Stivers Restaurant — Restaurant in Lima Township

Stivers has the usual family restaurant menu. Shareable fried appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, and dinner entrees. Breakfast is a bonus!!! They don't serve breakfast all day, but definitely for a majority of it. Our last visit wasn't the best experience we've had here. Our server was very friendly initially, as the meal went on it seemed she got behind, and it showed. My mom ordered their smelt dinner and asked for tartar sauce when her meal came, our waitress seemed very annoyed at the request. Exclaiming "It's going to be a minute!" And it was every part of 5 mins before she received her side of tartar. I also noticed that this waitress's husband was sitting near us, she wasn't super distracted by him being there, but periodically stopped to check on him (she was more attentive to him than us) and gave him a kiss before he exited the restaurant, which doesn't bother me at all. At this point I was nervous (I do not like confrontation) and felt awful asking her for a box for the leftover kids meals from our daughters. She didn't snap at me like she did my mom, but it wasn't the warm friendliness she'd expressed when she first approached the table. The box eventually made it to the table along with our checks. My husband put the credit card out almost immediately upon receiving the check, but it sat at the table for over 15 or 20 mins. Which seemed like a horrible time to forget about us. We had ordered alcohol drinks (top shelf long islands, & beer), a bowl of soup, 4 adult entrees, and 2 kids meals. So it wasn't a small tab. I am not a complainer and in this day and age of staff shortages I totally give servers the benefit of the doubt, burnout is real. However, being courteous, honest, and sincere go a long way in my book. The meal started out pretty normal, once our orders were placed we seemed to become an after thought. This is where I wish she would've just been honest and explained that she was in the weeds or needed a break. I have no idea where she was for the 15+ mins we waited for her to come pick up the check for us to pay. My daughters (5&6) did not appreciate sitting there, patience will come later, I hope. The waitress didn't even apologize for the delay. I have waited tables so I find it hard to not at least give a fair tip, she got 25%. I don't want to say that we won't go back, but chances are, Stivers has moved to the bottom of our "good ol' restaurant" list. I always want to support small business when I can but the woman who "took care of us" didn't do just that, our experience...

If you're from out of town, don't bother. The bartender/waitress takes care of her locals. I was invited here for dinner and to enjoy trivia night. We sat at the table (we had arrived about 10 minutes after 6 others) and when the server delivered a previous order, she left without even asking us if we wanted a drink. 10 minutes later, she finally asked us if we wanted drinks; we ordered a water and a Coke. 15 minutes later, the drinks finally arrived at which time we assumed she would ask us for our dinner order. NOPE! She delivered our drinks and quickly cut me off as I tried to order and she said she would "be right back" to take our orders. 10-15 minutes later, as the others at the table were literally finishing their dinners, I looked back and she was tending to her bar customers and washing dishes and glasses. What waitress prioritizes washing glasses over taking a customer food order?

I finally had enough and walked up to the bar and told her that we'd love to place our order before our table went home. She responded without a smile "I'm low on glasses, I have to clean them plus you showed up late..." WOW! Really! Blame the customer for showing up late as to why you prioritize cleaning glasses over taking food orders! Great idea! Congratulations for graduating 6th grade.... your serving skills are atrocious! While you're at it, tell your management to order more beer glasses because you obviously don't have enough for the measly 10 customers that were sitting at your bar.

Five minutes after I sat back down, she finally came over and asked if we were ready to order. REALLY? You had to ask? Are you that stupid? We stood up, told her everything she did wrong and she quickly stated "I don't need to listen to this" and walked off. Sorry, you DO need to listen to this because you're a lousy waitress and bartender. This is one of the worst dining experieces of the thousands of restaurants I have frequented. I've traveled the world my entire life and can safely say your service and attitude sucks and the "HELP WANTED" sign in the window hopefully means when someone more competent is hired, your manager will reconsider your position and find you're better at washing dishes because that was your highest priority last night.

So thanks for really pissing off a disabled Navy veteran that grew up in Michigan. Customer service matters, unless you're at Stivers apparently... Go ahead and deny this to your management, you'll never see me again but the folks I was with will confirm my side of...

29 years ago I started working in Chelsea. The guys I worked with went to Stivers every Friday for the fried perch plate. I did that for 18 years until I retired. For the last 11 years my wife and I get back maybe monthly. Yeah - it's that good. But not anymore. We stopped in last night. While the french fry's were their usual hot and crispy state, the fried perch were thin, tough and chewy - a real substandard piece of fish. I asked the waitress what changed - it wasn't what I had been getting for the last 29 years. She explained that the new owners now contract with one purveyor rather than several. Yeah, it saves them $ on food costs. It also means they don't want to pay what it costs for great perch the same as I've had for the past 29 years and probably longer. What a shame. They had the number 1 fish fry in my ratings anywhere. They've now gone to 'don't bother'. Yup - that bad. Lousy perch after no breadsticks and butter - another Stivers tradition gone. What a shame. Buy a business that has been doing great for decades and change the things that made it great for years. I usually ordered fountain drinks but had to order canned ones at Stivers. Ok, that's how it was. Didn't drink the water because they have a horrible tasting well - and I have well water myself. Without considering what would be served, canned beverages were dropped and a fountain system put in. Great change if the beverages weren't made with foul tasting well water. I'm done with Stivers. They can save all they want on food costs - I'll spend my $ elsewhere. I also started messaging my former coworkers letting them know it's not the Stivers we...