Brown Derby Wood Fired Steakhouse Medina — Restaurant in Medina Township

A mixed bag...

We (me, my wife, and her parents) ate at the Brown Derby on a Monday night. While most of the food was good, there were significant problems with the service and with my wife's filet mignon.

We arrived at about 5:45 and were very surprised to see the packed parking lot, but we only had to wait about five minutes for a table. The hostess acknowledged that the crowd was surprising for a Monday night.

We were seated and waited two or three minutes before our waitress, Makenna (sp?), arrived with water for all of us. She left after that without asking about drinks. She came back about five minutes later with a basket of bread and then asked us if she had taken our drink orders! She seemed surprised when we told her, "no," then asked us what we wanted to drink. My wife and mother-in-law ordered mixed drinks from the bar. My father-in-law ordered unsweetened tea and I ordered sweet tea. Makenna returned shortly with the teas, but had them reversed (FIL got the sweet tea and I got the unsweetened), which could have caused a significant health issue.

Once we got that straightened out, we continued to wait for the mixed drinks. I'll note that I had gone to use the men's room during the wait and saw that the bartender did not appear to be particularly busy during this time. I eventually flagged Makenna down and asked about the drinks. She said something about going to get them, then returned with only one of the drinks. I asked about the second drink, but she apparently didn't hear me (my MIL was also asking a question), and I didn't realize it. It wasn't until we got our salads that I finally asked again. Makenna stated that she didn't know my wife had ordered a drink, even though my wife was the first person to do so!

When it came time to order, it got tricky -- what kind of supposedly "top end" steak house doesn't offer prime rib? All my FIL talked about on Monday was "going to get prime rib at the Brown Derby," but it's not offered any more! He settled for the ribeye, my wife and MIL ordered the filet mignon, and I had the ribs and sirloin combo.

The salads were huge and included in the price of the meal. The house "white French" dressing was thick, creamy, and delicious.

We waited for the entrées for far too long -- almost 45 minutes! Makenna stopped by to refill our tea and water and said something about it "being really crazy in the kitchen," but I also noticed that a nearby table of six was seated after us, but got their food before us.

When the food finally arrived, it was mostly done well. The main exception (and a glaring one) was my wife's filet mignon. She ordered it "with a little pink in the middle," but it was -- at best -- medium rare. The center of her filet was blood-red and I noticed that it actually had the pink "steak marker" in it when it was delivered, which makes me think that Makenna put the order in incorrectly. My wife has a phobia about sending food back to be cooked more, so she ate the one side of the meat that seemed a bit more done than the rest. The steamed broccoli was also so overdone that my wife said it turned to mush when she ate it. When Makenna returned to check on us, she noticed that the filet was under-done and offered to take it back, but my wife said no. Makenna told us later that she had "comped" my wife's mixed drink because the filet wasn't done properly.

My ribs and steak were done properly and were delicious. The rice pilaf was also cooked well, had good flavor, but was not too salty. Both of the in-laws said their food was very good, but my FIL added, "... but it's too bad they don't have prime rib." An 89-year-old man knows what he wants!

The bill for the four of us was $160. I'm all for tipping well when it's well-deserved, but Makenna got the standard 15%. She was pleasant and nice enough, but there were just too...

Tonight was a swing and a miss! Came for my husband’s birthday. We have 2 young kids (2&4) so arrived at 5:10pm in the hopes that we could be out of there before the dinner rush got crazy.

We should have left when we walked in. Asked for a booth as it is much easier with kids. There were MANY available (again, it was 5:10) but were told no that it was our waitresses turn to seat in her area and we could not have a booth. I’m understanding of spreading out work, so I let it go. We were seated in the absolute WORST spot for young kids. It was a table that was in an angle right in the middle of the sunroom area. Literally any other table would have been better.

One seat angled into the doorway into the room, one was cornered in, so no easy in-out access but also could not easily get to my kid, my seat was backing into the seat behind mine, and I don’t take up more than a normal amount of room, and the fourth seat was normally in the room.

Waitress brought drinks quickly and we placed our order right away so the food would hopefully be turned around quick.

Things went massively downhill from there. First, we were brought 3 rolls for the 4 of us. This ended up ok as they are large, but come on!

Second, salads took forever to arrive. Once they finally did, I had to send back mine. Literally ALL the lettuce was brown. I tried to pick out the brown parts and it would have been all but the spinach greens. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve sent something back in my life! This salad should have never made its way out of that kitchen or the kitchen window. It took forever for the replacement to arrive. We are now at about an hour in the restaurant and our (and more importantly the kids) food is absolutely nowhere to be seen, our drinks have not been refilled, and there was no even ask by the waitress if there was anything she could get us. My kids were being very patient so I was thankful for that, but they were getting increasingly more impatient.

Given the amount of times that we were apologized to about the wait, the waitress never once offered more rolls, or to bring out the kids applesauce or broccoli first. If the grill and frier were backed up, those are two things that are already prepared and would have gone a long way in our happiness. Waitress even said she saw our food in the window, my youngest needed his hands washed so we were able to get to the clear other side of the restaurant to the bathrooms, wash hands and make it back and the food took another 10 mins after that to arrive.

Almost an hour and 40 mins after our arrival our food came. I had to ask for ketchup for the kids fries and chicken. It also took forever to get. Both steaks were rare but ordered med rare, but we weren’t going to wait for them to be refired.

Food was good, but took quite a bit home because we were tired of waiting and being there. 5:10 arrival and didn’t leave until almost 7:15.

Manager was perplexing. Asked two tables in our section how things were then disappeared. If you’re going to touch tables, you don’t do it only for the ones where everything is going right! Husband tried to find him before we left and he was not able to locate him.

We have been to this restaurant a number of times in the past and always enjoyed ourselves, but it was so disappointing on ALL fronts that I don’t think I could ever bring myself to...

Man, where do I even start? My wife, son, in-laws and myself came in on 1/26/24. There were 10 of us in total. Our waitress you could tell was overwhelmed. I get it, it sucks. But hey, it’s your job. Our rolls that came out at the start, were stale. You could tell they were under the heat lamps for a bit. The appetizers though, were fantastic and that’s where it ended. Not once the entire meal did I even get offered a refill on my coke. Then when my nieces got refills, the coke was flat and almost pure water. You could tell just by looking at it, it wasn’t right. But the waitress brought it out anyway. Then because our order was big, the waitress put our order on 2 tickets. I don’t know if she forgot to reiterate to the cooks that it’s all the same order, or what. But they were making the food as it were 2 different orders for 2 different tables. So while half of us got our food, the other half had to wait. Being family, naturally, we waited until everyone had their food to eat. So half of us had cold food. My wife’s French onion soup was cold, the onions also were still crunchy, not fully cooked. Then her sirloin was rare instead of medium. She sent it back and the second sirloin was the same. My brother in-laws mashed potatoes were stone cold. My mother in-law’s (who’s birthday it was that’s why we went out) lobster was tough and chewy. I got the porterhouse. I consider myself a steak snob. A porterhouse is supposed to be a thick cut. This thing was maybe 1/4in thick. I’m dead serious. There is absolutely NO WAY this was a porterhouse and definitely not 22oz before cooked. My wife’s sirloin was thicker and had more meat on it. What a joke. Then my steak was also medium well when I asked for medium rare, so it was tough. All of the steaks were completely unseasoned and bland as cardboard. My son’s chicken tenders were also the most generic tenders possible. We still tipped the waitress $100 even though we sure didn’t get $100 worth of service. The bill was over $500 for cheap, cold, bland food. Not worth it what-so-ever. You can go almost anywhere, get more food of better quality and pay less. It’s a real shame too. My wife and I went to the Brown Derby by us off Bagley several times, without issue. We went to this one because we saw they had fried green tomatoes, which my wife loves. We raved to my in-laws how good Brown Derby is and now they refuse to give the one on Bagley a try. We’ll be contacting corporate in the morning. This place...