The Jockey Club at the Grand Stand — Restaurant in Mackinac Island

It’s not very often that I give a restaurant one star, but this place worked hard to earn it.

We had reservations for 5:30 PM for our party. Upon arriving the hostess, looking up, our reservations, had a scowl on her face and begrudgingly took us to our seats. We were one of only two tables in the restaurant.

The waiter who came to greet us was visibly unfriendly and unhelpful. Upon taking our drink orders, he disappeared for 20 minutes and finally came back to get our order. There were no smiles. He had no charisma. I would’ve gotten more out of an interaction with a tablet.

After the orders were taken eventually, three salads came out. Those who ordered salads quickly ate them and they were cleared. We then waited an additional 40 minutes and had to go up and complain to the hostess, who told us our food was being completed. By that time, many more tables had been filled, and the place was quite loud. Several tables that had got their previous to us and had a much larger number got their food before we did.

When we finally got our food an hour and a half after we checked in with the hostess initially we found it to be lacking.

You can see the picture of my swordfish dish. It was $42. This is probably the most lackluster swordfish I’ve ever had. It was dry and fairly tasteless and the potatoes were overdone. I was very disappointed.

I can say that many of the other nine people at my table had the same experience with their food.

The ambience was OK, the service was terrible, and the food left much to be desired.

I will never go back to this restaurant again nor would I recommend it to anyone. Too bad. We...

We ate at the Jockey Club (because we were told it was the best restaurant). The server had a constant attitude. The only time she came to our table was to order the food and bring it to us. She didn’t come to refill our drinks nor to check on us. When we informed her about a family member's food allergies, she did not seem to care. She was not 100% sure what exactly the member could eat. She did not even bother to bring the chief to help us determine what could be made specifically for him. We settled on ordering steaks because that was the only meal we believed the family member could eat. Of the three steaks we ordered, one of them was undercooked (blood was still dripping as you cut through the steak). The two other steaks weren’t tender. When it came time for the bill, we assumed that the meal plan we had with the Grand Hotel would cover the bill. But the waitress claimed it did not apply to this restaurant. Yet upon checking out of the grand hotel the receptionist informed us that it was covered. They told us that the waitress should have asked if we had the ‘Meal Cards’ or if we staying at the grand hotel to determine if our dinner was paid for. Due to her lack of knowledge we ended up paying four hundred dollars for that meal and was not even reimbursed. To this day The Grand Hotel still didn’t call us to refund the money. Even though they promised to have...

Well, being somewhat associated with the Grand Hotel, you'd think that The Jockey Club would be top notch in every way. Well, is WAS is some aspects (view of the golf course, outdoor seating, etc.) but the food was truly terrible. The service was prompt and timely. Back to the food. I had the shrimp appetizer - that was good/average. The French Onion soup was the weakest and tasteless French Onion soup that I have ever had. Then, I was really looking forward to my $68 bone-in NY Strip Steak. Oh my. It was less than 1/2" thick on top of dollop of mashed potatoes. I ordered it medium-rare. My first cut at the edge was over-done but that's expected. As I cut deeper into the steak, it was STILL overdone all the way to the center of the steak. Even worse, the steak was a coarse, tough, tasteless, un-marbled and certainly a lower grade piece of meat. I would have returned this steak at an Outback Steak house! I stopped eating it and told the waiter that I would not pay for the steak. Fortunately, he DID take it off the bill. What a disappointment! My girlfriend's prime rib was not quite as pathetic as my steak, but she only ate 1/2 of it as it was pretty bad too. Unbelievable at the prices...