Bonfire at The Continental Fire Co. — Restaurant in Houghton

I never write reviews, but this was just so extreme I felt I had to at least let the company know. If I could rate this zero stars, I would.

I called and made a reservation for 6:45 on a Friday and they told us that they had availability and would get us in. We got there (10 minutes early on our part) but they were able to seat us right away, which we were thankful for. The hostess, who was new, was still learning the layout of the restaurant and after some searching, finally was able to lead us to our table. Absolutely no problem with that, she was very sweet and fun and appreciated her communication. A few minutes later, a waiter took our drink and appetizer orders. About 5 minutes later she came back and took our meal orders. Drinks and appetizer came roughly 15 minutes later. We order the brisket poutine, which was absolutely phenomenal. But then, we rarely got checked up on and we were waiting for almost two hours for our main courses to arrive. I had to get up and ask another hostess to check our order status at the hour and 15 minute mark. While we waited, we listened to a pretty good band, but their music was WAY too loud. I could barely hear the conversation that was happening at my table. We finally asked to moved upstairs shortly after asking our ETA on food.

I think they may have been catering an event at the same time on this Friday night, so I understood maybe having a little more of a wait. But 2 hours was way to long. We had our puppy waiting in the car for the whole time, and my dad had to go down and make sure he was doing okay at 8:30 when we received word that it will still be another 15 minutes before we would get our food. On another bad note, the waitress asked if she could get us any drinks while we waited, and all of us had thought she meant she would comp free drinks for our troubles. But when we received our bill, we were charged for the one drink we asked for.

We finally got our food at 8:43 and the food was not ideal. My dad ordered medium-rare on his steak, and as you can see by that picture, it it dang near well done. My brother, who we were visiting for the parent weekend for Michigan tech students, who was also incredibly excited to get steak, also receive and over cooked steak, in his picture you can see that it is medium, when he asked for medium rare. Obviously not nearly as big as a deal, but still not great. I also got the street corn as a side, and it was so full of cheese that it had a horribly dusty texture mouth feel and tasted even worse. After waiting near two hours for food, this was really disappointing.

I don't know if they lost our ticket or what, but I am incredibly disappointed with our whole experience. If a business can't handle catering and having an open restaurant at the same time, they should only have one open at a time. At the very least, it would have been nice if the hostess or waitress would have let us know about the long waits. Additionally, they kept making excuses for why everything sucked and the wait was so long. It would have just been nicer to hear them own up and just say "I'm sorry, we are sorry, we screwed up."

The only thing they ended up doing was comping out the well done steak and giving us another excuse filled apology. We all wished we had asked for the whole meal to be comped, becuase our whole experience after our appetizer was horrendous. We ended up paying just over $200 WITH the comped steak. Absolutely ridiculous.

Oh also, another side note, my brother said that the food was comparable to dorm food. So that really sucked to hear from him, as we were trying to get him a special dinner as a treat for having to deal with dorm food.

So, in the end, I really really do not recommend eating here as a restaurant. Really...

Horrible service. This was my second visit to the Bonfire, and I had hoped it wouldn't be as bad as the first. It was my birthday and a milestone celebration, but this meal was anything but celebratory. We waited over an hour for our food (there were three in our party), even though we arrived as soon as the restaurant opened on a Saturday evening at 5pm with plans to then attend a concert at the Rosza, which began at 7 and whose location was less than 5 minutes away, thinking we had plenty of time. Wrong! We were the second table to be seated, and the other table had two persons in their party. I don't know why management in this establishment and its workers are so deplorable. I ordered the steak bite pasta, one friend had a salad, and the other had fish. We were largely ignored, never given a reason for the huge delay on our order, never offered drink refills, and did not receive any discount for the horrible service. I later heard from a woman I met in the restroom that two other small parties who were upstairs celebrating birthdays were getting all the priority and attention, even though both of our parties arrived before them. This woman and her group of five other women sat at the table next to ours and waited even longer for service after having arrived about ten minutes after us. They had yet to receive their food when we left at 6:40 to get to the concert. They were heading to the same event, and I finally saw them arrive at the concert well after it had begun. I cannot understand why this establishment (Julie) cannot offer better hospitality and customer service.

Food was okay but cold and tasted like stroganoff and not the Alfredo it was proported to be. Disappointing all around.

As to my first visit, it was for the 2024 Easter Brunch, which was also an epic failure on behalf of restaurant management/owner and staff. Oh wait, there wasn't any staff save one person who seemed to be overseeing the kitchen and the entire buffet, including the carving station. We arrived around noon after church, and many of the buffet dishes were empty or running low. When I inquired if more would be coming soon, no one seemed to know anything, including the incompetent manager. Who advertises a buffet and doesn't ensure there are enough workers or food?

Not worth the time, money, or effort on any occasion. Plenty of better establishments in the local area with better food, better prices, and far more excellent service. I won't be returning. If I could give zero stars for food and service, I would.

The one plus is the atmosphere, but that really isn't...

It was over a 2 hour wait for our food and it was only mildly busy. When our food finally arrived all 3 of our meals were incorrect in some way. Other two parties one did not get their side of street corn and one got their street corn but not sauce with it. I did not receive garlic Parmesan fries that I ordered with my burger. Informed the waitress she said she’d be right back with our items it took her another half hour to return with the side of street corn which also had no sauce and my fries. When she returned she brought clearly visible not fully fried sweet potato fries. I informed her they were wrong again and the other two parties still had not received their sauce for the street corn. Waitress said she’d be right back. It was another half hour before she returned again. When she returned again she finally brought the sauces but again brought clearly visible not fully cooked PLAIN fries. I told her they were wrong again. I ordered garlic Parmesan fries. She said she’d go have them make me new ones. I asked her not too I waited too long already and my burger was finished, if she could just comp my bill instead. She said sure and went and got our bills. When she handed me my bill she had comped 5, 30ish cent charges to make it look like she comped a large amount off my bill. The total amount taken off my bill was $1.47. She then took our cards and ran them. When she returned our cards, I looked at my charge receipt and the number she had taken off my bill had dropped magically to $1.40. Incredibly horrible service, ridiculously long wait, and mediocre food. I’m upset my time and money were thoroughly wasted. I will not recommend this place to anyone nor ever go there again. It should also be noted while we had to sit there for a total of over 3 hours. We only had a small water carafe which we had to ask the waitress twice for her to fill because she repeatedly would walk by our table. The two times she did fill it, it was just warm tap water. There was no ice in the carafe let alone our cups. All I can say is I am thoroughly disgusted. Only taking off $1.40 for messing up my order 3 times and making me wait over 2 hours for incorrect food is insulting. You may as well have just declined to take anything off my bill. If this is “fine dining” then that...