Butch's Dry Dock — Restaurant in Holland

My 3 1/2 year-old daughter was flipping through the Shoreline magazine and picked Butch's for dinner. We like her, so we decided to go with her choice. Unfortunately, she fell asleep on the ride to Butch's, so she was in quite a "mood" when we arrived and I had to take her out for a walk. After promising her ice cream after dinner she calmed down and was able to rejoin us at table.

The restaurant is split into two spaces: a casual pub and a fine-dining front of house. We were seated in the casual pub because the front of house was reserved for a special group. The casual pub was just that "casual." The menu is the same regardless of where you are seated. The table-top for four people was too small and there were lots of extras taking up precious space.

The hostess (Paige) was great, she was great on the phone, suggesting that we make a reservation, and she was great in-person, actually, other than the food, she made our visit pleasant and enjoyable.

Our food was great, our 3 1/2 ate for free (a three-cheese quesadilla) and the bread was tasty (if a bit hard) and our water glasses were filled. We are simple folks who enjoy good food and we weren't disappointed. My wife ordered the filet which was cooked to perfection-juicy and full of favor. She had a slightly overdressed house salad as well. I had a half-portion of the spinach salad with mandarin oranges, goat cheese, almonds, and beets with an orange dressing. It was divine, but I like oranges (it tasted a bit like an orange cream soda, but I wasn't complaining) and for my meal I ordered the lobster quesadilla from the appetizers menu, which was perfect (except for the crispy tortilla, which I wasn't expecting, but got over quickly). We didn't order any wine, but I'm sure we would have received an excellent recommendation.

The major drawback from our visit was our server, I didn't meet her when she came to the table, but my wife reported that she had to flag her down in order to place our orders. She delivered our meals and our check and that was it. Another server actually picked up the check and credit card. I understand we were in the cheap seats, but we were paying the same price as the front of house. I expected the same level of service as the front of house, if they wanted to discount the food prices, I'm would gladly lower my expectations. Same menu, same prices, same level of service, but you may disagree.

My wife and I enjoy a great meal, but sometimes we wonder if most families stiff the servers, resulting in subpar service and attention. Despite the lack of service, I decided to leave the expected tip for our meal, but I wanted to reward the hostess, who was the standout during our visit, so I asked to speak to the manager. I passed along my disappointment with the service, gave him cash to give to the hostess and was ready to go. He asked me to wait a moment and returned with a gift card and an invitation to return and try again. Good for us, as we are in town for another 8 days. We are excited to give them another chance and enjoy...

We ate at Butch's tonight and I have to give it a 3. We had a large party and the overall concenus was that it was over priced. There were some bright spots, and some disappointments. I would give it a 1-2 because of the owners smug attitude and the lack of quality control, but others in our party enjoyed the overall experience, the atmosphere and even the food.

Disappointments: Lamb: Overcooked and had to be sent back for the member of our party who is a chef. Fortunately, they took it back without question and made it right. Accidents happen. Once done correctly, it was decent. . . but not $30+ decent.

Fish Tacos: Three people ordered this. All remarked it was over seasoned. One person could only stomach one of the three tacos, another person could only stomach two, and the third member of our party - also a chef, would not eat a whole one. We were warned by the wait staff that this dish "had a bite," but it simply was over seasoned. On a bright note, the chef who couldn't finish one was not charged for the dish. However, the owner of the place, Butch, smugly told another member of the party that we were TOLD it was spicy. Hey Butch: how about some quality control. Have your chef's test the food before it goes out. You are over-seasoning the fish tacos. Take note and make the change and apologize. . . don't act smug. We are the customer - we are right.

Muscles: Spicey. . . almost too spicey

Chicken: It was okay. $27 okay. . . ? Not sure we can justify a yard bird chicken breast at that price, but we were, after all, downtown at Butch's.

Bright Spots:

The Caesar salad was amazing. The Expresso Butter on the rolls was a nice suprise. The personal attention from the owner of the restaurant was a pleasant touch too. . . until the end when he got a bit smug.

Those that had scallops, burgers, appitizers, crab cakes all said their dishes were fine. Not cost justifiable, but acceptable.

Butch's had a nice selection of wine and beer.

Finally, the wait staff did a great job of handling a large party, was timely in providing refills, replacing empty roll baskets, replacing missing silverware before the entre was served, etc. Serious Kudos to the wait staff.

Overall 3. . . .considering it is downtown. I suspect, with all of the awards they have on display, we just caught them on a bad day.

PS. They offered to comp the fish tacos. . . we didn't have to ask. That was really...

Had never dined here before and thought celebrating a 30th birthday was the best occasion to try out Butch’s, but we never got to try anything.

We arrived at our reservation time (7:15) and was promptly seated at a wonderful table near the windows for our party of 2. The hostess told us to enjoy and that our server “Nicki” would be right with us.

My husband and I sat at our table for almost 25 minutes and not a single person from the staff came over once to greet us or take even a drink order from us. We sat watching one server (assuming this was Nicki) attend to two tables (both couples) directly next to us the entire 25 minutes. She never once looked over in our direction. We were completely ignored and to be frank, it felt VERY intentional. The restaurant was completely empty besides us and the two other tables.

Before it can be defended that the TWO small tables were too much for her to be able to provide us any service…. One of the tables had already finished their entrees and the other had already settled their bill.

The server absolutely had time to serve us. It was a completely disappointing and frustrating way to celebrate a birthday.

To top it off, as we were leaving the hostess (one of two of whom were present at the time of our check-in) thanked us for dining with them and to have a great night. Clearly no one was paying attention or cared enough about us as customers.

We will NEVER be back or support this business or Taco Bar. No wonder there are rumors of this place looking to sell. Hopefully the next owner will have staff that cares about every single customer and realizes that their staff is literally preventing people from supporting this business and giving them money. Especially when people are coming in to celebrate special occasions and looking to spend more money than the average customer.

Butch: you are better than this. Whoever you had serving your dining room on Thursday night (April 6) is doing your business a complete disservice and making a joke of your name. We used to hear amazing things about this place....