Lake Forest Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Lake Forest Park

It comes down to this: -It's overpriced bland food served in a dark environment with bad lighting and bad TV positioning all while trying to disguise it as a ~classy place.

-If the food/recipes aren't great then you need to be large portions or lower price.

-If the atmosphere isn't great then the prices need to come down to make up for the inconvenience or your food needs to be amazing.

-If you're going to serve small glimpses into other cultures like hummus make sure it's authentic.

The rant:

We ordered hamburgers with french fries. The hamburgers were half as good as kid valley at twice the price. We literally had to salt and pepper each bite as we ate the hamburgers. We also ordered the hummus plate as a starter. It just didn't taste like real hummus. Also was very small and $14. My youngest ordered the fish and chips from the kids menu. It was also extremely small and didn't look good but I didn't try it because I didn't want to take any food from the already small plate. We can forgive the kids menu item because they are always dumbed down recipes. Why do we, as americans, do that to our kids? It's cheaper... Is that worth not expanding our palate when we're young? Not a lot of palate expansion on the main menu either..

Ok so maybe the atmosphere is really great. Well it's not. The light above each table glares in your face. We decided to unscrew the bulb for sanity reasons. Now it's too dark but better than squinting the whole time. If you paint your walls black lighting is tricky... Some of this would be forgivable if it had that family owned feel but it doesn't. Ok maybe people come here to watch sports. Well the TVs are in really inconvenient positions for customers to watch. It's almost like they put the TVs up for the bartender to watch. Ok, ok, we don't drink so maybe the bar is awesome and I just don't know it. Our service was just fine. Nothing that stood out to make you remember your american family owned experience but was attentive and polite. Didn't make you WANT to tip but I always do.

One of the cheapest meal options on the menu is a $19 hamburger and fries. This becomes $21 after tax and ~$25 after tip. That better be a great hamburger and fries. What separates your expensive hamburger from fast food comparables or other so-called american restaurants?

I really want this restaurant to be great. It's nearby and would be really nice if the food and atmosphere were good vs price. I'm not writing this review to turn people off to the Lake Forest Park Bar and Grill. I'm writing this review because I want whoever's in charge to make changes so we and other families in the area want to eat there on a regular basis. This isn't our first time at this restaurant and it isn't the first time we've been disappointed with this restaurant. I understand that expenses are more expensive these days for businesses.

So many of our restaurants these days are chains and franchise driven and need to bend to rules etc. So when there is a restaurant that isn't held to these limitations I get excited and hope to have an authentic experience. How can I justify this experience? To spend this amount of money the food would need to be way better or the atmosphere and experience at the restaurant would need to be way better. I understand restaurants can't afford to have cheaper prices. Fine, then don't, but you can't sacrifice flavor and cooking. You can't just take so-called high quality ingredients and have boring recipes if they're going to charge the amount that they do. I wish I wanted to go to this restaurant once a week and enjoy favorite meals and new...

this is a local chain of about 4-6 restaurants with the same menu, so going in, I knew there was no head chef on site/ rotating menu/ specials, etc. Still I thought maybe the head chef of them all was on point and serving some awesome stuff. Reviews looked good, pictures looked good, so found a groupon to give them a try. The picture of the burger on Groupon is of this amazing looking burger about 6" high with bacon and "frizzled" onions and all the works. I looked for that burger on the menu and it didn't exist. I asked the bartender/ waiter which burger was this in the picture and he said "oh, that's probably just a mockup for the picture".... Well that's kind of off - setting to show pictures of food that your kitchen doesn't actually produce? the "western" burger looked like the closest thing and add bacon for 2 bucks... What we got was a sad sad burger for twenty bucks. Did not ask for temp, just came well - done. Just generic, run of the mill, nothing special. Bartender suggested the roasted Brussel sprouts as one of the favorites, so we got that as well. I love some roasted Brussel sprouts, but these were sopped in sauce that was pretty much French dressing and a splash of Frank's with a little gorgonzola and few almond flakes on top. I felt like I had a mouth full of ketchup with each bite and didn't vibe well with the char of the brussells. All these things need to be great would be a little balsamic reduction, garlic, parm, maybe even a little honey drizzle... But i felt like they ruined some delicious roasted Brussels, turning them into sonething tasting more like French fries and ketchup. They have a twenty dollar meatloaf (!?) that is "mustard glazed" meaning they just cover it in mustard instead of ketchup... but meatloaf is just some ground beef and filler tossed in a pan and baked. That meal probably costs them $1 to make the 2 or 3 slices that it wild m would have been. Then they had a $30 steak, which i didn't dare to attempt, based on what we had so far gotten (which also was some run of the mill sysco coconut shrimp and "al pastor street tacos" which actually came with a little little bit of cabbage and pickled beets and then the smallest little container of salsa - enough for one taco, but it came with tortilla chips, so you had enough salsa for A chip or A taco and they were just so-so as well. So my overall experience is Id say there about up there with a Fridays/ benegens/ ruby Tuesdays sort of food but about 1.5 x the price. What can i say? Ya live and ya learn... but don't expect anything spectacular or amazing...

After recently moving to the area, my husband and I were excited to find a local spot close to home. We've now been twice and will continue to return.

Food: during both visits we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food for a bar and grill. The appetizers we've tried - cauliflower tempura with yellow curry and Sriracha yogurt sauce and spicy habanero mac balls - were both very flavorful. I'm always hesitant to get mac and cheese balls because they tend to be dry, but these ones were crispy on the outside, cheesy on the inside. I've gotten a couple sandwiches, most recently the grilled chicken club and love that they use fresh bread. My husband got the grilled salmon and side salad and both were high quality and good portions.

Ambiance: I really love the bar here, it's inviting, large and just has good vibes. We've also sat in their booths, and while the upholstery could use some updating, they're big and have lots of natural light. There also tends to be a good number of people visiting the restaurant too, but never too busy (we went on a Monday and Wednesday).

Service: While they seem to be short staffed, we're pretty patient people and have never waited too long for anything nor have we had a wait when we've come to eat. Everyone we've encountered has been nice.

The only reason I'm giving this four stars is because it's fairly expensive. If you get a cocktail, an app and two entrees, you're looking at close to (if not over) $100. We frequent Seattle and can find cheaper prices in the city. This isn't a special occasion kind of place, so I found it surprising to spend so much for a casual night out.

Still, with it being so close to home and knowing we'll get a good meal, we'll definitely be back and we can't wait to try the patio when...