Magpie's Den & Pen — Restaurant in Lake Geneva

Where to begin. Had heard about this place on social media and wanted to try it out for the fried pickles and cheese curds. Went on a Monday night and arrived at 8:40pm with two adults in our party. The bouncer was sitting at the door and seemed half asleep. Told him we were here for dinner. We sat down at a high top awaiting service or even a "hello" until 8:56pm. Finally a female server approached and said we are closed for food hastily and rudely. I asked what time they close for food and she replied at 9pm. My husband said well we have been sitting here for 15 minutes now waiting for a server. She said, "oh I did not see you there." I said well it is not 9pm yet. My husband said, "okay thank you we will go somewhere else." She then back peddled and practically begged us to stay. We said we did not want to be rushed to eat. She said, "you won't be, but I have to get your order in." So we decided to stay but had a bad feeling about the service judging by our poor greeting from the server who spoke without checking the time first and almost scared us off. We placed our orders. She was chitchatting with the bouncer and showing her phone to him like an inside joke. She then went to the back of the bar to eat from a plate at the bar. She failed to bring our drinks and we waited with no drinks for 20 min with no drinks. The restaurant had only two tables at the moment with customers. She brought appetizers out with no drinks. The bouncer was the only one in the area and so we asked him what our server's name is. He said, "um Amanda. Thinking he was going to get her attention for us. He came back and we said did you tell her we need her help? He said "ahh no, I thought you just wanted to know her name," completely clueless! She finally showed up. We asked about our drinks and she said she would get them. She brought the drinks only after our appetizers were already put out. 30 min went by and we were waiting for refills. My husband went to the bar and got us refills and condiments we needed to finish our meal. Basically doing her job for her. The bartender even made a comment to her when our server resurfaced after being missing and said your tables are coming up here to get drinks. She also was told she left a table tab open and food and plates left on a table and her reply was she was going to do that later. Meanwhile she was huddled by the front door chatting again with the bouncer. This server was very poor and had no inkling how to be thorough, attentive, or timely. Suffice it to say a multitude of other patrons came in and were turned away because they arrived minutes after 9pm and they wanted dinner. The bar is open until 2am but their kitchen closes at 9pm. C'mon it is travel season and summer time in a tourist destination. How do you not have even a limited menu for patrons at least until 11pm!??!? One party had 6 patrons they turned away. Not smart to be losing money walking through the door. The cheese curds were the best item on the menu. I would not bother going back. Food was mediocre. The place was empty and the staff did not know how to tend to a party of two to get them drinks and refills on time. It's not rocket science. Look elsewhere. As others have said there are other options for dinner in Lake Geneva. There is a wonderful sit down pizza place that has everything only two blocks to the east from Mag Pie's. And they serve until 3am and have their own parking lot. They are also very friendly and accommodating. Did not feel at all like we were valued customers at Mag Pie’s. Skip this place unless you want poor service. Very...

We were very excited to visit Magpie’s, it was highly recommended to us. We made a reservation for an outside table a month in advance for a bachelorette party of 13. This was supposed to be the pinnacle of our trip. When we arrived, we waited 10 minutes to be seated and, while waiting, we were physically pushed aside as a security guard walked through our group- all without saying a word. When we did get seated, we had to sit inside because the outside server “couldn’t handle it”. When seated, our waitress was attentive and got our orders in right away; she wasn’t rude, but also didn’t make time for pleasantries as she was very busy with many other tables. Our food was fine overall, nothing spectacular, but one meal was forgotten, and 3 plates had fried chips with black hairs in them. When telling the waitress about the hair, she simply said “are you serious?” and then walked away. The manager came to our table and did apologize but also downplayed it saying it was cheese ball string; this was fairly insulting to someone who literally had a stranger’s hair in their mouth and there was a man in the kitchen with long dark hair wearing a baseball cap. They did compensate 2 of these meals, but I ultimately would not recommend Magpie’s. Hoping this was just a bad night for them. Also hoping this review serves as a reminder to their staff to slow down and be kind to your guests; yes, we were just “one more table” to you, but, to us, this was also a night we had all been looking forward...

My boyfriend and I came here on a Saturday during winter fest. We were warned that food would be an hour wait but we decided that if we went anywhere else the wait would be the same. So we ordered our food drinks together, and our drinks came fairly quick. But then we didn’t see our waitress for another 30 minutes. An hour and 15 minutes passed and we still hadn’t gotten our food and we hadn’t seen our waitress in 30 minutes; since she brought my boyfriend his second beer. The restaurant had started to quiet down at this point, and I had forgotten who my waitress was at this point since we hadn’t seen her in 30 minutes or so. Since it had been over an hour I sought out the first waitress I saw and asked if she could check on our food. 10 minutes later our waitress comes out to tell us that she doesn’t know what happened but our order got lost in the kitchen and if we ordered food again she doesn’t know when it would come out at this point. (At this point there were empty tables in the restaurant) We chose to leave and they did comp our three drinks total. Honestly if our waitress had check on us more than once she would have seen that we had not gotten our food and we would have ordered more drinks. I am sure the food is great but I will never know because the terrible service has left a bad taste...