Walnut Creek Winery — Restaurant in Holt

Edited to add:

10/9/22 - I posted this same review on both Google & Facebook. Walnut Creek responded to my Facebook review today, 10/9/22. Walnut Creek responded, “Hi Liberty, thank you for your feedback. We had lines out the door on our opening night with so many people welcoming us to the community and excited to try our wine and food. We've been working on getting the kinks worked out as any restaurant does after their opening weekend and have found a good flow for our employees which in turn, makes the entire experience better for every customer. We are so happy and excited to be here in Holt and are grateful to be welcomed in by so many people around the area! We hope you'll give us another try!”

I then responded, “We walked right in. There were NOT “lines out the door” & there was plenty of seating. Only 6 tables, including our table, had guests seated - I have kindly attached a video to prove this. I fully expected & understood that employees may be stressed due to opening day, but we were put off by the numerous, simple, & easily solvable issues, which lead to our poor first impression. Based on the passive aggressive response to my review, it doesn’t seem as if anything I stated has changed for the better & that’s truly a shame; especially considering you were given the chance to receive constructive criticism & address the issues expressed. We wish you the best of luck! ☺️”

Walnut Creek responded, “In our above comment, we mentioned opening night. We have improved leaps and bounds since our opening weekend and look forward to our future here in Holt! Again, thank you for the feedback and we wish you the best as well! 🙂”

The video I attached to prove the seating situation, was taken at 5:17PM on 9/23 - I’d consider that opening night, but I refuse to continue arguing. It’s very obvious the owners refuse to take any accountability. It’ll be interesting to see how long they last with an attitude like this towards customers.

As I was updating my Google review with Walnut Creek’s response, I read 2 other negative reviews similar to mine, that were posted shortly before I updated this review. Unfortunately for Walnut Creek & fortunately for me, I’m not the only one that had a below par experience.

9/30/22 - After reading many positive reviews, I decided to write a review of our negative experience. We tried Walnut Creek on opening day, 9/23.

Upon entering, we weren’t greeted or acknowledged as we stood at the front door waiting for an employee to tell us where we could sit.

The atmosphere sounded like a cafeteria. All you could hear was equipment running & people talking. There wasn’t any music & none of the TV’s were on.

For the flights, you must go to the wine counter to try the drinks, instead of being able to leisurely try them at your table while waiting for your food to arrive.

As far as the beer flight goes, the male employee who brought the flight out, let us know that 2 out of 4 beers were going to be “somewhat” warm & flat - they were indeed.

We ordered a supreme pizza & weren’t impressed. We requested a side of ranch to dip our pizza into & were told they didn’t have any.

We were eager to have a new restaurant in our hometown of Holt, MO. I wish our experience was as positive as others, but unfortunately we won’t be back...

The wines were excellent, but they were overpriced compared to other local wineries. The pizza was good looking but very bland and overpriced-$22 for a cheese pizza). If I hadn't seen a large pizza oven, I would've thought it was frozen. The crust was tasteless to the extreme. The atmosphere was also lacking. We arrived to music and a good vibe. 10 minutes after we arrived (and had unfortunately ordered already), the large TV and projector were tuned to two different channels which were then turned up...and up .. and up .. and then down a bit but not so much as to give any reprieve from the commercials that then scream at you throughout your meal. Moreover, since they are on different channels, you get conflicting commercialism shoved down your throat alongside the bland pizza. We stopped here once on the way out of KC and once on the way back on a road trip. On the first stop, the server dumped an entire glass of water on my husband. It happens. We weren't too upset. In the return visit I asked a question about the hamburger in the pizza and the server replied, "I don't know, I just work here ". We assumed this was a joke, but it wasn't. He just stood there after offering no info starting at us and made no attempt to get an answer. Then he disappeared so long that we moved tables to (a) get away from the blaring TV and (b) hopefully get a decent server while he doesn't agree talking to a table of people he was clearly friends with. The second server was vastly better. The second stop was enough to convince me...

Wasn’t just bad service, we got no service.

Drove over from Excelsior Springs after this place was recommended. Pretty cool inside, and we sat down and ordered drinks. That was the last time the young man serving us came to the table. I finally got up and got our drinks off the bar, and the bartender apologized. But nothing got better. Our server stood and chatted with other staff, and after about 30 minutes I walked to the bar to pay for our drinks so we could head somewhere else for dinner since we clearly weren’t going to get fed here. I told the same bartender that were going to have to go somewhere else to eat. She apologized again, saying he’s not taking very good care of you. I said no, he hasn’t been back to our table once.

Just very disappointing since it was recommended, but I doubt we...