Helena

I’m not one to usually leave bad reviews without giving the business an option to make it right, but this was an insane experience.

It started off with a 25 minute wait which was no big deal at all. When we get to our table, it was sticky. Also fine. Whatever. Not a huge deal. Things happen sometimes. We wait for someone to come greet us and I’m not kidding, we waited for about 10 minutes.

When someone finally does come to greet us, we got “what do you want to drink”. I’ve worked in the service industry before so I understand how tables can slip through the cracks, but I’ve never not had a “sorry for the wait” or “hi welcome in” or anything.

We give our drink order and our food order at the same time since we’ve had ample time with the menu. We wait another 20 minutes for our appetizer. In that time, our drinks had become empty so we set them at the edge of the table since we hadn’t seen our server since putting in our order. He dropped the appetizer at the table, over the drinks, and walked away so fast we didn’t even get a chance to ask for refills.

Not only that, but we didn’t get plates to share the appetizer with, napkins or silverware. My husband had to go ask the hostess since our server was nowhere to be found. That took about 3-4 minutes just waiting on them to grab some for us.

Our server comes by about 15 minutes later after we tried stopping him multiple times to refill our drinks. He said he’d get someone else to come refill them for us. She comes by about 5 minutes later and asks what we had to drink. We tell her, and she picks up our drinks (3 of them) and asks if we knew who had what. They had been sitting for so long at the edge of the table we had no clue so we told her we didn’t know.

She comes back with our drinks refilled with no new ice so it was all half melted, and in the same glasses. None of us knew if we were getting our original glass or not. So that was weird.

When our food came out, he dropped 2 of our meals off without a single word and came back with the 3rd about 5 minutes later. Didn’t ask if we needed anything and just took off again. We were not the only ones whose service was as being skimped on as the tables around us were also missing plates, napkins and silverware and waiting exceptionally long times for refills. All the tables and us kept making comments amongst ourselves.

I understand how being understaffed and busy can interfere with service, but there’s no excuse for the way we were treated today. We were paying customers, always tip well above 25% for good service and just couldn’t believe how much of a burden we felt...

Our server Donavan forgot to ring in our order as we were the first ones in the restaurant for the day and then proceeded to watch a seven and two four tops receive their order 15 minutes before ours despite us ( a 2 top) being seated and ordering before them. When I asked where the pizza was he stated there was a "big order" they had to take care of first and this was why we didn't see our food until late, and seemed to be in a hurry to get away from our table every time I had a question. He did not comp any food or drink even after acknowledging the wait time. I worked in food service for ten years and it is very obvious he forgot to send back our ticket to the kitchen. I have no problem with this if this is the explanation given when asked what the wait is for, but I have a hard time believing the reason he gave was truthful. Service was garbage this time around and I have been to Mac river many times. The 2nd star is because the kitchen did a wonderful job on the food itself, even though it was brought to the table with no plates or the side of ranch we had ordered (although this is not on the kitchen). Good food, very spotty service. I want to stay being a fan of this place but this service hampered the experience. Additionally he brought us a beer that we did not order, but at this point we decided to just drink (and pay for) rather than ask for it to be fixed. I love Mac River and I want to keep loving it, and I know help is scarce, but a simple service saving act (such as an honest explanation or a drink comp) would have saved the...

We were really disappointed in this location. We've been to other locations and haven't had bad food or service but this night we did. Right from when we walked in, the hostess was the opposite of warm & welcoming. The service was really slow & we think our server forgot to enter food. Our lodgepoles came out but no salad. About 15 min AFTER we were done our other starter, she brought the salad. All the salad was was lettuce in a bowl with a takeout container of dressing - they don't toss the salads anymore? And if that's all it was, why did it take so long? When our meal finally came out, it was disappointing too. First my salad came out (Thai salad) and again not tossed with dressing, just a takeout container of dressing on side. And then the pizza came later - again, I wonder if she forgot to enter it? The pizza looks like it got dropped and the ingredients were half slid off! We will likely never visit this location again. I've never had a bad experience at the Whitefish location. We also sat with our starter plates and dishes for a long time - the server had been to our table a few times & never took it. She would bring a new drink but leave the empty...