Sportsman Inn — Restaurant in Indiana

Started OK, ended badly We've been here a few times and loved the view but thought it was average otherwise. In the area and decided to stop for dinner. So we arrived on Fri about 8pm. Ordered pork medallions and mashed potatoes (side of french onion) and asked if we could get Country Penne with alfredo instead of red sauce. No problem, we were told. Great. Ordered New England Clam Chowder as the side. Soup arrived. Excellent. Loved them both. All good so far. Dinners arrived. Hmm. Pork medallions a little dry and mashed potatoes OK, nothing special. Veggie medley very nice. Country Penne (with Alfredo) looks and smells amazing. Thoroughly enjoying the flavors, but getting down to the plate LOTS of grease. Like everything was swimming in grease once the food wasn't covering it anymore. Not great. Flavors good but SO SO greasy now near end of meal. Couldn't finish because it was just too gross with grease. Not huge deal, full anyway. Ok the bill arrives. Now, I had asked about subbing alfredo sauce and was told no problem. Country Penne is $14.29 on the menu. Here's where it went south for us. The bill says Fettucine Alfredo with 6 lines of modifications. See Photo. Total price of my Country Penne - $18.49. WTH? Asked server (Olivia) to explain. She couldn't. Said something about $2 upcharge for Alfredo. Whatever. Upcharge not explained but that's still not right. She fumbled and mumbled and said her manager said that's how she should ring it in. She said she'd get her manager. Expecting a professional mature manager to arrive, up walks Matt. Flannel looking shirt and jeans. Really? OK whatever, let's hear the explanation. So, he points to the hanging menu next to our table and starts saying something about the Country Penne being $14.29 and if we added a side of Alfredo it would be $2 extra. Something like that. I said, yeah but you didn't bring a side of alfredo, you substituted so you saved the cost of your red sauce. He didn't get it. I said, OK that detail aside, $14.29 and $2 is NOT $18.49. Yeah, not even close. So I hear him out and he mumbles and fumbles pointing at the menu and the bill and making no sense at all about upcharge and alfredo sauce and adding sausage and so much nonsense I just had to interrupt him and say just forget it. Did he do the right thing and take off a couple bucks? Nope. He just slinked away not knowing the proper way to handle it. Inexperienced? Yep, clearly. There was no justification for that overcharging and he knew it. It was so dumb I couldn't believe he stuck by his guns that this was the right thing to do. Oh well, we paid the bill and left. But we sure won't be back. This was the we'll-give-it-one-more-chance visit. So--- overall review. Great view, best in the county. Average food, policy of overcharging for minor substitutions, and inexperienced management that doesn't know how to handle customer issues of...

While visiting a few wineries in the area we did a little research on places to eat in Monticello and chose the Sportsman Inn. They have done a very good job with arranging the dinning room to accommodate social distancing by spacing the tables appropriately and hanging large copies of the menu (approx 5ftx3ft) between the tables, very clever. There is also a QR code on each table that will take you directly to their online menu, also very clever. When ordering you get choice of soup or salad. I asked what salads were available and choose the Caesar and without missing a beat our server tells me there is an "up-charge" of $1.70 for the privilege. Not cool. I cannot recall if I have ever ordered a salad as part of my entree and been told that there would be an up-charge for some choices but not others. Stunned, I conceded to the perceived trickery. I ordered the bacon wrapped double pork chop that came with the option of French fries, mashed or baked potato. I opted for the mashed but was told they had not been made yet, plan B was French Fries. Before our meal arrived, I asked, if it was not too late, if I could have onion rings instead of French fries. I was told that would not be a problem....wait for it....."for an up-charge"! I asked how much and she went to find out. Maybe it was the look on my face initially because when she came back around to refill our waters, I asked for the up-charge price and she said " I got you". My meal arrived with onion rings! I opted to omit the bleu cheese dressing and was worried I would need it if the chops were dry. Thankfully, both ended up to be perfectly cooked and juicy from start to finish; they were damn near perfect. The onion rings and "house veggies" shared the plate and though they were good, they were not great. Both, in my opinion, were woefully under seasoned. And in regard to the onion rings this was especially disappointing because, besides that, they were some of the best onion rings I have had in a long time; nice meaty slices of onion and very well breaded. Overall, the great service by Brittany and delicious Bloody Mary made it a win. A big enough win for us to return? Eliminating up-charges would certainly help make that...

I recently parked my camper out here to enjoy what Lake Shafer has, and this weekend we were celebrating our nieces Golden Birthday. Seating was super quick. Our server was nice but also KEPT telling us about her large party she was dealing with on the deck and how she was overwhelmed and would do her best. We were seated in the back with large windows facing the beautiful lake and showing us the deck, of the large party of like 11 people. Appetizers were great, mozzarella balls and nachos. We only waited 15 minutes for starters, But we waited over an hour and 40 minutes to our entrées. Fried fish and Ruben sandwich looked amazing. Unfortunately our guests were just leaving when the food arrived. Salmon was a white, flat, tilapia looking fish with black pepper. Chicken on the chicken parm was moist but very, very bland. Pizza looked great, but I didn't get to taste it. We were served wrong sides twice. The Italian wedding soup was so bland!! Little, way-overcooked dot noodles and sausage literally tasted like canned soup, but no seasoning even on the spicy sausage chuncks that were the texture of meatballs in a can of spaghetti O's. Side of onion rings were amazing but not brought out fresh and serving size was crazy. I would settle for smaller portions and fresh food that doesnt waste half my Saturday evening. The great things about this place just don't make up for the fails. Also I didn't mention the yelling about flies from the staff in the kitchen or the flatness of the sodas. No Carbonation! The cocktails were also a huge bomb. No real bartender on staff, I'm guessing. The margarita was the only drink made ok. Stay away from the mules or fruity drinks. 50 dollars on drinks and most of them sat at the table when we were leaving. Not typical for my...