Polish Kitchen — Restaurant in Little Traverse Township

My Wife and I stopped at the Polish Kitchen after driving down from Mackinaw City on our way home. I love authentic Polish food and was searching for some when I came across this place after searching through Google about local restaurants in the area. My Grandfather is from Poland so I grew up eating his cooking. I had high expectations after reading all of the great reviews about this place. Parking was tight but we found a spot and came in. This is a pay first/seat yourself restaurant so I ordered 2 Kielbasa plates, a Polish sampler platter, and 2 soft drinks. Everything came to $53 dollars. We paid then wandered off to go find a table. There was no table for 2 left so we sat at a huge 6 chair table in the back corner. The restaurant is decent size and the place was about 75% full. The waiter/owner brought the food to our table after about 30 minutes and we were hungry and excited to dig in. First off, the Kielbasa was delicious. It was served hot and it was tasty. We both enjoyed the Kielbasa. No problems there. The vegetables on my plate were terrible. They tasted undercooked. The carrots were barely warm, squishy, and full of water. They tasted and looked just like cheap, bagged, microwaveable 5 minute vegetables. My wife's mashed potatos came with no butter, no seasoning, no gravy, and she told me they tasted like potatos out the box. The best thing on the sampler platter was the kielbasa. The perogies had no flavors at all. The stuffed cabbage roll was below average was not hot. I always expect good food to be served HOT. That is ground zero for a good restaurant. Also after the waiter dropped the food off we never saw him again. Not once. No, "how is your meal?" Nothing. And when we left, we passed the front counter/cash register and there was no acknowledgement. Overall, we were very disappointed in the food AND the service. The kielbasa was good. I enjoyed that. But everything else, including the hospitality, was...

tl;dr don't eat here. It's GFS frozen fried food, not worth it.

Let me preface this review by stating that I have travelled the world and experienced several cuisines at their best. So I am most likely not the typical clientele that this restaurant experiences.

My wife and I had high hopes upon arriving at the Polish Kitchen. At the time of writing this review this is an incredibly highly rated restaurant with 4.8 stars average. We placed our order for perogies, schnitzel and potato pancakes to go (COVID protocol).

It was ready in 10 or so minutes then we headed back to our hotel. When we opened up the containers I immediately had my doubts. The perogies are a revolting pink, green and yellow color - I suppose to identify their different fillings. The potato pancakes were almost black in color. "Schnitzel" (if you can call it that) was very thick with minimal breading.

But even so we carried on, famished from our long day of travel. I got about halfway through my portion when I decided I couldn't possibly continue eating this and instead put my plate in the trash and took it out to ensure the smell would stop permeating our hotel room. The potato pancakes were gummy beyond belief and just tasted like "fried". The perogies had no flavor and the insides had no texture, it was just different colored mush. The schnitzel was the most edible part of the meal imo but even still it was dry, breading was soggy, and it was lacking in flavor.

I don't often leave reviews of restaurants but I felt that it was my duty in this circumstance. I hope this saves the next traveller from a disappointing meal. I wouldn't wish this upon my...

I’ve been meaning to try Polish Kitchen for years now, but every opportunity was on a Sunday when they are closed. Today on a Tuesday during our long drive back from the yoop, we made a stop here. I read some of the reviews and after eating my food, I have no idea how anyone could think this isn’t authentic homemade Polish food. My grandparents were Polish. I lived in very polish areas of Detroit. This is some of the best polish food I’ve had and it definitely tastes homemade and each pierogi/other items is slightly differently shaped showing it’s hand craftsmanship (unlike frozen mrs. T’s that’s cookie cutter).

Anyways, like I said, this was some of the best Polish food I’ve had (don’t tell my babcia, she’d be jealous that it’s better than hers). Everything was steaming hot, fresh and delicious. The potato dumplings were superb. Customer service was very good too! Due to the order for COVID, their dining room is closed, but the young gentleman that took our order also brought our food out to our car. He was very kind and helpful with the menu.

We enjoyed our visit to Polish Kitchen and will definitely return...