Rusted Spoke Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Mackinaw Township

Edited post: This was previously a 5 star review and sadly is no longer:-( For a few years now we make it a priority to visit Mackinaw City just so we could eat at The Rusted Spoke and this was such a let down to our previous years. We've always gotten the brisket tacos and this time they were absolutely flavorless. The cheese for the Bavarian pretzel was the worst of the worst like the worst can cheese you can buy and we unfortunately ordered extra. The pretzel itself was still good even warmed up as we got that to go. The burnt ends were kind of fatty with hardly any bbq sauce which we also took to go. The steak chalupa went from 2 to 1 and the bread changed to naan bread. The filling itself was good but its swallowed up by that thick piece of naan bread so unless you pick the filling out all you taste is bread. The tortilla chips that it came with were quite stale so I actually left still hungry. One taco with stale chips didn't make for a great meal and I understand food prices have increased and are hitting people hard but $17 for one taco and stale tortilla chips is outrageous! My husband paid extra for onion rings and they were just your average frozen onion rings and weren't really good at all overly greasy. I wonder if they'll suffer the same fate as their restaurant did on the island?? I can't imagine in the off season local residents being able to pay those kinds of prices.

Old review: Wish I had posted my review sooner this place was so good!! This will be a long review as this place deserves the credit! We've been coming to Rusted Spoke for a couple years now while we vacation in Mackinaw City and each time it's been stupendous the food and the service! We went 2 weeks ago and we ordered a ton of food just so we had some to snack on later that night at our hotel and even warmed it was still excellent! We ordered the Bavarian pretzel with beer cheese and while we were bummed they didn't offer the beer cheese with the brisket pieces in it from the prior year it was still good and the pretzel is HUGE!! We also ordered their homemade mozzarella sticks which I am not a mozzarella stick girl these were much much better with homemade marinara. We also ordered a bowl of chili and a side of burnt ends both amazing!! I ordered the steak chalupas and my husband the pork and brisket tacos and I can not explain or express how friggin AMAZING both dishes were!! I'm very leary of things like this because of fat and hard pieces but there was absolutely none of that. The meats were so moist and juicy and fresh!! Good food like this is almost non existent anymore a week on vacation and prior to getting to The Rusted Spoke the best meal we had was Subway!! A shout out to our server Tom who was on top of his game even being as busy as he was. My niece didn't like her cheeseburger and he was happy to replace it with a cheese pizza no questions asked! Rusted Spoke I need you to expand PLEEZE!!!! Can't wait to come back and we're hoping to come for a...

I was staying next door at the choice inn so it was very nice to be able to walk across the parking lot to this restaurant.

Let me preface to say that the customer service was fantastic. I sat at the bar and the ambiance of the entire area was awesome.

I ordered one of the most expensive items on the menu the cowboy bone-in ribeye. I ordered it medium, as you really should experience the taste of the rendered fat in a ribeye cut. It arrived on a hot sizzling cast iron plate topped with mushrooms a compound butter and single sprig of thyme.

The steak was cooked perfectly and definitely was a properly aged piece of beef. Unfortunately, the seasoning choice was underwhelming. Montreal steak seasoning has become a meme of sorts and an attempt to reach the mediocrity the flavor of an Applebee's sirloin. Some quality kosher salt and fresh black pepper would have been perfect. Thankfully these were available from my server (bartender) and provided some relief to the downtrodden overused standardizing taste of a mainstream steak seasoning.

The button mushrooms were slightly acrid, which reminded me of a canned product you would see in convenience store pizza offers. They were lifeless, almost flavorless, and almost insulting to the beautiful cut they laid on.

Had the veg accompaniment been more thought out, I would have left 4 stars. But it remained a lazy attempt to pair something subpar with a quality steak. I was reminded of the Sysco brand of frozen vegetables; the California blend if I remember correctly. Sliced carrots, green beans, and some broccoli under-seasoned and dry. If they had been properly cooked in some compound butter and then tossed with some salt and pepper it would have made a world of difference.

Altogether, the atmosphere is lovely and staff is very attentive and welcoming. A little more focus on the little things in the kitchen would...

Only reason it’s getting a two star, was the food was at least decent. Pretzel was super good! But the spicy brown mustard is not really spicy brown mustard. Tasted more like honey mustard with relish? The Cali chicken sandwich is pretty good! The main reason it’s getting a two star review is the service, it was absolutely horrendous. We had a table of three, we’re told it wouldn’t be long we only had one person ahead of us (another party of 3). They sat a party of two within two minutes at a table that sits 4, before they even sat the party that was there first!. Than called the table ahead of us, and three other tables that were all party of twos at a table for 4 or 6. We waited 30 minutes, (we waited to even say anything, we thought it was maybe they only had tables for 2 open.) but when we went in and saw where they were sitting it was ridiculous. We finally sat down and we waited around 20 minutes before the waiter even came. When he finally did show up, he told us I’ll be right back to take care of you, changed his mind and stayed and said I guess I’ll just have to take care of you now. Asked if we were ready to order (which we were) gave him our order and every time we stated our order biggest eye roll and extremely rude when we told him what we wanted, and it was the biggest headache to spilt our bill into two tabs. Made extremely rude comments to us about having to take care of our table. We saw him a total of three times and the one time we asked for water it was too big of an ordeal to get it for us. Three tables that came in a decent amount of time after us all got their food way before we even got our salads. We will never be back to this restaurant if this is the wait staff they hold. I hate to be this way but he was the biggest jerk I’ve ever encountered. Also! Heads up they charge extra if you use your...