Golden Ox — Restaurant in Kansas City

My reasoning for the 3 star review. I will start by stating that I have lived in KC for 30 years and have never been to the Golden Ox until the other night. I made reservations online. I was contacted a few days later through Email to confirm my reservations. I was also asked if we would be celebrating a special occasion such as a birthday etc. I thought that was pretty cool and wrote actually yes it will be my wife's birthday. We arrive at the restaurant and go to where the hostess is to check in. I told her I had a reservation and gave her my last name, she looked down and said oh there you are. I was hoping that maybe there would have been a side note attached to the reservation stating that we were celebrating a birthday and perhaps she may have made mention of it. You know something along the lines of "Oh I see it is your wife's birthday today, thank you for choosing us for your dinner." That's all, nothing special, not asking for free stuff. As she was grabbing our menus I told her we had never been here before and we were celebrating a birthday. I received a very enthusiastic, "Oh" followed by "Your table is over here. ( can you feel my sarcasm?) That's all fine, but then why bother asking if we are celebrating anything when I make the reservations. It went downhill form there. We sat for 15 minutes before anyone came by our table to greet us. Now this was not a packed house on Saturday night with a skeleton crew busting their humps, that I can understand. We both worked in the service industry for a decade so we can recognize that. This was a Thursday and it was far from busy and I had made reservations a week prior. It took another 10 minutes after our water got filled for someone to come by and see if we wanted cocktails or appetizers, by then of course we were ready to order as we had almost a half hour to view the one page menu. We figured we better strike while the iron was hot because there was telling when we would see our server again. My wife ordered a small bowl of the ox soup. A bowl of soup was brought to us, mind you we had never been here but it did not look like what we thought the ox soup would look like. She took a couple bites and said that it tasted like mushrooms. We stopped another server that was walking past us and asked if this was the Ox soup to which she told us it was not, it was the mushroom potato soup. When our server happened to walk by we informed her that this was not the soup we had ordered. She remembered that we did indeed order the other soup and took that one away and returned several minutes later with the correct soup. The rest of the evening service wise was lackluster and that is being generous. The only reason I gave 3 stars and not 1 or zero is because the food was amazing. The steak and all the sides were on point. Everything was booming with flavor. My bill was almost 300 dollars for 2 people to eat. Now to some people that may not be much but to me that is a lot of money. I saved up for a place that would not only have good food but an amazing experience. I do not mind spending money on good food and good service. If I am spending that kind of money I expect the service to be on next level, like make me feel special. We are normally very very generous tippers even more so for extra good service, and while we did leave a tip because I don't believe in leaving nothing, it was much less than what some decent service would have bore. On a final note, when I did receive our bill, as our server was handing it to me she told me that she had, taken that soup off and was sorry about the mistake. I told her thank you but it was not necessary as I didn't want anything for free but I appreciated the gesture. Well the soup charge was on there. When i inquired about it she said ,"Oh I took the other one off." Oh thank you so much for not charging me for the soup I didn't order. That was the icing on the cake for me. Very low chance of being a return customer. The food was amazing though, I will give...

I'm giving the Golden Ox 5 stars, and here's a story of why. It's sort of a long read and it doesn't start off the greatest, that's for sure. We had reservations at 7, when we arrived a couple mins before 7, they told us the table wasn't quite ready. My gf and I went to the bar to have a drink, while we waited. At he bar, I was less than impressed by tender, I saw a bottle of Basil Hayden, and asked which one it was, he smart assly answered "Basil Hayden" in which I replied "they have several different types" he again smart assly answers and says "bourbon" at this point I was somewhat annoyed by him and just said, "I'll have it", even though it wasn't what I actually wanted. And come to find out later (after we sat and looked at the menu) that they actually have 2 types of Basil Hayden. Moving on.. We finally got sat at 730, 30 mins later than our reservation, not a huge deal except we have another reservation after dinner. We ordered the Oysters Rockefeller, which we both loved! They came out fairly fast and were delicious, and presented in a nice dish. At the same time of ordering the appetizer, we ordered dinner and to save some time and box carrying afterwards we decided to share the meal. We ordered the 10oz Haw Filet Sr, Sweet potato gruyere gratin, and roasted brussel sprouts. After we finished the oysters I ordered and other drink and we sat and waited for the main course.... The server was doing a good job of keeping an eye on us, and by almost 830 brings us some bread, kind of as a peace offering, she has a good attitude but is unsure what's taking the food so long. A few mins later the manager comes out and is very apologetic admits they cooked the steak wrong the first time, offers to take care of the meal and is extremely nice about it. I was patient and accept his apology but explain to him that we only have about 10mins left before we have to leave for our other reservation. While we are talking another server brings out our meal. Manager seems surprised, but me being thankful and starving says I'll take it. I cut into the meat we ordered med-rare, this steak was clearly rare. Manager offers to take it back and cook it some more. I'm tired of waiting for food and have to leave soon. I just tell him that we'll be fine , he is more than happy to take care of the meal still and offers desert too, in which we decline, as I don't want to have to leave a box in the car. All this being said, our server, and the manager were amazing! The fact that he came out and owned up to the problem says a lot about character to me. Also, I would have never knowingly ordered a steak this rare, but after biting into it, I didn't regret it! This was one of THE BEST steaks I have ever had. Melt in your mouth tenderness, and unbelievable flavor. I was so enamored in the steak and it's flavor, that I all but overlooked the side dishes, which were delicious as well. After saying all this i gave a 5 star review not because I was let down by the bartender, as he seemed less than enthused the pour me a drink or the fact that we got seated so late after our reservation time. Mainly because, The server and manager are awesome! And, It's damn good food!! I will definitely be back to Golden Ox and will definitely review it again. I am happy they opened it back up and was able to leave the old school class. Give this place a shot, and be patient, I'm sure they are still working out some...

This was genuinely one of the absolute worst dining experiences I have ever had. If I could give a negative stars rating I most definitely would.

We had a late reservation for my 40th birthday and were excited to try this place out. Our server was very absent from the get go. When we told her it was my first time she didn’t have a spiel to explain the restaurant. We already had a bottle of wine from the bar so no need to discuss beverages. We asked some questions about the menu, such as what steaks in your menu are prime and how long are they dry aged? Both questions are server had zero knowledge on. So we ordered a shrimp cocktail while we waited. The cocktail came well before our server returned with answers. It was disappointing to say the least. On the menu they serve add on jumbo shrimp for your steaks, so one would assume the shrimp cocktail were made with the same shrimp. This is not the case as the shrimp served were tiny, over cooked and dry. Dry like when you leave something in the refrigerator overnight without covering it. Local grocery stores sell better shrimp cocktail. When are server came back we told her about the shrimp not tasting very good. No response, apology or action on her part. Onto the answers we asked for on the steaks. She wanted to know which ones we were interested in and we said all of them. She seemed put off by this and then agreed to go down the menu and that the steaks were dry aged 21 days. Most of the steaks weren’t prime. And when you compare the prices to the quality of meat served it was alarming. We decided on the 30 oz drover ribeye for $115. I would have went larger but I was already skeptical of ordering a pricier steak. We also had sides of mushrooms, mashed potatoes and bordelaise sauce. We waited a normal amount of time for food, during which time we had to prompt our server for bread. Service was continuing to drop, as she couldn’t be bothered to pour refills on the wine. The food came and it was piss poor to be honest. A $115 steak was sitting in front of me charred to hell on one side and barely seared on the other, with a 3/8 gray line between the seat and the rest of the meat. Slightly under cooked from what we ordered but close enough to enjoy….until you took a bite. Not one flake of salt touched that steak. $115 and you’d think someone would care enough to season it. We had to take care of that with normal table salt. On the opposite end of that spectrum were the mushrooms, that were so salty they were unpalatable. The mashed potatoes were watered down…not soupy but not the texture of great mashed potatoes either. Then there was the bordelaise sauce. It had been sitting all service and was obviously not made with high quality ingredients. No one could have been bothered to add water to the grainy thick sludge that was set before use. Over reduced and salty to boot. We politely told our server about the poor meal and stopped eating. She was perplexed and had no answer for the poor quality food. She asked us “Well what do you want me to do?”. Sadly we took the check and ran to a cocktail bar and restaurant down the street that actually cares about the food and service down the street. I wouldn’t recommend the Golden Ox to my worst enemy. 0 hospitality. 0 service. 0’s...