The Manitou — Restaurant in Lake Township

DO NOT GO HERE. Absolutely disappointing food and service. My party of 9 had a reservation at 830pm. When we arrived on time the restaurant was not ready to accommodate us and we waited 45 minutes to be seated. Once seated and ordered we were alerted that the food that was ordered ran out and had to change our orders. It took forever for our food to come out and when it did, sirloins that were ordered medium rare came out extremely rare, foods were cold. We also ordered wings for appetizers only to find out that a different server had picked up our order and that was the last wings the kitchen had made. One of our party members went to the kitchen with the raw pieces of steak given and asked them to cook the steaks a bit more. Instead the cook threw them in the trash and cooked new ones, which were then later deemed to have been “demanded” when all we wanted was the pieces we had, to be cooked a bit more. At the very end of the night the owner and supposed cook FINALLY came out to address our complaints and instead argued with us and said that we were already in bad moods when we walked in because it rained on us when that was not the case at all because we were laughing at the situation that it was pouring and having fun. The owner belittled us and our concerns and did absolutely nothing to be polite. Upon leaving, employees were staring at us through the windows and laughing at us and one employee stepped out of the building to give us a petty wave and make more fun of us.

Absolute worst service I’ve ever had. More disappointed with how the situation was handled than with the food.

DO...

Located in the middle of basically nowhere. Make sure you make a reservation. The atmosphere is woodsy! I'm pretty sure the converted an old wood cabin/house into the restaurant! The eating area is very compartmized like house were in the past. There is wood everywhere, but it works here creating a warm if dark atmosphere! Lots of older knick knacks on the wall.

I ordered the M-22 Grill (Market ($28)). A Sirloin Steak marinated in a sweet and savory sauce. I ordered mine medium with Potatoes au Gratin and a Garden Salad. When I sat down the put a bowl down with some slices of cucumber, celery, radish, and carrots with blue cheese dressing. I normally don't care much for these, however maybe it was the blue cheese but I really enjoyed them. The steak came thinly sliced. It was very tender and excellently tasty! For an affordable steak it was top notch. The salad was excellent too. The Au Gratin potatoes were very good, complex potatoes. There was bread too, that was only okay. A little too hard. I prefer very soft bread!

The service was good considering they were getting slammed. One small mistake with the salad dressing, but no big deal.

Overall a 5 star review. Would I return? Absolutely!

Lastly their parking lot is way too small. People have to park along country highway M22. That seems very dangerous when there's so much...

Have been to the Manitou many times and it seems like they are losing focus on their customers. Our overall experience on our most recent visit was quite poor. Our evening kicked off with being seated 40 minutes late for our reservation. Once seated the service was incredibly slow. When the food finally arrived it was average at best. The perch was good. Other entrees including Whitefish, a mixed grill and multiple steaks were poor to fair as noted in the rankings.

When things are very busy, as they were on the night we had dinner, the issues noted above can happen. My comment on the customer focus is driven by the way they handled the problems. Our waitress was absent for the most part. I think she checked in once to let us know things were busy. Since no one was proactively engaging us, we approached the owner/manager once and were told he would look into it. No one came back to our table to follow-up. Over the course of the evening he seemed content to stroll about with a glass of wine and check in with a group of people he seemed to know who were seated at a nearby table. Business...