CraftCo Distillery & Social House — Restaurant in Holland Charter Township

Review is for the Holland location that recently re-opened after adding a kitchen. I would rate this location a 4/5 prior to the addition of the kitchen, unfortunately it's borderline insulting now. Positives The food was decent as far as taste. Nothing remarkable but at least not bad? Waiter was friendly enough. Drink was very good (I really do like their spirits). Negatives No exaggeration; they were pretty full and I counted 25 customers. I then counted 13 staff members. Obviously I wouldn't complain about being well-staffed, except somehow they weren't. Only one guy was making drinks, so my cocktail took almost exactly 10 minutes to arrive while waiters talked to each other. I have trouble imagining a less-efficient use of employees but I'm not really that creative so I guess that's on me. They serve water in little glasses that must be about 6 oz. They provide a bottle to refill water with so that's not a huge issue, except the water is room temp. The glasses couldn't really hold ice I guess due to the size unless they crushed the ice, and the water bottle was an empty liquor bottle so it probably couldn't hold ice either so it does makes sense. I mean it's not practical at all and you end up with room temp water but it's got a hipster vibe to it so that's what they went with. Drinks were pricey. I estimate I'd spend at least $50 to feel even the least bit intoxicated and that's being very conservative. Just bring a middle-class friend along and they can DD since they'll run out of money before they drink enough to blow a .08. My cheeseburger was $12. It came with a handful of fries, and the burger itself was about the same size as a hockey puck in circumference, not as thick though. You'd be fuller from $3 worth of burgers from McDonalds (for real though, two double cheeseburgers would be more food than the burger I was served). I wasn't even asked how I'd like it prepared, apparently they just default cook it to medium. Personally, for a $12 burger I expect to be asked how I'd like it cooked. Location is pretty bad. Not really even close to anything else bar-wise. This is only a con because after a half hour in there you'll undoubtedly be ready for a new bar or another place to eat a second dinner. Music was bad. It was sounded like a skin-flick on Cinemax or something. This might be a positive though since it's entertaining music when the backdrop is a trying-too-hard hipster bar (or a skin-flick of course). This is my first review I've ever done. I was so disappointed I felt compelled to. Used to really like this place; still like their booze but would never consider eating here again, I can't believe they closed for 5+ months to add such a lame menu. Spent $35 on food for three non-obese adults and all three of us went out to eat afterwards. I will say this though, if you like good liquor and don't mind paying a pretty hefty premium then you shouldn't be disappointed, but I recommend just getting a bottle to go if...

Came for a tour/tasting, had cocktails, and stayed for dinner. I'll review each separately below. Brief version: Tour was amazing, food was good, drinks were ok, service could be better. Tour/tasting: 5/5 stars. Tour guide was Travis, and he made the tour informative and enjoyable. Very open about the process of distilling their spirits, talked about sourcing, and was able to answer everyone's questions. The tour includes a tasting of the gin, Applejack, straight bourbon, and rye whiskey. I'll write more about the spirits below, but the tasting included our taster glasses, which we got to take home. For $5, I'd highly recommend the tour as a fun thing to do! You have to book online in advance, but the online process is easy to use. Dinner: 4/5 stars. Food was reasonably priced, but there are definitely better places to eat in Holland. Nothing was bad, and everyone at the table enjoyed their food, but it wasn't really great like we've had at other places around town. Also, the tacos could use a side; they just come with three fairly small tacos, and it wasn't much food. Cocktails/spirits: 3/5 stars. The cocktails are very pricy here. Between the four of us, we ended up trying several things off the menu, but several cocktails are more expensive than food items, and I don't know if it was worth that much. Any neat pour of a spirit was $15 for 2oz, which is pretty steep. As for the spirits, I enjoyed the gin and Applejack quite a bit, and the whiskies were OK for me. I'm a whiskey drinker, and I found the straight and blended bourbons to be decent middle of the road options, at a craft price. Currently, they're blending sourced whiskey with their own distilled stuff, and it's good, but there was nothing about it that made me feel compelled to get a bottle for my shelf. The rye tasted pretty young to me, so it might improve some as they're able to let some stock age longer. In comparison, my father-in-law is not a whiskey drinker, and he seemed to like the drinks much more than I did. Service/overall vibe: 2/5 stars. Our tour guide was great, but the rest of the service was lackluster at best. We waited almost 10 minutes to order a cocktail before the tour, and it took probably about that long to order drinks once we sat down for dinner after the tour. Our server rarely came by the table, and neither the server nor the bartender seemed overly friendly, like they could care less that we were there. I feel old saying this, but almost every employee looked to be 25 or younger, and maybe there needed to be a more experienced/assertive manager in the place. On the bright side, that's an easy thing to address...

We had a GREAT visit on Wednesday 9/19/18. We originally had booked a distillery tour on Thursday, but are schedule changed. They couldn't reschedule us for Wednesday on such short notice. We started our dinner off with a great pretzel appetizer. We had the cheeseburger and fish tacos, both were great! Even better than the food was the service. The waitress and bartender were very nice. The manager went above and beyond. He not only refunded our tour fees, but he took us on a impromptu tour. It was real interesting learning the history and seeing how Coppercraft does there Distillery operations. I highly recommend a visit! We also enjoyed visiting there tasting room in Saugutuck, MI. We should have went...